The human being is a bridge between the past and the future

 

Meditative verse given by Rudolf Steiner to Ita Wegman on December 21, 1920:


The human being is a bridge
between the past and the future.
The present is a moment—
moment as bridge.
Spirit grown to soul
in matter's husk
comes from the past:
soul growing to spirit
as seed encased
journeys toward the future.
Grasp future things
through past ones:
hope for evolving things
through what has evolved.
So grasp existence
in evolving growth:
so grasp what will be
in what exists.

Excelsior!

We are not granted
A rest on any step;
The active person
Must live and strive
From life to life;
As plants renew themselves
From spring to spring,
So humans must rise
Through error to truth,
From fetters into freedom,
Through sickness and through death
To beauty, health, and life.

Rudolf Steiner

At-one-ment

 

At-one-ment

                                              Washed in the Blood of the Lamb are We
                                              Awash in a Sunburst Sea
                                              You—Love—and I—Love—and Love Divine:
                                              We are the Trinity

                                              You—Love—and I—We are One-Two-Three
                                              Twining Eternally
                                              Two—Yes—and One—Yes—and also Three:
                                              One Dual Trinity
                                              Radiant Calvary
                                              Ultimate Mystery

A butterfly is materialized ego; present-day science is darkness visible. Die — and Become!

A Gigantic Butterfly Crop Circle formation (530 Meters x 450 Meters), the Biggest Crop Circle Ever, has appeared in the Netherlands, near a town in southern Holland called Goes, on the 8th of August 2009.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=1216389296355&set=a.1084428517418.2015922.1427547213&type=1&theater

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." - John 1:3-5

Rudolf Steiner, to the workmen building the second Goetheanum. October 8, 1923:

Well, gentlemen, have you had any ideas? If not, I will talk to you about something which links up quite well with matters I have already discussed.

In observing Nature — as a rule people do so rather without thinking — the moment we begin to reflect about the things of Nature, so much points to the presence of the spiritual that our curiosity cannot fail to be aroused regarding the actual working of this Spirit, we cannot help becoming curious about it. In the case of the beavers' lodge and other such things I have repeatedly drawn your attention to the amount of spiritual activity to be found in Nature. Now today I am going to point to something further.

At a certain time in summer when man walks in the open and sees the lovely iridescent play of butterfly wings, he does not stop to query the origin of this manifold many-colored fluttering of butterflies moving so freely.

You see, this is even of great practical significance. In fact, I am convinced that were we to attempt new experiments in the field of aeronautics, here in our Goetheanum precincts, they would not be staged as they are when based on materialistic science. Experiments are continually being made based on the flight of birds, dragonflies, and so forth, but experimenting along the lines of butterfly flight has never been considered. Aviation, however would only assume its right form could it on a large scale base its experiments on the butterfly flight. But people today do not think of this, because they are unable to discern the true facts. Even in regard to the practical side of life these things are only grasped rightly when the spiritual is considered.

Now today I am going to point out something regarding butterflies which does not really belong to aeronautics, but which will shed light on the subject.

You see, a butterfly does not start life as such, but evolves by means of a very complicated process. We will start from the fact that when autumn approaches the time is now ripe for the butterfly to lay an egg. Thus the starting point of the butterfly is the laying of an egg. It is not a butterfly that comes out of this egg. What emerges from this egg is not an ordinary butterfly — the swallow-tail, for instance, which looks like this (drawing) — but something which is commonly called a grub; in other words, a caterpillar is hatched. Now this caterpillar is hatched from the egg. Here is its head, here at the other end the sting (drawing), and it crawls around lazily. Outwardly it appears to be a sluggard. Inwardly, however, it is far from sluggish, for from its own body it spins threads out of which it forms a hard covering. Gradually the caterpillar completely disappears into this covering, and disintegrates; thus it spins itself a cocoon which it attaches to a tree where it hangs. It first attaches the threads and then vanishes into the cocoon. So we first have the egg, then the caterpillar, and now the chrysalis — for that is its name. This chrysalis remains suspended for a certain length of time, after which an opening appears in some part of it and the butterfly emerges.

Thus before the butterfly exists as such, four things are required. First of all the egg, secondly the caterpillar, thirdly the chrysalis, and fourthly the actual butterfly. The egg is laid in some place. The caterpillar crawls around, the chrysalis remains quite still, and the butterfly gaily flutters forth into the air. It can then lay another egg and the same story is repeated in the course of the year. This is what happens.

Now, people see this and learned folk explain it by observations under a microscope or other such means. The matter, however, is not so simple. One has to take into account where and how the egg can live, how the caterpillar and chrysalis live, and finally how the butterfly lives. If the egg is to reach the stage of hatching out a caterpillar, it above all requires moisture — often just a drop in which a little salt is dissolved. No egg can thrive without a certain amount of humidity in which salt is present. For this reason the butterfly's instinct must lead it to lay the egg where it will find moisture containing some salt. Otherwise nothing happens. What I am telling you in regard to butterflies applies also to bees. It is likewise necessary for bees to lay their eggs where salt — even if very little — has penetrated. It suffices for mist to seep in, as mist always possesses a certain amount of saline moisture. Nature comes to the rescue. Such things do not always dawn on human understanding. Nature indeed is far cleverer than man. The egg, however, always requires moisture containing a certain amount of salt. This is necessary to the butterfly, too, as it enables the caterpillar to be hatched. So the egg just requires this moisture containing salt; it has no eyes, so sees nothing and just lives for itself in a world of total darkness. The moment the caterpillar is hatched it meets the light and remains in it. It has some organs, has reached the light, and now becomes quite another kind of creature than it was as an egg. The egg has entirely transformed itself into a caterpillar. Inner sensation is produced in the caterpillar because it is exposed to the light and has sense organs. Such things are made evident in the case of certain phenomena. You have no doubt noticed the astonishing fact when a lamp has been lit that all sorts of insects flutter around in the room, feel drawn to the light, and are even so stupid as to hurl themselves into the flame and get burnt. Why is this? Of course this does not happen in the case of the caterpillar, but it has the same urge. I may say that the caterpillar is drawn to the sunlight by the same urge as that felt by the insect who plunges into the candle flame, only the caterpillar cannot rise to the Sun. Could it rise from the ground and fly to the Sun, very soon we should no longer have any caterpillars. They would all fly up and away to the Sun. For that is their urge; only gravity binds them to the Earth. So when we see a caterpillar we know that it really has the urge to follow the light. This is impossible, so what does it do?

Just imagine that here is the beam of light and here the caterpillar (drawing). As the caterpillar crawls along, it spins a thread in the pattern of the beam of light. It spins in exact accordance with the beam of light, and at night when there is no light it rolls up the thread. It spins it out in the sunlight and rolls it up again at night. In this way it forms its sheath. The caterpillar completely surrenders to the light, it dies in the light. Just as the insect surrenders to the flame, so the caterpillar dies into the light, but being unable to reach the Sun it does not enter the sunbeam. However, it spins its own body into these threads and so forms the cocoon — as threads spun in this way are called. The silkworm spins the silk according to the light, so when you take its silk you can certainly say: This is spun light! Earthly matter is spun in the pattern of light rays, and when you come across a chrysalis you are really seeing pure sunlight spun around this earthly matter in the pattern of the sunbeam. We have now reached the point where spun light surrounds the chrysalis, and naturally something different occurs from what occurs in the case of the insect which burns by plunging into the flame and so can accomplish nothing further. In the short time the insect takes to hurl itself into the flame, could it but spin such a cocoon modeled on light, a new animal would arise from the fire. This is only hindered by the burning. By reason of this it is interesting to learn the real impulse of the insect which flutters around the room at night and plunges into the flame. Its urge is indeed to propagate itself and perish in order to re-emerge as a new being. Only it deceives itself because it cannot create a cocoon so rapidly. The caterpillar, however, has the time to create this sheath, to hang it up, so the Sun forces, imprisoned inside, can now create the butterfly which is then able to fly out and enjoy the activity of a Sun-being.

This is the way to observe things in Nature. First, quite a significant idea is implied in what I have told you. One might think that the insect by plunging into the flame just has the urge to perish, whereas this is not the case. It wants to reappear in another form. It would fain be transformed by the flame. This is always so in death. Death does not annihilate, but when it comes about in the right way it transforms the creature. This is the first thing we see. The second is the deep connection between all things in outer Nature. The butterfly you see is created out of light, but light had first to take up matter, form a case and be turned into threads inside the chrysalis. All animal entities are created out of light. This applies to the human being as well, by reason of the fertilization of the female ovum. A sheath encloses the light within the mother's body, so the human being is really created by this light. So the possibility arises for man to be born out of light. Thus we see how the butterfly arises from light which has first been imprisoned.

Now, the butterfly flutters about in many different colors. These colors are seen to be prevalent where the light is most effective. In regions where the birds have wonderful colors the sun has greater power. What effect is produced by the action of imprisoned sunlight? In every instance, color is produced, and this applies to the butterfly as well. The butterfly owes its color to the action of imprisoned light. The butterfly is understood only when viewed as a complete creature of light, which light is responsible for its manifold colors.

But you see this cannot be accomplished by the Sun alone. The matter stands thus: In the case of the egg, we see that moisture and salt play their part. Salt is earthy moisture in water. So we can say that to thrive, the egg needs earth and a little water. The caterpillar creeps into the light. By nature the caterpillar cannot thrive in just earth and water (in other words, dissolved chalk and water) but it requires moisture, water, and also air. This moisture and air the caterpillar demands is not merely the physical substance required by the egg, but in this moisture lives what is known as ether — what I called the ether-body in referring to the human being. The caterpillar acquires an ether-body through which it breathes. This ether-body enables it to take in the spiritual element present in air. The egg is still entirely physical, whereas the caterpillar already lives in both physical and etheric, but this it finds difficult as it contains far too much earthly matter. When the content of the caterpillar comes into contact with the light, one sees that it spins the light out of itself in the form of a cocoon. The caterpillar has an urge toward the light, but it is held back by the strong forces in it. It cannot deal with this task. Its urge is to soar, to pour itself into the light and to live there. So what does it do? Well, it isolates itself, envelops itself in its sheath along with the sunbeams. In the chrysalis the caterpillar altogether isolates itself from the physical earth forces. Inside the chrysalis where the grub has vanished, astral forces are now present — no longer earthly or etheric forces, but astral forces which are entirely spiritual and live in imprisoned light. Imprisoned light always contains spiritual astral forces, and these create the butterfly. As the butterfly consists entirely of astral forces it can now fly about in the air, which was impossible for the caterpillar. It can follow the light. Being no longer subject to gravity, the butterfly can simply follow the light. Through its surrender it has eliminated gravity, to which it is no longer subject. So it can be said that it has matured as far as the ego. It is an ego in which we see the butterfly flying around. We humans have our ego inside, whereas that of the butterfly is outside. The ego is actually light and is responsible for the butterfly's color.

In thinking this over, there is something that must be clear in your minds. You are continually saying “I” to yourself. What does this signify? Every time you say “I” to yourself a little flame lights up in your brain, only it is invisible to ordinary sight. That is light. When I say “I” to myself I kindle this inner light. In saying “I,” I kindle the selfsame light that colors the butterfly's wings! It is really most interesting to note that when I say “I” to myself, could I allow this “I” to expand over the whole world of Nature, it would be light. It is only my body that keeps this “I” imprisoned. Were I able to let it expand, this ego, this light, would permit me to create real butterflies. The human ego actually has the power needed to create real butterflies and insects in general. You see, men imagine everything to be so simple, but in olden times when people had knowledge of these things, they spoke accordingly. In ancient Jewish times a word such as Jahve had the same meaning as “I.” In old Hebrew, Jahve could be pronounced only by the priest, because he had been prepared to understand its significance. For as he spoke this word he saw himself surrounded by a flight of butterflies. If he failed to do so he would know that he had not spoken with true inner feeling. But when he pronounced the word with right inner feeling, he saw actual butterflies. He could not impart this to others, however, for it would have unbalanced their minds. He had first to prepare himself for such an experience. It is nonetheless true.

Well, gentlemen, how can this be explained? Just picture a large eiderdown filling the space between the reading desk and the point where I am standing. The down inside is rather sparse. So from where I stand I try to push on toward the desk, pressing the down together. But I am unable to reach the desk: I have to stop halfway, because I cannot compress the down any further. I cannot reach the desk, but can feel pressure when I lean against the eiderdown. In the same way, gentlemen, you have the urge to express the “I” — in fact to produce real butterflies, because the ego consists of light. But this you cannot do. Instead, you feel the resistance just as I do when I press forward. This is due to your thoughts. Your thoughts impede you from creating real butterflies by means of light. The ego thinks thoughts, and these thoughts are really just pictures of the butterfly-world.

You see, the same thing would happen today as in ancient Jewish times when just anyone who said Jahve could have seen the whole of the butterfly-world. People would have said: “Of course he is crazy!” It would moreover have been true had he been too immature to behold spiritual things. But today if one states that the “I” and light are identical, that light when imprisoned creates butterflies, and that the same thing in our specially adapted brain creates thoughts, again people will say: “The man is mad!” All the same it is true, and this is just the difference between truth and mere madness! So when we see the bright butterfly in the air we must realize that the same impulse works upon us when with the right inner feeling we say “I.” Neither the butterfly nor even the higher animal can say “I,” for in their case the ego works from outside. When you see a lion, it is the animal's buff color that its ego works upon from outside. The whole world of nature is responsible for the lion's existence. Because we think from within outwards we do not acquire our coloring from outside, but acquire from within the color of our skin, which, in painting, it is very hard to reproduce. Our “I” with the help of the blood is responsible for giving our body this wonderful human tint, only reproduced in painting when one succeeds in mixing and blending all the colors correctly. You see Nature is forever at work on the creature, but she works in a spiritual way. I have told you here that there must be a transition from moisture containing air to light. Now here is the chrysalis living in air and light; as caterpillar it lived in water and air; here as chrysalis in air and light; then it shuts itself off more and more from the light which is imprisoned, and it turns to the astral, which now works upon it.

Just take another look at this: caterpillar and chrysalis. Now think of an animal not able to spin threads from its own body, Let us imagine a special kind of caterpillar which, having become such, has the urge to reach the light but is unable to do so because its body cannot spin threads. The animal cannot turn its body into one capable of spinning threads outside. The caterpillar really spins itself to death. It ceases to be, for its whole body is consumed in the spinning. An empty framework is all that is left. But suppose you had an animal that did not possess the physical substance with which to spin. What will the creature do if it is in this plight, if exposed to strong light? It cannot spin a cocoon for itself. What does it do then? It will do the spinning inside its body, and what it spins will be the blood vessels! The blood of such an animal which lives in the air is inwardly spun, just as the butterfly, or rather the caterpillar, spins the cocoon outside. We should then have an animal which as it lived in the air-water element would have a blood system suited to that element. If it lives for a time in the light it alters the form of its blood vessels; they become quite different. It now spins them inside its own body because it cannot spin outside. Now let us make a clear picture. Imagine there is an animal that breathes through gills — as it must in water — and that this animal moves in the water by means of a tail. Then his blood vessels extend into gills and tail. Thus the animal swims in the water, where it can even breathe. The fish has gills, with which it is possible to breathe in water. But imagine the animal often rises to the air, gets out on the bank, or the pond itself dries up. Then it is more exposed to the light and loses the watery element. New regions appear where it must have light and air instead of water and air. What does the animal do then?

Now look — I will draw this with dots. The animal withdraws the blood vessels from the gills, which increasingly vanish, and it spins these blood vessels in here. The animal spins its own blood vessels, and those which were directed to the gills are now inserted here. The blood vessels formerly belonging to the tail are withdrawn, and thus feet are grown. The blood vessels formerly in the tail now go to the feet, enabling them to walk, and they are spun differently from those in the tail. You can see this in Nature — this is a tadpole, and that a frog! The frog starts life as a tadpole with tail and gills, and can live in water. When it reaches the air it inwardly performs what the caterpillar does outwardly. The tadpole, which is a frog able to live in water, spins a network out of its own blood system. This spreads out in its body, and what once formed part of blood vessels and gills now becomes lungs. Where gills once were, we now have lungs, spun there by the animal. In place of the tail we have feet and, as the movement of the blood has already evolved a heart, these feet move by means of the blood circulating from heart to lung. So the same path from water and air to air and light, followed by caterpillar to chrysalis, is also taken by the frog in its elements of air and water. In this case, however, air penetrates, as the animal must be exposed to both air and light. Light and air create lungs and legs, whereas water and air create fish tails and gills.

The fact is that activity not only takes place within the animal, but the whole cosmic environment always plays its part as well.

What attitude is taken by the scientists? What did we do in trying to make our picture? Well, gentlemen, what we have done is to look at the world. We have viewed the world as it is and have observed Nature! What does the scientist do? Generally speaking he takes scant notice of Nature when he seeks to discover these things. Instead, he starts by going to an optician and ordering a very powerful microscope. It will not be taken out into the world of nature, where it would be of little use, but will be shut up in a room where butterfly eggs will be laid. The scientist has little feeling for the butterfly fluttering in the light. He puts the egg on a specially prepared plate and observes it through the microscope (drawing). He keeps his eye on it and takes note of what happens to the egg after he has dissected it. Nature no longer acts, but the scientist cuts up little bits and examines the particles flattened out on a piece of paper under the microscope. These tiny particles cut with a razor blade are examined, and investigation is based on just that. This is how investigations are often made today. Think of a university lecture. The professor assembles as many people as possible into his study and allows them in turn to view what he has dissected. Of course, he often takes them for outings as well, but has little to say about what exists out-of-doors because he does not know much about it. His entire knowledge consists in what he sees under the microscope after having chopped up little bits and pieces. What wisdom does he acquire in this way? He discovers everything already present in the egg only in infinitesimal quantity. Well, gentlemen, that is all one can find when one begins by chopping it up with a razor blade and examining it under the microscope! One forgets all that is active outside in air, light, and water. We just have the little specimen all ready and place it under the microscope. It is impossible to investigate in this way. All one can say is that the butterfly lives in the open, and here under my microscope I already have the whole butterfly in miniature.

Today people no longer believe what follows, but formerly they would say: Here we have a woman called Annie who has a mother called Maria. Now Maria gave birth to Annie. Very well, but the entire Annie was already present in the ovum inside the mother Maria. So we must imagine it thus: here is the ovum of Anna and here the ovum of Maria in which is Anna; but Maria herself derives from Gertrude, who is Annie's grandmother. Now if Annie's ovum was contained in Maria's, it must also have been in that of Gertrude. Now Annie's great-grandmother was Katie; so the ovum of Annie, Maria, and Gertrude must have already been present in that of Katie, and so it goes on right hack to the first ovum of all, which is Eve's. So people said — it was of course the easiest solution — that a person alive today was already present in the egg-cell of Eve. This was known as the theory of pre-formation. The theories we still have today are just a little more nebulous. They no longer reckon on going back to Eve, but the idea is identical, and they have not really progressed if they say: The whole butterfly is already present! And light, air, and water — which, after all, play their part — are no longer considered.

You see, when one considers the scientific method pursued by the professor who takes people into his study to demonstrate these very learned matters — which in regard to Nature's activities are mere folly — one realizes that, after all, light, air, and all the rest should be taken into account! The professor ignores all this and enters his dark room where artificial light is introduced, when possible, so that daylight may not disturb the microscope. And the thought comes to us: Good gracious! He still believes in the egg as containing everything; and present-day science just dismisses all the rest. It is all shelved and has nothing left to do. Contemporary science no longer has any knowledge of what works in air, light, and water; it knows nothing at all about it. You see, this is something which already sorely rankles in our social life — this fact that on the one side we have a science that really disregards the entire cosmos and only has eyes for what can be seen through the microscope and, on the other side, a State that takes no interest in a pensioner nor has further use for him beyond paying his pension. The same thing applies in the case of the scientist who extracts means of nourishment from Nature, but no longer understands its working and only concerns himself with the microscope, in other words just with parts. Science today really regards the whole cosmos as an idler who has been pensioned off. This is a dreadful state of affairs, for the masses are unable to see any further. The general public says: these are the people who ought to understand such things. One already thinks of turning tiny children into scholars, and they are sent to school to be taught. From then on today they make great efforts to learn. Up to the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight they keep on studying; surely what they acquire must be the truth! Naturally, the general public cannot form an opinion and allows itself to be guided in these matters by the “learned,” and has no idea that what is taught no longer has any connection with Nature. Nature is referred to as someone now “on the shelf.” Thus the whole of our spiritual life is being swamped, and the time has now come when we must emerge. We do not progress, for the simple reason that the general public finds it easier to accept what it hears. The truth today is told only by Anthroposophy! Nowhere else will you hear what I have just told you. Nobody will say such things. The general public simply pays no attention to them any longer. Anyone saying them is considered mad. It really is mad that this should be so! It is not the really mad who are considered so, but anyone speaking the truth is deemed mad. People really view this the wrong way 'round.

In this connection I will tell you another little story. There was once a medical commission that arrived at the entrance of a lunatic asylum, where they wished to do some research. They found a man by the door who received them in such a way that they took him to be the director or the doctor in charge. So they said: Will you be so kind as to take us around your cells and explain everything? So the man at the door took them around the cells, explaining each case, saying: Here is a mental case who has remarkable visions and hallucinations along with epileptic fits. In the next cell he explained that this patient suffered from abnormal impulses of the will. He described it all quite clearly. They then came to the genuine lunatics who suffer from obsessions. You see, he said, here is a case who is always being pursued by ghosts, and here another who is pursued by human beings, not ghosts. Now I will take you to the worst case we have. So he took them to the greatest lunatic of all and said: This man suffers from the fixed idea that he is the Emperor of China. Of course this means that ideas have solidified in his head. Instead of these ideas just remaining as thoughts, in his case they have solidified. He explained this with great precision and added: But you must realize, gentlemen, that this is nonsense for I myself am the Emperor of China!

You see, he had explained everything. He had led them around, but instead of leading them to science he had led them by the nose. For he himself was mad. He had told them that the other man was mad because he believed himself to be the Emperor of China, whereas he was that himself! The Commission had been conducted round by a complete lunatic.

Thus where science is concerned it is not always possible to discern whether someone is mad or not. You would be surprized by the cleverness of some things lunatics tell you when you come into contact with them. For this reason the Italian natural scientist Lombroso has stated that there is no hard and fast distinction between genius and madness. Geniuses are always slightly mad, and madmen always possess a slight amount of genius. You can read about it in the little book called “Genius and Madness” published in a popular edition.

When one is sane of course he can distinguish between genius and madness. But today we have reached the point where whole books can be found — such as Lombroso's — where science itself states that it is impossible to distinguish genius from madness. Of course this state of affairs cannot continue, or spiritual life will be completely swamped. Nature, now neglected, must once more be reckoned with. Then one will notice the development from the egg to the caterpillar, and from the caterpillar to the chrysalis. One will see how light is imprisoned there, as in us it is imprisoned: the gaily colored butterfly darting forth. This is what I wanted to link with what we have already discussed, so that you may see how light contains creative spirit. For the worm or caterpillar has first to disappear for the butterfly to arise. It arises inside where the caterpillar has perished. The spirit creates. In every instance matter must first be destroyed and vanish, thus enabling the spirit to create the new being. This same thing applies to humankind. Fertilization signifies that matter has first been destroyed. A minute quantity of this destroyed matter remains, and here spirit and light create the ego in man.

If you give this a little thought you will grasp what I have told you. Instead of going on blindly, observe the tadpole and the frog and realize why the latter has a heart, lungs, and feet, and why the tadpole can swim in water. All these things are interconnected. The matters we shall be studying further will show you that a genuine science which understands them can arise only out of Anthroposophy.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19231008p01.html

Gold tried in the fire

 

 

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

--Revelation 3:14-22

Ex Deo Nascimur        In Christo Morimur        Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus

 

The Working Together of the Four Archangels in the Course of the Year

 
The Four Seasons and the Archangels. Lecture 5 of 5.
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, October 13, 1923:

 

During the last few days I have brought before you the four cosmic Imaginations which can be called up through an intimate human experience of the seasons of the year. If we are to arrive at an understanding of the whole place and situation of man in the world, we must seek it through the working together of the beings who appear in conjunction with these imaginative pictures. And here I would like first to say something by way of introduction.

If we open our souls to the impressions which may come to us from the content of these pictures, then at the same time there will come to us much that has been experienced in the course of human evolution as an echo of old, instinctive clairvoyance; today this is sometimes treated historically, but fundamentally it is not understood. Real poets and spiritually inspired persons lay hold of these often wonderful voices which sound from the traditions of the past, and make use of them just when they wish to express their highest and greatest conceptions. But even then they are very little understood. So in the first part of Faust there rings out a wonderful saying which is scarcely at all understood, though it is quoted often enough. It occurs when Faust, having opened the book of Nostradamus, comes upon the sign of the Macrocosm:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen

How each the Whole its substance gives,
each in the other works and lives!
See heavenly forces rising and descending,
their golden urns reciprocally lending:
on wings that winnow sweet blessing
from heaven through the Earth they're pressing,
to fill the All with harmonies caressing.

 

From the translation of Faust: Part One, by Bayard Taylor, revised and edited by Stuart Atkins.

 

A magnificent picture — but if one knows Goethe one must say that it is real to him only through his feelings. For what Goethe has evidently drawn from his reading of old traditions and his feeling for them — all this stands in its full significance before our souls only if we have in mind the four great cosmic Imaginations, as I described them to you — the Autumn Imagination of Michael, the Christmas Imagination of Gabriel, the Easter Imagination of Raphael, and the Midsummer, St. John's Day, Imagination of Uriel. You must really picture to yourselves how from all these beings — Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Michael — forces stream out through the cosmos and as formative forces stream again into man. In order to understand this, we must see how man stands within the cosmos in — I might almost call it — a purely material way.

In this connection there is very little understanding, unfortunately, for how things really are. For example, medical textbooks always describe how man breathes in oxygen from the air and how the carbon within him takes up the oxygen; this process is then compared with external combustion, in which all sorts of external substances combine with oxygen. The whole process in the human organism, whereby oxygen is taken up by carbon, is then called combustion.

All this is said because one essential fact is not known: the fact that all external substances and processes become different directly they enter into the human organism. Anyone who speaks of this peculiar combination of oxygen with carbon in man and thinks of it as combustion is talking in just the same way as if someone said: “There is no need for a man to have two living lungs; he could equally well have a pair of stones suspended inside him.” That is more or less how these people talk in speaking of the combustion of oxygen and carbon within the human organism.

Everything that takes place externally in nature is different as soon as it enters a human being. No process within the human organism takes place in the same way as in outer nature. A flame that burns externally is dead fire; that which corresponds to it within the human being is flame living and ensouled: Just as a stove stands toward a lung, so does the external flame stand toward the living activity that goes on in the human organism when carbon unites with oxygen there — a process which, viewed externally, is indeed combustion in chemical terms. All spiritual progress at the present day depends on our being able to grasp these things in the right way. Suppose you take salt with your food, or eat some albumen or anything else: people assume that it remains just the same substance within you as it was outside. That is not true. Whatever enters the human being becomes different immediately. And the forces which make it different proceed in a quite definite way from those beings whom I have pictured in the four Imaginations.

Plate V

Let us recall the last picture: how at St. John's-tide, Uriel hovers in the heights, weaving his body out of golden light in the golden radiance of the Sun (see Plate V, red.) As I told you, we must picture him with grave, judicial eyes, for his gaze is directed down toward the crystal realm of the Earth, and he sees how little are human errors compatible with the abstract but nonetheless shining beauty of the crystallization process that goes on below the surface of the Earth. That is the reason for his gravely judging gaze, as he looks down and compares human errors with the living activity in the crystals of the Earth.

I spoke also of Uriel's gesture as a warning gesture, indicating to humans what they ought to do. It calls upon them, if they understand it rightly, to transform their faults into virtues. For up above in the clouds appear the shining pictures of beauty, woven out of the Sun-gold, and they are pictures of all that by dint of virtue humanity has achieved.

Now, from the being who has to be described in this way — and can be described in no other way — there proceed forces which work directly in humans, but have also a characteristic further effect. All that I am depicting goes on in high summer. The Uriel being, however, is not at rest, but in majestic movement. This must be so, for when it is summer with us, it is winter in the opposite hemisphere, and Uriel is there in the heights. We must picture this clearly, so that if we have the Earth here (see sketch), Uriel appears to us in summer, and then follows a course which brings him after six months to the other side. Then it is winter with us. While Uriel descends (yellow arrow) and while his forces are thus coming to us from a descending line, summer with us passes over into winter, and then Uriel is over the other hemisphere. But the Earth does not hinder his forces from coming to us; they penetrate through the forces which come to us directly from above (red arrows), seeking to permeate us with the Sun-gold of summer, penetrate right through the Earth in winter and permeate us as an ascending stream (red) from the other side.

If we bring before our souls the midsummer working of Uriel through nature into humans— for his activity works into the forces of nature — we must picture the forces of Uriel streaming out in the cosmos, raying into the clouds, the rain, the thunder and lightning, and raying also into the growth of plants. In winter, after Uriel has made his way around the Earth, his forces stream up through the Earth and come to rest in our heads. And then these forces, which at other times are outside in nature, have the effect of making us citizens of the cosmos. For they actually cause an image of the cosmos to arise in our heads, illuminating us so that we become possessors of human wisdom.

We speak rightly if we say: Uriel makes his descent as summer passes through autumn into winter. Then in winter he begins to re-ascend, and from this descending and ascending power of Uriel we get the inner forces of our heads. Thus Uriel works in nature at midsummer, and during the winter season he works in the human head, so that in this connection man is truly a microcosm over against the macrocosm.

We understand the human being only if we place him in the world not merely as a being of nature, but as a spiritual being. And just as we can follow the forces of Uriel and see how they stream into man through the course of the year, so must we do with Raphael, who pours his forces into the forces of nature in spring, as I have described. I had to show you how the Easter Imagination is completed through the teaching that Raphael, the great cosmic physician, can give to humankind. For precisely when we allow all that Raphael brings about, working in the springtime forces of nature as Uriel does in summer — when we allow all this to work on us at Easter through the spiritual hearing of Inspiration, then we have the crowning of all the truths of healing for mankind.

But the springtime activity of Raphael travels around the Earth, as Uriel does. In terms of the cosmos Uriel is the spirit of summer; he moves around the Earth and in winter creates the inner forces of the human head. Raphael is the spirit of spring, and in autumn, as he travels around the Earth, he engenders the forces of human breathing. Hence we can say: While during autumn Michael is the cosmic spirit up above, the cosmic Archangel, at Michaelmas Raphael works in human beings — Raphael who is active in the whole human breathing-system, regulating it and giving it his blessing. And we shall form a true picture of autumn only if on the one hand, up above, we have the powerful Michael-Imagination, with the sword forged from meteoric iron, his garment woven out of Sun-gold and shot through with the Earth's silver-sparkling radiance, while Raphael below is working in us, aware of every breath that is drawn, of everything that flows from the lungs into the heart and from the heart through the whole circulation of the blood. Thus we learn to recognize in ourself the healing forces which play through the cosmos in the Raphael-time of spring, if in autumn, when the rays of Raphael pass through the Earth, we come to know how Raphael is active in human breathing.

For this is a great secret: all the healing forces reside originally in the human breathing system. And anyone who understands truly the circuit of the breath knows the healing forces from the human side. They do not reside in the other systems of the human organism; these other systems have themselves to be healed.

Look back and see what I have said about education: the breathing system comes specially into activity between the ages of seven and fourteen. There are great possibilities of illness during the first seven years of life, and again after fourteen; they are relatively least during the period when the breath pulses through the body with the help of the etheric body. A secret activity of healing resides in the breathing system, and all the secrets of healing are at the same time secrets of breathing. And this is connected with the fact that the workings of Raphael, which are cosmic in spring, permeate the whole mystery of human breathing in autumn.

We have learnt to know Gabriel as the Christmas Archangel. He is then the cosmic Spirit; we have to look up above to find him. During the summer Gabriel carries into humans all that is effected by the plastic, formative forces of nourishment. At midsummer they are carried into man by the Gabriel forces, after Gabriel has descended from his cosmic activity during the winter to his human activity in summer, when his forces stream through the Earth and it is winter on the other side.

And when at last we come to Michael, we have him as the cosmic Spirit in autumn. He is then at his highest; he has reached his cosmic culmination. Then he begins his descent; in spring his forces penetrate up through the Earth and live in all that comes to expression in man as movement and the power of will, enabling him to walk and work and take hold of things.

Now bring before you the complete picture. First, the summer picture at the time of St. John: up above, the grave countenance of Uriel, with his judicial look, his warning mien and gesture — and, drawing near to humans and permeating them, the mild and loving gaze of Gabriel, Gabriel with his gesture of blessing. So during summer we have the working together of Uriel in the cosmos, Gabriel on the human side.

If we pass on to autumn, we have the — I will not say commanding, but rather the guiding — look of Michael. For if we see it in the right light, Michael's gaze is like a pointing finger, as though wishing not to look into itself, but to look outward into the world. Michael's gaze is positive, active. And his sword forged out of cosmic iron is held so that at the same time his hand points out to us our way. That is the picture up above.

Below, in autumn, is Raphael, with deeply thoughtful gaze, who brings to mankind the healing forces which he has first — one might say — kindled in the cosmos. Raphael, with deep wisdom in his gaze, leaning on the staff of Mercury, supported by the inner forces of the Earth. Thus we have the working together of Michael in the cosmos, Raphael on Earth.

Now we go on to winter. Gabriel is then the cosmic Angel; Gabriel up above, with his mild and loving look and his gesture of benediction, weaving his garment of snow in the clouds of winter. And below, Uriel, with his grave judgment and warning, at the side of humans: the positions are reversed.

And as we come around again to spring, up above we find Raphael, with his deeply thoughtful gaze; with the staff of Mercury which now in the airy heights has become something like a fiery serpent, a serpent of shining fire, no longer resting on the Earth, but as though held forth, using the forces of the air, mingling and combining fire, water, and earth, so as to transmute them into healing forces, working and weaving in the cosmos.

And below, quite specially visible, is Michael, coming to meet mankind, with his positive gaze; a gaze that shows the way, as it were, into the world and would gladly draw the eyes of human beings in the same direction, as he stands close to mankind, the complement of Raphael, in spring.

So there, you see, are the pictures:

Winter: Gabriel above, Uriel below
Spring: Raphael above, Michael below
Summer: Uriel above, Gabriel below
Autumn: Michael above, Raphael below

Now let us take the words which have come down through the ages like an old magical saying and were used again by Goethe:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andren wirkt und lebt!

Yes, indeed, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael work together, one working in the other, living in the other, and when the human being is placed in the universe as a being of spirit, soul, and body, these forces work magically in us. And how far-reaching is the truth in these words, how far they go! Think what they mean:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt,
Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen

— rising and descending! And then the lines that follow:

Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchlingen!

Remember how in yesterday's lecture I spoke of it all passing over from plastic form into musical sound, universally resounding harmony.

I cannot tell you what I felt when this stood before my soul and I read again these lines by Goethe: vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen! This durch — it can shake one profoundly, for that is just how it is — it is true! It is staggering to realize that these words ring through the world like a peal of bells and are regarded as poetic licence or something of the sort — or as words that anyone might write in letters or articles. It is not so. These are words which correspond to a cosmic fact. It is really shattering to read these words in the context of Goethe's Faust and to know how true they are.

Now we will go further. We have seen how the heavenly Powers with golden pinions — the Archangels — permeate the universe in harmony, working and living in one another. But that is not all.

Let us look at Gabriel, who draws nutritive forces out of the cosmos and carries them into human beings at midsummer. These forces are active in the human metabolic system.

Raphael rules in the breathing system. And now Gabriel and Raphael, as they ascend and descend, work together in such a way that Gabriel passes up into the breathing system those forces of his which are otherwise active in human nutrition, and there they become healing forces. Gabriel hands on the nourishment to Raphael, and it then becomes a means of healing. When that which is otherwise only a nutritive process in the human organism is interwoven with the secret of breathing, it becomes a healing force.

We must indeed observe carefully the transformation which external substances undergo in the nutritive system itself; then we come to recognize the significance of the Gabriel forces, the nutritive forces, in the human being. But these forces are led over into the breathing system. And in working on further there, they become not only a means of quenching hunger and thirst, and not only restorative forces: they turn into forces for the inward correction of illness. The transmuted nutritive forces become healing forces. Anyone who understands nutrition correctly, understands the first stage of healing. If he knows what salt should do in a healthy person, then, if he allows the metamorphosis from the Gabriel-way to the Raphael-way to work on him, he will know how salt can act as a means of healing, in this or that case. The healing forces within us are metamorphoses of the nutritive forces. Raphael receives the golden vessel of nutrition from Gabriel; it is passed on to him.

And now we come to a secret, familiar in early times but entirely lost today. Anyone who can read Hippocrates, or, if he cannot read Galen, can still gather something from him, will notice that, in Hippocrates, and even in Galen, those old physicians, there survived something of what is really a great human secret. The forces that prevail in our breathing system are healing forces; they are healing us continually. But when these breathing forces rise into the head, the healing forces become spiritual forces, active in sense-perception and in thinking. Here is the secret that was known at one time; the secret that is almost explicit in Hippocrates and can at least be drawn out of Galen. Thought, perception, the inner spiritual life of man, are a higher metamorphosis of therapy, the healing process; and when the healing element in the breathing system, which lies between the head and the digestive system, is driven further up, as it were, it becomes the material foundation for the spiritual life of man.

So we can say: The thought which flashes through the human head is really a transmutation of the healing impulses that reside in the various substances. Hence if a man sees truly into the heart of this, and has some healing salt-substance, let us say, in his hand, or some remedial plant-substance, he can look at it and say: Here is a beneficent healing force which I can give to someone in accordance with their need. But if this substance penetrates into the person and passes beyond the realm of breathing, so that it works in their head, it becomes the material bearer of the power of thought: Raphael then hands on his vessel to Uriel.

Why does a remedy heal? Because it is on the way to the spirit. And if one knows how far on the way to the spirit a remedy is, one knows its healing power. The spirit cannot of itself lay hold directly on the earthly in the human being; but the lower stage of the spirit is a therapeutic force.

And just as Gabriel passes on to Raphael the nutritive forces, to be transmuted into forces of healing — in other words, he passes on his golden vessel — and just as Raphael passes on his golden vessel to Uriel, whereby the healing forces are made into the forces of thought, so it is Michael who receives from Uriel the thought-forces, and through the power of cosmic iron, out of which his sword is forged, transforms these thought-forces into forces of will, so that in the human being they become the forces of movement.

Hence we have this second picture: Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, ascending and descending; Uriel and Gabriel, let us say, working in one another, but also working with one another, one giving his possession to the other, so that it can work on further in him. We see how the heavenly Powers rise and descend, passing to one another golden vessels — the golden vessels of nourishment, of healing, of the forces of thought and of movement. So these golden vessels move on from one Archangel to another, while at the same time each Archangel works with the other in cosmic harmony.

And again in Faust we find:

Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen!

True indeed, down to the very word “golden,” for these things are woven out of the Sun-gold radiating from Uriel, as I described yesterday.

Goethe had of course read the old saying to which he then gave poetic expression, and it made a tremendous impression on him. But the meaning I have been able to picture for you here — that he did not know. It is just this which staggers one — to find that when out of a certain poetic feeling a spirit such as Goethe's takes hold of something handed down from old traditions, it so incredibly reflects the truth! This is the splendid thing that unites us, if we are cultivating spiritual science today and these things are revealed to us: when we truly see how Uriel and Raphael and Michael and Gabriel are working together, and how they really do pass on to one another their own particular forces. If we first see this for ourselves and then, having perhaps come across indirectly an ancient saying, through Goethe in this case, we let it work upon us, we see how an old instinctive truth — no matter whether mythical or legendary — was at one time widely current in the world. And then times change, and in our own time we see how the ancient truth has to be raised to a higher level.

O Hippocrates — it is all the same whether we now give the name of Raphael, or Mercury, or Hermes to the one who stood at his side — this Hippocrates lived at a time when twilight was falling over the knowledge of this working together of Gabriel, Raphae,l and Uriel, and of how the healing forces in the human organism lie between the thoughts and the nutritive forces. This was the source from which an ancient instinctive wisdom drew those wonderful old remedies which in fact are always being renewed. Today they are found among so-called primitive folk, and people cannot imagine how they have been come by. All this is connected with the fact that a primeval wisdom was once possessed by humankind.

But now there must really be a problem left in your minds. It is this: If you take everything I have put before you — how for example the Raphael forces are active in spring, and in autumn are carried over by Raphael into the inwardness of the breathing system — you must have been led to suppose that man is entirely bound up with the working of the forces of the cosmos through the course of the year. Originally, indeed, that is how it was. But because man is a being who remembers, so that an outer experience is preserved in memory and after days or years can be relived as an inner experience, so these truths remain entirely valid for the cosmos — but a man does not inwardly experience the Raphael force in his breathing system only in the autumn, but on through the winter, summer and spring. A kind of memory of it, more substantial than ordinary memory, remains.

So while things are arranged in the way I have described, their effects are active in human beings throughout the year. As an experience remains fixed in the memory, so these effects continue all through the year; otherwise man could not be a uniformly developing being all the year 'round. In physical life, one person forgets more readily, or less readily, than another. But the influence Raphael has implanted in our breathing system during the autumn would disappear by the following autumn when Raphael came again. Until then this nature-memory in the breathing organ remains active, but then it has to be renewed.

So is man placed in the course of nature; he is not excluded from the way the world goes, but planted in the midst of it. But he is placed there in yet another way. It is true that man, standing here on Earth, enclosed within his skin, with his organs embedded in his body, feels himself somewhat isolated in the cosmos, for the connections I have described are indeed full of mystery. But this is not so when man is a being only of spirit and soul — in his pre-earthly existence, for example. Between death and a new birth he lives in a realm of spirit; his soul gazes down not at an individual human body — it chooses this in the course of time — but at the whole Earth, and indeed at the Earth in connection with the whole planetary system, and with all the interwoven activities of Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, Michael. In that realm, one is looking at oneself from outside.

It is there that the door opens for the entry of souls who are returning from pre-earthly to earthly life. It opens only during the period from the end of December to the beginning of spring, when Gabriel hovers above as cosmic Archangel, while below at man's side is Uriel, carrying cosmic forces into the human head. In the course of these three months the souls who are to be embodied during the whole year come down from the cosmos toward the Earth. They remain waiting there until an opportunity occurs in the Earth's planetary sphere: even the souls who will be born in October, let us say, are already within the Earth sphere, awaiting their birth. Much, very much, depends on whether a soul, after it has entered the Earth sphere and is already in touch with it, has to wait for its earthly embodiment. One soul has a longer wait; another, a shorter one.

The particular secret here is that — just as, for example, the fructifying seed enters the ovum at only one spot — the heavenly seeds enters into the whole yearly being of the Earth only when Gabriel rules above as the cosmic Angel, with his mild, loving look and gesture of benediction, while below is Uriel, with judicial gaze and warning gesture. That is the time when the Earth is impregnated with souls. It is the time when the Earth has its mantle of snow and surrenders to its crystallizing forces; then man can be united with the Earth as the thinking earth-body in the cosmos. Then the souls pass out of the cosmos and assemble, as it were, in the Earth sphere. That is the annual impregnation of the Earth's seasonal being.

To all these things we come, if we have insight not only into the physical aspect of the cosmos, but into the activities of those cosmic beings I have described for you in the four pictures. And if we have arrived at that, we can find in many a poem some indications of the cosmic creative activity, for it is there in the world:

Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt
Eins in dem andem wirkt und lebt!
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen,
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Von Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen!

In these very words we can discern something of that wonderful working together of the four Archangel beings who, in conjunction with the forces of nature, permeate and animate the bodily nature, the soul and the spirit in human beings — working in one another, working with one another.

 

 

 

 

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19231013p01.html

"Saint John the Baptist" by Adam Bittleston

                                              Thou herald spirit, by the Father's grace
                                              Abiding witness to the Light of Lights,
                                              Look on our seeking.

                                              All we have done on Earth has left its trace,
                                              And all we say sounds on for spirit ears.
                                              Help at our judging.

                                              Baptizer of the waking soul, lead out
                                              Our lives from barren conflict in the dark
                                              Into Christ's presence.

                                              Let sound the music of thy faithful heart,
                                              Prophet of days to come, for brother men,
                                              Unto Christ's glory.




--Adam Bittleston in "Meditative Prayers for Today"

Thank you, Robin Mitchell and Eunice Sousa Pinheiro!

13 ways of looking at my guru. #3: The Manipura Chakra: The Fortress of Manu: God Appears

In celebration of Saint John's-tide

 

Manipura, the third chakra: the solar plexus

 

 

 

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

— William Blake

Manipura ("jewel city," from mani or "jewel" and pura or "city/fortress" [or "The Fortress of Manu" — Larry] — Situated at the navel and also called nabhi-chakra ("navel wheel"), this psychoenergetic center is associated with the fire element, the visual sense, the anus, the mantra ram [rama], and the ram (symbol of fiery energy)....
Manu ... is traditionally hailed as the progenitor of the present human race. [N.B.: John the Baptist is the reincarnation of Adam Cadmon (Manu). Today, June 24, is Saint John's-tide (see preceding post) — Larry]
— G. Feuerstein, The Yoga Tradition



"Ego and Sun are the inner and the outer aspects of the same being. What orbits out there through space as the Sun is the cosmic I. What lives within me is the human I."  —Rudolf Steiner
 

Not my will, but Thine, O Lord, be done, by me and through me.

Related posts:

13 ways of looking at my guru. #3: The Consuming Fire

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2013/06/13-ways-of-looking-at-my-guru-3.html

 

The Penitent's Motto: "DO THE NEEDFUL" — my latest intuitive health report from the School of Metaphysics 

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-penitents-motto-do-needful-my.html

The Festival of Summer: The Saint John Imagination: The Trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. Focus lecture for Wednesday's meeting of the Rudolf Steiner Study Circle

The Four Seasons and the Archangels. Lecture 4 of 5.
Rudolf Steiner, October 12, 1923:

If now we go forward from Easter, the spring festival, we shall need to penetrate much more spiritually into the subject than we had to do in considering the previous seasons of the year. This may sound like a contradiction, but it is not so. In thinking of the Christmas season, we had to start from the way in which earthly mineral limestone is gradually transformed, and we carried this thought over to the time of Easter. In general, we have been turning our eyes on the active working of the spiritual in the material realm. Now in summer, high summer, man is really bound up with the being of Nature. From spring onwards into summer, Nature becomes constantly more active, more satisfied inwardly, and man with his whole being is woven into this mood of Nature. We can indeed say that in high summer man experiences a kind of Nature-consciousness. During spring, if he has the perception and feeling for it, he becomes one with all that is growing and sprouting. He blossoms with the flower, germinates with the plant, fruits with the plant, enters into everything that lives and has its being in the world outside. In this way he spreads out his own being over the being of Nature, and a kind of Nature-consciousness arises in him. Then, since in autumn Nature dies away and thus bears death within itself, man too, if he participates in what autumn — the time of Michaelmas — means for Nature, must experience in himself this dying away; but with his own self he must not take part in it. He must raise himself above it. In place precisely of a Nature-consciousness, a strengthening of his self-consciousness must occur. But in the glow of summer, just because a Nature-consciousness is then at its height in man, it is all the more necessary for the cosmos that — if only man is willing — the cosmos should bring the spiritual to meet him.

Hence we can say: In summer man is bound up with Nature, but, if he has the right feeling and perception for it, objective spirituality comes toward him from out of Nature's interweaving life. And so, to find the essential human being during the St. John's time, at midsummer, we must turn to the objective spirituality in the outer world, and this is present everywhere in Nature. Only in outward appearance is Nature the sprouting, budding — one might say the sleeping — being which calls forth from the powers of sleep the forces of vegetative growth, in which a kind of sleeping Nature-life is given form. But in this sleeping Nature, if only man has the perception for it, the spiritual which animates and weaves through everything in Nature is revealed.

So it is that if we follow Nature in high summer with deepened spiritual insight and with perceptive eyes, we find our gaze directed to the depths of the Earth itself. We find that the minerals down there send their inner crystal-forming process toward us more vividly than at any other time of the year. If we look with Imaginative perception into the depths of the Earth at St. John's-tide, we really have the impression that down there are the crystalline forms in which the hard earth consolidates itself — the very crystalline forms which gain their full beauty at the height of summer. At midsummer everything down below the earth shapes itself into lines, angles, and surfaces. If we are to have an impression of it as a whole, we must picture this crystallizing process as an interweaving activity, colored throughout with deep blue.

Plate V

I will try to show it on the blackboard, though of course I can do so only in a quite sketchy way (see Plate V). So we can say: On looking downwards, we have an impression of line-like forms, suffused with blue, and everywhere the blue is shot through with lines which sparkle like silver, so that everywhere within the silver-sparkling blue the crystallizing process (white) can be discerned. It is as though Nature wishes to present her formative power in a wonderful plastic design, but a design that cannot be seen in the way we see with ordinary eyes. It is seen in such a way that one really feels oneself dissolved into the plastic design, and feels every silver-gleaming line down there to be within oneself, part of oneself. One feels that as a human form one has grown out of the blue depths of the Earth's crust, and one feels oneself inwardly permeated with force by the silver-gleaming crystal lines. All this one feels as part of one's own being. And if one comes to oneself and asks — How is it that these silver-sparkling crystal lines and waves are working within myself? What is it that lives and works there, silver-gleaming in the blue of the Earth? — then one knows: That is cosmic Will. And one has the feeling of standing upon cosmic Will.

So it is when one looks down into the depths of the Earth. And if one looks up to the heights, how is it then? The impression one has is of outspreading cosmic Intelligence. Human intelligence — as I have often said — is not of much value at its present stage. But the heavens at midsummer give one the feeling that cosmic Intelligence is alive everywhere — the intelligence not of single beings but of many beings who live together and within one another. Thus we have up there the outspreading Intelligence woven through with light; the living Intelligence shining forth (yellow) as the polaric opposite of the Will. And while down below we feel — in that blue darkness everything is experienced only as forces, up above we feel — everything is such that in perceiving it we are illumined, permeated, with a feeling of intelligence.

And now within this radiant activity there appears — I cannot put it otherwise — a  form. When we were speaking of autumn, I had to name Michael as the most significant figure who rises before our souls out of the weaving of Nature. As to how Gabriel — to use the old name — enters into the time of Christmas, we shall have more to say. In the last lecture I showed you how at Easter, the season of spring, the figure of Raphael comes before us. He comes in dramatic guise, as the mediator who arouses in us the rightful approach, through reverence and worship, to what the Easter Imagination, the cosmic Easter Imagination, is. And now, for the St. John's time, there comes before us — to describe it in human terms, which are of course bound to be only approximate — an extraordinarily earnest countenance, which arises glowing warmly out of the pervading radiant Intelligence (red head in the yellow, Plate V). We have the impression that this figure forms its body of light out of the radiant Intelligence. And for this to happen at the height of summer, something I have already described must come in: the elemental spirits of the Earth must soar upwards. As they do so, they weave themselves into the shining Intelligence up above, and the shining Intelligence receives them into itself. And out of that gleaming radiance the figure I have just mentioned takes form.

This form was divined by the old instinctive clairvoyance, and we can give it the same name by which it was known then. We can say: In summer, Uriel appears in the midst of the shining Intelligence.

Autumn	Michael
Winter	Gabriel
Spring	Raphael
Summer	Uriel

It is with great earnestness that this representative of the weaving cosmic forces, seeking to embody himself in a vesture of light, appears in the time of summer. There are further things we can observe as the deeds accomplished by Uriel in the radiant light — Uriel, whose own intelligence arises fundamentally from the working together of the planetary forces of our planetary system, supported by the working of the fixed stars of the Zodiac; Uriel, who in his thoughts preserves the thoughts of the cosmos. And so, quite directly, the feeling comes: You clouds of summer, radiant with Intelligence, in which are reflected up above the blue crystal-formations of the earth below, just as these blue crystal-formations mirror in turn the shining Intelligence of the summer clouds — out of your shining there appears in high summer, with earnest countenance, a concentrated Imagination of cosmic Understanding.

Now, the deeds of this embodied cosmic Understanding, this cosmic Intelligence, are woven in light. Through the power of attraction residing in the concentrated cosmic Intelligence of Uriel, the silver forces (white) are drawn upwards, and in the light of this inwardly shining Intelligence, as seen from the Earth, they appear as radiant sunlight, densifying into a glory of gold. One has the immediate feeling that the gleaming silver, streaming up from below, is received by the sunlit radiance above. And the earth-silver — the phrase is quite correct — is changed by cosmic alchemy into the cosmic gold which lives and weaves in the heights.

If we follow these happenings further, on through August, we gain an impression of something that completes the form of Michael, already described. I told you what the sword of Michael is made of, and whence the dragon draws his coiling life. But now, in the radiant beauty which appears spiritually out of the cosmic weaving at the height of summer, we ask ourselves: Whence does Michael, who leads us over to the autumn time of Michaelmas, derive his characteristic raiment — the raiment which first lights up in golden sunshine and then shines forth inwardly as a silver-sparkling radiance within the golden folds? Where does Michael acquire this gold-woven, silver-sparkling raiment? It comes from that which is formed in the heights through the upward-raying silver and the gold that flows to meet it; from the transmutation by the Sun's power of the silver sparkling up from the Earth. As autumn approaches we see how the silver given by the Earth to the cosmos returns as gold, and the power of this transmuted silver is the source of that which goes on in the Earth during winter, as I have described. The Sun-gold, formed in the heights, in the dominion of Uriel, during high summer, passes down to weave and flow through the depths of the Earth, where it animates the elements that in the midst of winter are seeking to become the living growth of the following year.

So you see that when we come to the time of sprouting, springing life, we can no longer speak of matter permeated by spirit, as we speak of the Earth in winter. We have to speak of spirit woven through with matter — that is, with silver and gold.

Of course you must not take all this in a crude sense; you must think of the silver and gold as diluted beyond human measure. Then you will come to feel that all this is a kind of background for the cosmic, light-filled deeds of Uriel, and a clear impression of the countenance and gaze of Uriel will come before you.

We feel a deep longing to understand this remarkable gaze, directed downwards, and we have the impression that we must look around to find out what it signifies. Its meaning first dawns upon the mind when as human beings we learn to look with spiritual eyes still more deeply into the blue, silver-gleaming depths of the Earth in summer. And we see that weaving around these silver-gleaming crystalline rays are shapes — disturbing shapes, I might almost call them — which continually gather and dissolve, gather and dissolve again.

Then we come to perceive — the vision will be different for everyone — that these shapes are human errors which stand out against the natural order of regular crystals here below. And it is on this contrast that Uriel directs his earnest gaze. Here during the height of summer the imperfections of mankind, in contrast to the regularity of the growing crystal forms, are searchingly surveyed. Here it is that from the earnest gaze of Uriel we gain the impression of how the moral is interwoven with the natural.

Here the moral world-order does not exist only in ourselves as abstract impulses. For whereas we habitually look at the realms of Nature and do not ask — is there morality in the growth of plants, or in the process of crystallisation? — now we see how at midsummer human errors are woven into the regular crystals which are formed in the normal course of Nature.

On the other hand, all that is in human virtue and human excellence rises up with the silver-gleaming lines and is seen as the clouds that envelop Uriel (red). It enters into the radiant Intelligence, transmuted into cloud-shaped works of art.

It is impossible to look toward the increasingly earnest gaze of Uriel, directed toward the depths of the Earth, without also seeing there something like wing-like arms, or arm-like wings, raised in earnest admonition, and this gesture by Uriel has the effect of imparting to mankind what I might call the historic conscience. Here at high summer appears the historic conscience, which at the present time has become uncommonly feeble. It appears, as it were, in Uriel's warning gesture.

Of course, you must picture all this as an Imagination. These things are quite real, but I cannot speak of them in the way a physicist speaks of positive and negative, of potential energy and so on. I have to speak in pictures that will come to life in your souls. But everything expressed in these living pictures is reality; it is there.

And now if we have gained the impression of the connection of human morality with the crystalline element below and of human virtues with the shining beauty above, and if we take these connections into our inward experience, the real St. John Imagination will come to meet us. For the St. John Imagination is there, just as we have the Michael Imagination, the Christmas Imagination, the Easter Imagination.

So to spiritual observation there appears, as a kind of culmination, this picture: Above, illuminated as it were by the power of Uriel's eyes, the Dove (white). The silver-sparkling blue below, arising from the depths of the Earth and bound up with human weaknesses and error, is gathered into a picture of the Earth-Mother (blue). Whether she is called Demeter or Mary, the picture is of the Earth-Mother. So it is that in directing our gaze downwards we cannot do otherwise than bring together in Imagination all those secrets of the depths which go to make up the material Mother of all existence; while in all that is concentrated in the flowing form above we feel and experience the Spirit-Father of everything around us. And now we behold the outcome of the working together of Spirit-Father with Earth-Mother, bearing so beautifully within itself the harmony of the earthly silver and the gold of the heights. Between the Father and the Mother we behold the Son (see Plate V). Thus arises this Imagination of the Trinity, which is really the St. John Imagination. The background of it is Uriel, the creative, admonishing Uriel.

That which the Trinity truly represents should not be placed dogmatically before the soul, for then an impression is given that such an idea, or picture, of the Trinity can be separated from the weaving of cosmic life. This is not so. At midsummer the Trinity reveals itself out of the midst of cosmic life, cosmic activity. It stands forth with inwardly convincing power, if — I might say — one has first penetrated into the mysteries of Uriel.

If we were to present St. John's-tide in this way, there would have to be an arched or vaulted background, with the figure of Uriel and his gesture in the manner I have described. And against this background a living picture of the Imagination of the Trinity would have to emerge. Special arrangements would be necessary; the effect would have to be that of painting done instantly, perhaps by making artistic use of vaporous substances or the like. And if the true Imagination of these things is to be called up for people to witness, it must be at St. John's time. At Easter we have the complete picture only when we bring it into dramatic form, with Raphael present as a teacher in the Mystery Play that would have then to be presented; Raphael who leads man into the secrets of healing nature, of the healing cosmos. In a similar way, at St. John's time, all that can then be seen in weaving pictures would have to be transposed into powerful music, so that the cosmic Mystery, as it can be experienced by man at this season of St. John, would speak to our hearts.

We must imagine how all that I have described should find artistic expression, on the one hand, in pictorial and plastic art. But what is experienced in this way must be given life by the musical tones that embody the poetic motif which plays through our souls when we feel our way into great Uriel, active in the light, who calls up in us a powerful impression of the triune, the Trinity. The silver-shining that rays up from below, and is revealed in the form-giving beauty of the light above, must be expressed at St. John's-tide through appropriate musical instruments. Thus we should find, through these musical harmonies, our own inner harmony with the cosmos, for in them the secret of man's living together with the cosmos at St. John's-tide would have to sound forth. All this would have to be given voice in the music, so that in looking up to the heights we would be looking at the weaving gold of the cosmos, and would see the glowing form of Uriel emerging from the light-filled gold and directing his gaze and his gesture down to the Earth, as I have described it. All this would have to be not in any fixed form, but in living movement. That would be one motif, a heavenly motif through which a man can feel himself united, on one side, with the shining cosmic Intelligence.

On the other side, down below, he feels himself united with the tendency to fixed form; with that which is immersed in the bluish darkness from out of which the silvery radiance streams forth. Down there he feels the material foundation of active spiritual being. The Heights become Mysteries, the Depths become Mysteries, and man himself becomes a Mystery within the Mysteries of the Cosmos. Right into his bony system he feels the crystal-forming power. But he feels also how this same power is in cosmic union with the living power of light in the heavens above. He feels how all that comes about through mankind as morality in these Mysteries of the Heights lives and weaves in these Mysteries of the Depths, and in the conjunction between the two. He feels himself no longer sundered from the world around him, but placed within it, united above with the shining Intelligence, in which he experiences, as in the womb of worlds, his own best thoughts. He feels himself united below, right into his bony system, with the cosmic crystallizing force — and again the two united with one another. He feels his death united with the spirit-life of the universe; and he feels how this spirit-life craves to awaken the crystal forces and the silver-gleaming life in the midst of earthly death.

All this, too, would have to sound forth in musical tones — tones which carry these motifs on their wings and make them part of human experience. For these motifs are there. They do not have to be sought out; they can be read from the cosmic activity of Uriel. Here it is that Imagination passes over into Inspiration.

Man, however, lives in a certain sense as an embodied Inspiration, as a being brought into existence by Inspiration, in the Mysteries of the heights and depths and in the Mysteries of their conjunction. He lives in the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Father points upward; the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Mother points downward, the Mysteries which are united by the fact that the Christ, though the working together of the Spirit-Father and the Spirit-Mother, stands directly before the human soul as the sustaining Cosmic Spirit.

That which is woven out of all these cosmic secrets I may put before you somewhat in the following way. It is as though the human being, placed in the midst of all that goes on in high summer, were to feel something like this. The first words endeavor to represent how the gaze of Uriel concentrates itself into Inspiration, united with the Spirit-tones of the whole choir:

Schaue unser Weben Das leuchtende Erregen Das wärmende Leben	}	The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes Und atmend Gestaltetes — Als wesenhaft Waltendes	}	The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine Mit himmlischen Scheine Im waltenden Weltenvereine	}	The Midst The inner being of Man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life.

Live in the earth's sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing,
with the power of true being.

Feel your very bones suffused with heavenly glory
in the presiding yoga of the worlds.

Here in these nine lines are the Mysteries of the Heights, the Mysteries of the Depths, and the Mysteries of the Midst, which are also those of the inner being of man. And then we have the whole gathered up as a cosmic statement of these Mysteries of the Heights, the Depths, and the Midst, sounding out as though with organ and trumpet tones:

Es werden Stoffe verdichtet Es werden Fehler gerichtet Es werden Herzen gesichtet.

Substances are densified, errors are judged and rectified, hearts are sifted.


Here you have that which can permeate the human being at midsummer, supporting him, exalting him, confirming him — the St. John Imagination filled with Inspiration, the St. John Inspiration filled with Imagination — in these words:

Schaue unser Weben Das leuchtende Erregen Das wärmende Leben	}	The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes Und atmend Gestaltetes — Als wesenhaft Waltendes	}	The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine Mit himmlischen Scheine Im waltenden Weltenvereine	}	The Midst The inner being of Man.
Es werden Stoffe verdichtet Es werden Fehler gerichtet Es werden Herzen gesichtet. Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life. Live in the earth's sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing, with the power of true being. Feel your very bones suffused with heavenly glory in the presiding yoga of the worlds. Substances are densified, errors are judged and rectified, hearts are sifted. Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19231012p01.html