Bees and the Ancient Mysteries

By Iwer Thor Lorenzen

In an extraordinary exposition, Lorenzen – an expert beekeeper and student of contemporary spiritual science – describes the 'Logos mysteries', based at the ancient temple of Artemis in Ephesus, where priestesses were known as 'Melissas' ('honeybees') and the sacrificial priests were called 'Essenes' (or 'bee-kings'). These cultic mysteries, he says, bore remarkable parallels to the workings of a bee colony – specifically in the relationship between the queen and worker bees to the spiritual 'group-soul' of the bees.
Lorenzen commences his unique study with a discussion of flowers and insects, exploring their common origins. He then describes the beginnings of the honeybee, its connection with the fig wasp, and the subsequent controlled transformation of the latter that took place in pre-historic mystery-centres. Breeding the honeybee from the fig wasp – a sacred deed performed at consecrated sanctuaries – was part of the 'Fig-tree mysteries'. The initiates behind this task developed the ability to commune with the bees' group-soul and to work consciously on the mutual development of the hive and humanity.
This concise but rich work features an illuminating foreword by Heidi Herrmann of the Natural Beekeeping Trust as well as a lucid introduction by translator Paul King that explains the anthroposophical concepts employed by Lorenzen in his text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
• Release date: Dec 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912230570

Iwer Thor Lorenzen

IWER THOR LORENZEN (1895-1976) was born in Harrislee Flensburg, Germany, and began his career as a teacher in 1914. Whilst serving in the First World War, he became acquainted with anthroposophy – as founded by Rudolf Steiner – through a fellow soldier. After the war he returned to teaching, later moving into special education. He set up his own school near Hamburg in 1949, where he remained until his retirement. Having worked as a volunteer in the Zoological State Institute in Hamburg from 1935 onwards, Lorenzen was also a biologist who was revered for his love and knowledge of beekeeping, particularly amongst biodynamic farmers. He published his key work on beekeeping in 1938 and wrote another nine books as well as numerous articles on the insect and animal world, metamorphosis and evolution.

Book preview

Bees and the Ancient Mysteries*******

IWER THOR LORENZEN (1895-1976) was born in Harrislee Flensburg, Germany, and began his career as a teacher in 1914. Whilst serving in the First World War, he became acquainted with anthroposophy — as founded by Rudolf Steiner — through a fellow soldier. After the war he returned to teaching, later moving into special education. He set up his own school near Hamburg in 1949, where he remained until his retirement. Having worked as a volunteer in the Zoological State Institute in Hamburg from 1935 onwards, Lorenzen was also a biologist who was revered for his love and knowledge of beekeeping, particularly amongst biodynamic farmers. He published his key work on beekeeping — published in English as The Spiritual Foundations of Beekeeping (Temple Lodge 2017) — in 1938 and wrote another nine books as well as numerous articles on the insect and animal world, metamorphosis and evolution.

Bees and the Ancient Mysteries

Iwer Thor Lorenzen

Translated from German by Paul King

*******

Temple Lodge Publishing Ltd.

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.templelodge.com

Published in English in 2018 by Temple Lodge Publishing in association with the Natural Beekeeping Trust, www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org

Originally published in German as the third part of the book

Metamorphosen in der Entwicklungsgeschichte von Mensch und Tier by

Verlag für zeitgemäßen Goetheanismus in 1958

© Iwer Thor Lorenzen 1958

This translation © Temple Lodge Publishing 2018

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved.

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recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the

copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has

been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781912230570

Cover by Morgan Creative featuring image from tomb of Pabasa,

Luxor, Egypt

Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

BEES AND THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

1. Flowers and Insects

2. The Origin of the Honeybee

3. Fig-tree Mysteries

4. Bee Realm and Logos Mysteries

Notes

Further Reading

In my spiritual-scientific studies I have walked the ‘bee path’. It has afforded me deep insights into ancient Egyptian and Ephesian Mysteries. The third part of my book Metamorphosen in der Entwicklungsgeschichte von Mensch und Tier*, which is on ‘Bees and the Ancient Mysteries’, is testimony to that.

There are three pillars that I recognized to be the foundations of apiculture:

The Bee is a creature characterized by a weak digestive system which needs the fire process in the plant blossom to complement its metabolic organization; it is a creature that carries forward the process of nectar formation in the preparation of honey.

The one-ness (wholeness) of a bee family/colony derives from the fact that it is taken hold of by the group soul in such a way that a warmth sphere (cluster) is formed and the reproductive instincts of the worker bees are suppressed.

It is necessary to learn to recognize the group soul’s stages of incarnation.

It behoves the beekeeper to practise apiculture out of such insights.

Iwer Thor Lorenzen†

______________________

*‘Metamorphoses in the evolution of man and animal’ (1958).

†Source: ‘Autobiographical Notes’ (unpublished manuscript).

Foreword

‘Beyond the appreciable facts of their life we know but little of the bees. And the closer our acquaintance with them, the nearer is our ignorance brought to us of the depths of their real existence; but such ignorance is better than the other kind, which is unconscious, and satisfied.’— Maurice Maeterlinck

‘It lives between the sun and earth, weaving its way among the blossoms of the plant world, only touching the earth for a drink of water and the intake of minerals, and to die.’—Guenther Mancke

The Natural Beekeeping Trust is honoured to present this second volume of Iwer Thor Lorenzen’s bee writings, in which he delves even more deeply into the honeybee’s innermost connection with humankind’s development. Lorenzen’s work builds on the spiritual-scientific research of Rudolf Steiner, and some familiarity with anthroposophy and its underlying cosmology is assumed. What persuaded us to make these writings available in English translation is, firstly, the fortuitous circumstance of the translator submitting, together with his excellent rendering of a difficult text into English, an introduction to anthroposophy that serves as an excellent bridge to Lorenzen’s deliberations; and secondly, the