107 years ago today Rudolf Steiner laid the foundation stone for the Rosicrucian Temple of the “Frances of Assisi” Lodge in Malsch – April 5-6, 1909

easter resurrection!

Dear Friends – I am resurrecting my practice of writing a poem a day for the ReverseRitual Blog. Here is my offering for today April 5th 2016:

I stare into the Sun

Fore-gathering

Noetic sight

Into squinting syllables.

Watch it pour out honeyed unguents –

A sweet viscus light

Overflowing the ashen cup of night.

My I’s washed

With April snow

Floating like a shaken globe

Falling fragrant on the flower.

~   ~   ~

anthrosofi

The 3rd Stage: (Part 4 of the 12 part series) Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Rosicrucian/Christian Initiation, in relation to the Beatitudes and the 9-fold human being.

Here we see an extension of equanimity into positivity & open mindedness. At this stage we must learn to brave the world morally & intellectually, with a special emphasis on abstaining from anger – even when everything we hold dear is being attacked. To develop the capacity to remain engaged but detached when everything is tumbling down around us – to be able to say “Yes” when the rest of the world says “No”, that is what must be achieved before the next step can be taken. Rudolf Steiner calls this stage: The Crowning with Thorns, which leads us to the Guardian of the Threshold.

This gives rise to a new symptom, or indication, recognized by those who work with the class lessons as the power to detach the faculties of Thinking, feeling, & willing. We must learn to separate & also to re-unite them at will.

So long as some outer event carries us away, we are immature. If we are not masters of our own impulses, our actions may have a shattering influence in all worlds.  The disciple must be able to remain positive & open minded in the face of any event, no matter how catastrophic.

That is the only way to reach freedom.   

The separation of Thinking, feeling, & willing actually produces a change in the brain that is symbolized by the Crown of Thorns.

Dr. Steiner warns that if the disciple has not properly achieved the earlier stages, tries to go too fast, or receives wrong guidance, the change in the brain may lead to insanity – which is an involuntary separation of these faculties without the possibility of their reunification by  the inner will. The disciple must bring about the separation by an act of conscious volition.

So here we meet the phenomenon known as the Guardian of the Threshold, which Steiner calls the appearance of the lower double. It is often dreadful, for it is the offspring of all our urges & unresolved karma – All impulses of will, selfish desires & chaotic thoughts, which appear to the Initiate in visible form – our own personification in the astral world. This form must be met before we can find the higher Self. 

The Guardian of the Threshold, is a phenomenon of astral vision since ancient times. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead it is referred to as the ‘evil pilot’. It is the origin of all the myths concerning the struggles of Heroes with monsters- of Perseus & Hercules of St. George & Siegfried…

So what is our work here? In striving toward this stage of initiation we must be able to find strength within our own Ego under the influence of Christ, to purify our astral bodies here on earth.

The 3rd Beatitude is a help for this: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

It is the antidote to the 3rd layer of the inner earth known as the Vapor Earth. Some of the outer characteristics described by Steiner’s clairvoyant vision speak of it as displaying a will-like expression capable of enormous expansion, like a cancer. “Life present at every point”. The substance is imbued with inner forces resembling passions and urges.

This is a realm of inverted feeling; joy becomes sorrow; sorrow is joy. The original quality of any feeling or sensation is extinguished & converted into its opposite.  

The 3rd Beatitude thru Steiner is: “Blessed and filled in their astral bodies with God are those who become meek thru the power of their own Ego, who can foster calmness and equanimity within themselves; all comfort and well-being on earth shall be their reward, they will inherit the kingdom of earth.”

As we know, the astral body was incorporated into the human being during the Moon evolution, & the Luciferic beings who gained influence over humanity at that time established themselves specifically in the astral body, in an attempt to keep the human being from reaching our highest earthly goal.

This influence was also inscribed into the planetary spheres. We saw on Holy Wednesday of this year an eclipse of the vernal full moon (that’s 3 years in a row that we have had a lunar eclipse during Holy Week) But there was another Planetary alignment happening that day as well! Around the eclipse of the Vernal Full Moon in Libra, which sets up the rhythm of the movable feast of Easter every year, Mercury, ruler of Wednesday, & herald of the spiritual world, also stood in conjunction with Sun & Moon & Earth, gathering up the message humanity offers to the gods.

Then some 40 days later, during the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost, we will see, Mercury will come to another conjunction to return the message from our vernal queries in a rare configuration called a ‘transit’- which only happens 13 or 14 times each century!

~from The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede September, 1928, p. 121 “When Mercury Stood in Libra: The approaching opening of the Goetheanum at Michaelmas brings before the soul that September evening when the foundation stone of the house dedicated to spiritual science was laid at nightfall by Dr. Steiner in a solemn ritual. With an invocation of the hierarchies, the foundation stone, the double dodecahedron, “symbol in its twofold twelvefoldness of the striving human soul, was sunk as microcosm into the macrocosm, “let down “into the condensed kingdom of the elements.” To this stone was added the document that contained the solemn vow of humankind toward the spiritual world. This document closed with the words: “Laid by the Johannes Building Association…on the twentieth day of September 1880, after the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, 1913 after the birth of Christ, when Mercury as evening star stood in Libra, the Balance.”

Mercury, in the same transit that occurred on Holy Wednesday 2016, was a cosmic witness to the laying of the foundation stone at the 1st Goetheanum, the only celestial body mentioned in this sacred ceremony!

When the seed of individuality was planted into the astral body during the Old Moon phase, a possibility for humanity to become disconnected from the spiritual world was also implanted into the Mercury sphere.

By laying the foundation stone at the time of the Mercury transit, was Rudolf Steiner working to heal this possible rift?

Since the descent of Christ to earth, when it became possible for our Ego to be imbued with the Christ Impulse, humanity has been sanctioned to fulfill the mission of the earth by finding the power within to bridle the astral body & drive out the Luciferic influences.

Steiner on the 3rd Beatitude: “Those who can curb their astral body, who are so strong that they cannot be moved to anger without the consent of their Ego, who are even-tempered & inwardly strong enough to overcome the astral body, will fulfill the purpose of earthly evolution.”

So in the 3rd Beatitude we have the formula to overcome the cancerous urges of the 3rd layer of the inner earth.

Where will we find ourselves tomorrow?

Until soon

Blessings & Peace – ~hag = Hazel Archer Ginsberg at ReverseRitual@gmail.com

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