‘I hear the Word of the Sun’

Ok friends – This post will take some deep thought, so go about your day if you don’t want to dig in…If you get thru it, please share your insights…I am quoting from the center point of the whole series of the 82 lectures by Rudolf Steiner on Karmic Relationships – this is a real turning point – in regards to the origin of Time. This has a esoteric connection with the 2nd of the 6 Basic Exercises ‘Control of Will‘. It also brings to light the significance of our Thought-Seed Project. Here are a few inspiring highlights:

Our true being lies in the ego; and it is the ego which both suffers karma and creates it

Steiner drew this on the board at this point

The Ether is like an empty nothingness to you. But when you regard the etheric environment as a totality, you behold the blue sky, of which we also say that it is not really there but that you are gazing into empty space. Now the reason why you see the blue of the sky is that you are actually perceiving the end of the Ether. Thus you behold the Ether as the blue of the heavens. The perception of the blue sky is really and truly a perception of the Ether. We may therefore say: In that we perceive the blue of the sky we are perceiving the universal Ether that surrounds us. In fact the boundary of the supersensible world becomes visible here.

Every star that we see glittering in the heavens is in reality a gate of entry for the Astral. Wherever the stars are twinkling and glittering in towards us, there glitters and shines the AstralIn all this wonderful configuration of radiant light, the invisible and super-sensible astral body of the Cosmos makes itself visible to us…In the starry heavens, we actually behold an expression of the soul-life of the cosmic astral world.

Think how living it all becomes when we know that the stars are an expression of the love with which the astral Cosmos works upon the etheric Cosmos — for this is to express it with perfect truth. Think then of those mysterious processes when certain stars suddenly light up at certain times. Stars that were not there before, light up for a time, and disappear again. For it is true indeed that in epochs when divine Beings desire to work in an especial way from the astral world into the etheric, we behold new stars light up and fade away again. (including comets)

The etheric body is laid aside soon after death. It is only the astral world that shines in towards us through the stars that has significance for the Ego in the life between death and a new birth. And in that world which glistens in towards us through the stars, in that world there live the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies with whom man forms his Karma between death and a new birth.

Indeed, when we follow this Ego in its successive evolutions through lives between birth and death and between death and a new birth, we cannot remain within the world of Space at all. For two successive earthly lives cannot be within the same space. They cannot be within that Universe which is dependent on spatial co-existence. Here therefore we go right out of Space and enter into Time. This is actually so. We go out of Space and come into the pure flow of Time when we contemplate the Ego in its successive lives on Earth.

Now consider this, my dear friends. In Space, Time is still present, of course, but within this world of Space we have no means of experiencing Time in itself. We always have to experience Time through Space and spatial processes. For example, if you wish to experience Time, you look at the clock, or, if you will, at the course of the sun. What do you see? You see the various positions of the hands of the clock or of the sun. You see something that is spatial. Through the fact that the positions of the hand or of the sun are changed, through the fact that spatial things are present to you as changing, you gain some idea of Time. But of Time itself there is really nothing in this spatial perception. There are only varied spatial configurations, varied positions of the hands of the clock, varied positions of the sun. You only experience Time itself when you come into the sphere of the soul’s experience. There you do really experience Time, but there you also go out of Space. There, Time is a reality, but within the earthly world of Space, Time is no reality.

David Brook

On Earth we experience Time only through Space — through points in Space, through the positions of spatial things. On Earth we do not experience Time in its reality at all. Once you grasp this, you will say: “Really to enter into Time we must go out of Space, we must put away all things spatial.”

Thoughts about repeated lives on Earth were possessed only by those human beings and groups that were able to conceive Time in its pure essence, Time in its spaceless character…

Van James

And now he may gaze upon the Christmas Mystery — the new-born Child, the Representative of Humanity on Earth, who, inasmuch as he is entering into childhood, is born into this world of Space. In the fullness and majesty of this Christmas thought, as he gazes on the Child that is born on Christmas Night, he exclaims: “Ex Deo Nascimur — I am born out of the Divine, the Divine that weaves and surges through the world of Space.”

When a man has felt this, when he has permeated himself through and through with it, then he may also recall what Anthroposophy has revealed to us about the meaning of the Earth. The Child on whom we are gazing is the outer sheath of That which is now born into Space. But whence is He born, that He might be brought to birth in the world of Space? According to what we have explained to-day, it can only be from Time. From out of Time the Child is born.

Ron Candrell

If we then follow out the life of this Child and His permeation by the Spirit of the Christ-Being, we come to realise that this Being, this Christ-Being, comes from the Sun. Then we shall look up to the Sun, and say to ourselves: “As I look up to the Sun, I must behold in the sunshine that Time, which in the world of Space is hidden. Within the Sun is Time, and from out of the Time that weaves and works within the Sun, Christ came forth, came out into Space, on to the Earth.”

What have we then in Christ on Earth? In Christ on Earth we have That, which coming from beyond Space, from outside of Space, unites with the Earth.

Ananda Telli

When we look up from the Earth to the Sun, we are at the same time looking into the flow of Time.

Now from this there follows something of great significance. Man only looks up to the Sun in the right way (even if it be but in his mind) when, as he gazes upwards, he forgets Space and considers Time alone. For in truth, the Sun does not only radiate light, it radiates Space itself, and when we are looking into the Sun we are looking out of Space into the world of Time. The Sun is the unique star that it is because when we gaze into the Sun we are looking out of Space. And from that world, outside of Space, Christ came to men.

Peter fenffe

At the time when Christianity was founded by Christ on Earth, man had been all too long restricted to the mere Ex Deo Nascimur, he had become altogether bound up in it, he had become a Space-being pure and simple.

Christ came to bring the element of Time again to men, and when the human heart, the human soul, the human spirit, unite themselves with Christ, then man receives once more the stream of Time that flows from Eternity to Eternity. What else can we human beings do when we die, i.e. when we go out of the world of Space, than hold fast to Him who gives Time back to us again? At the Mystery of Golgotha man had become so great an extent a being of Space that Time was lost to him. Christ brought Time back again to men.

Joffa Boschart

If, then, in going forth from the world of Space, men would not die in their souls as well as in their bodies, they must die in Christ, We can still be human beings of Space, and say: Ex Deo Nascimur, and we can look to the Child who comes forth from Time into Space, that he may unite Christ with humanity. But since the Mystery of Golgotha we cannot conceive of death, the bound of our earthly life, without this thought: “We must die in Christ.” Otherwise we shall pay for our loss of Time with the loss of Christ Himself, and, banished from Him, remain held spell-bound. We must fill ourselves with the Mystery of Golgotha. In addition to the Ex Deo Nascimur, we must find the In Christo Morimur. We must bring forth the Easter thought in addition to the Christmas thought. Thus the Ex Deo Nascimur lets the Christmas thought appear before our souls, and in the In Christo Morimur the Easter thought.

The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself. And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created Space. Outside of Space it is a movement in Time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the Time-evolution of the Sun-Being.

To His intimate disciples Christ spoke these words: “Behold the life of the Earth; it is related to the life of the Cosmos. When you look out on the Earth and the surrounding Cosmos, it is the Father whose life permeates this Universe. The Father-God is the God of Space. But I make known to you that I have come to you from the Sun, from Time — Time that receives man only when he dies. I have brought you myself from out of Time, (“Time,” as here used, is what we usually designate as “Eternity”, i.e. a continuous, unbroken time-experience.) If you receive me, you receive Time as eternity, and you will not be held spell-bound in Space. But you find the transition from the one trinity — Physical, Etheric and Astral — to the other trinity, which leads from the Etheric and Astral to Spirit-Selfhood. Spirit-Selfhood is not to be found in the earthly world, just as the Earthly-Physical is not to be found in the Cosmos. But I bring you the message of it, for I am from the Sun.”

When those to whom Christ revealed these things had let the revelation sink deep into their being, then the moment came when they experienced the working of this mighty concept, in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. At first they felt the falling away, the discarding of the earthly-Physical as death. But then the feeling came; This is not death, but in place of the physical of the Earth, there now dawns upon us the Spirit-Selfhood of the Universe. “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.”

Thus may we regard the threefold nature of the one half of the year. We have the Christmas thought — Ex Deo Nascimur; the Easter thought — In Christo Morimur; and the Whitsun thought — Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

In the interconnection of the Christmas, Easter and Whitsun festivals we understand the human freedom on Earth.

It is indeed the language of the stars which sounds towards us from the thoughts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide; from the Christmas thought, inasmuch as the Earth is a star within the Universe; from the Easter thought inasmuch as the most radiant of stars, the Sun, gives us his gifts of grace; and from the Whitsun thought inasmuch as that which lies hidden beyond the stars lights into the soul, and lights forth again from the soul in the fiery tongues of Pentecost.

Meditate this through, ponder it well; then for all the descriptive foundations I have already given you for an understanding of Karma, you will gain a right foundation of inner feeling.

Try to let the Christmas, Easter and Whitsun thoughts, in the way I have expressed them to you to-day.

Bert Kaplin

Just as once upon a time at the first Whitsun Festival something shone forth from each one of the disciples, so the thought of Pentecost should now become alive again for our anthroposophical understanding. Something must light up and shine forth from our souls…about the inner connections of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide”.

~Rudolf Steiner’s 82 ‘Karmic Relationships’ lectures, which he gave after the Christmas Conference, from February thru September, 1924 –  Lecture # 49 in the series, was not included in the English volumes. It only appears in the lectures on ‘The Festivals and Their Meaning’ as ‘The Whitsuntide Festival – Its place in the study of Karma’, given in Dornach on 4 June 1924.

Michael Richardson

I hear the Word of the Sun,
It reads:
Let light shine into your heart,
To strengthen your human power.
Heart light shining
You will be healthy
Through the Solar Word
”.
~Rudolf Steiner, 6 November 1922

Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 
4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
18 December 2021 – from 11 am – 4 pm

Handcrafted gifts, décor & toys
Featuring Live Music, Puppetry & Candle Dipping!!!

If you would like to be a vendor contact Elizabeth Kelly 
eilisaineariadne@gmail.com

Dear friends – Please Join Us as move toward the Winter Festival Season:

Thursday 23 December 2021 – The Eve of the Eve –
11 am PT / 12 pm MT / 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET / 7 pm UTC

A Christmas Festival with Heart-Opening Movement by Lucien Dante Lazar
& a talk by our Christian Community Priest Rev. Jeana Lee

‘Divine Love and the Holy Child Within’

This will be a hybrid in-person & Zoom event
Featuring our 2 camera technology with Mary Spalding

Doors open at 12:30 pm (Zoom Room open 12:45 pm for Social time)
Snacks to Share Encouraged

Suggested donation $15.00
cash payment at the door or via the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal donation site –

*Please make a note on the first line – type in: “Christmas Fest”!
The Festival will be recorded

Time: Dec 23, 2021 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=Vk1XcDJqT0lKeHYzWXZJNlRYNlRvZz09
Meeting ID: 705 293 1041
Passcode: Christmas

For more info. Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

The Epic of Gilgamesh
Storytelling during the Holy Nights 2021-2022
Hosted by the Anthroposophical Society in America 

”The purpose of a story is to be an ax that breaks up the ice within us.”
~ Franz Kafka

Click to Register! 

All around the world the season of midwinter is the traditional time for community bonding through storytelling. In laying the groundwork for the 100-year anniversary of the Christmas Conferencewe bring the ancient Sumerian saga “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to life. Rudolf Steiner explored this story in Occult History during the Holy Nights of 1910; and again with the lectures “World History in the Light of Anthroposophy” given during those fateful Holy Nights in 1923 for the re-founding of the Society. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest written tale on Earth. The Sumerian version dates from around 3000 B.C. Later it was compiled from 12 clay tablets written in Akkadian cuneiform. 

It is the “Hero’s Journey” of human evolution, a story of friendship, and a quest for the meaning of life – revealing Steiner’s core mission of bringing karma and reincarnation to the west. 

Myths, fairytales, historical epics, and sagas open us up to powerful archetypes behind the human condition, revealing clues to ourselves – from the past, the present, and the future. What will we uncover about ourselves and each other during this year’s Holy Nights adventure in storytelling?

Tune in for any or all of the episodes of this dramatic reading, re-worked by Hazel Archer from various translations, and featuring friends from around the world.

WhatThe Epic of Gilgamesh: Story Telling during the Holy Nights hosted by the ASA, Hazel Archer, and friends.

Time: 22 minutes daily at 9 am PT / 10 am MT / 11 am CT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UTC

Dates:  December 24, 2021- January 5, 2022 for 13 consecutive days  
Can’t join us live? No problem. Each gathering will be recorded and posted on our Holy Nights page (link will be emailed upon registration).

HowRegister Here!  Then check your email for confirmation with the Zoom registration link. 

Cost: This event is free with suggested donations of $25, $50, $100
Your donations help us create events like this one!
Register Here! 
www.anthroposophy.org/holynights

Eurythmy for the Holy Nights with Jan Ranck
‘Tuning to the Stars’:
Sacred Geometry, the Planets and the Zodiac

LIVE IN-PERSON 26-30 Dec. 2021
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4 pm – 5 pm
And at 7pm on 31 Dec. as part of our Annual NYE Gathering (details below)

$100 for all 6 sessions, or $22 for each individual session.

Make your payment using the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal
or QuickPay with Zelle to chase@rschicago.org
(Please indicate in the notes that it is for the “Holy Nights Eurythmy”)

Cash at the door, or send a check to:
Rudolf Steiner Branch
4249 North Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618-2953
USA

For more info. Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

* Jan Ranck – Born in the USA, Jan Ranck studied music and comparative arts at Indiana University in Bloomington. She accompanied the London Stage Group on their 1976 USA tour and went on to study eurythmy at the Eurythmeum in Dornach with Lea van der Pals, where she subsequently taught. In 1984 she joined the faculty of The London School of Eurythmy. She left there to complete her eurythmy therapy training in Stuttgart in 1989, moving afterward to Israel, where she founded and directed the Jerusalem Eurythmy Ensemble (1990) and the Jerusalem Academy of Eurythmy (1992) and was an instructor in the Jerusalem Waldorf Teacher Bachelor Program in David Yellin Academic College from 1999. Jan has held Master Classes at various venues worldwide, including the Goetheanum and the MA Program in Eurythmy held at Emerson College and Spring Valley. She is the representative for Israel in the International Eurythmy Therapy Forum.

Friday 31 December 2021
Doors open at 6:30 pm 

Join us for our Annual NYE Conscious Community Gathering –
The Theme for 2022 is Cabaret – a Cultural Sharing!

All are invited to take the stage with an offering.

Circles Edge & other Waldorf alum will also perform

Please bring Festival Food & Drink to share

$20 Cash at the door or Make your payment using the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal or QuickPay with Zelle to chase@rschicago.org
(Please indicate in the notes that it is for the “NYE”)

All proceeds go to support the Rudolf Steiner Branch – the young People hosting & The Band (Can’t make it? Send a $ gift PayPal)

7 – 8 pm – Eurythmy with Jan Ranck (separate fee $22 see above)

8 pm – Potluck Social

8:30 pm – Circles Edge & Friends warm the stage & host the open mic

10:10 pm – Thought-Seed Circle

10:30 pm – Clean-up…;)

For more info. Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

Tuesday 4 January 2022 – (Zoom Details TBA) 
11 am PT / 12 pm MT / 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET / 7 pm UTC

a talk with Christian Community Priest & Lenker for North America
Rev. Craig Wiggins: ‘From Bethlehem to Golgotha: Birthing the Christ within at Epiphany’

31 thoughts on “‘I hear the Word of the Sun’

  1. Could this thread remains open for a longer period of time. Is that possible? If anything should be discussed in depth, especially in regards to anthroposophy, it should be this. Without a proper cosmo conception, we have no bearings on reality. When referring to ‘reality’ I mean the whole thing… supersensible and sense perceptible world.

    That boundary in the sky, there are many other indications of it such as the phases of the moon, as in, the dark part is literally outside the ‘boundary’. So what obscures the moon from being as full as the Sun? Wouldn’t that be the Eighth Sphere? Isn’t this why we are unable to perceive the supersensible world? So, this doesn’t necessarily mean the supersensible world only resides in the heavens beyond the blue sky, even though celestial bodies are ‘up there’ but it is really whether or not we can perceive the supersensible anyway. The only thing that keeps us from perceiving it is the Eighth Sphere. I cannot see any other cosmo conception complete without factoring this in.

    1. Hi Kyle, Yes this thread must continue to weave.
      I agree the cosmo-conception (to steal back Max Heindel’s phrase which we got from Steiner) is what is missing, The Isis-Sophia = The Wisdom of Christ is what is missing.
      But as you say we must also consider the sense perceptible world & our calling to spiritualize it. To do that we must re-member that the great cosmic beings actually live in every part of our body. For instance the Constellation of Pisces, The Sphere of the Human Being, rules the feet. The Constellation of Aquarius, The Sphere of the Angeloi, Rules the calves, & ankles & on up the ladder…

      The ‘boundary’ is really only in our limited thinking, the spheres intersect. The physical meets the etheric which meets the Astral etc in the microcosm & in the Macrocosm.

      The moon was once part of the earth as one body it, so I don’t really get your reference to the eighth sphere – to me this realm is in the inner layers of the earth, & it is part of our work to redeem this realm.

      Most modern human beings cannot ‘see’ the supersensible world, but that is because we had to loose that ability so that we can gain it back thru our own efforts.

      It’s true that the eighth sphere is the fortress of evil, & that the beings working from this ‘place’ into our world have a mission to stop us from achieving our highest destiny = which is to fully manifest on all levels the Christ impulse. That is why we have to really strive to take up the indications that Steiner has left us, the safe, healing path of Anthroposophia…

      1. Hi Hazel, yes, you quite right about that term (cosmo-conception)! I acquired that book sometime ago, and thought how ‘Steinerish’ it was before I knew the connection between Heindel and Steiner.

        I am following you on our calling to spiritualise our sense perceptible world. These patterns and correlations sure do exist, like your example of the zodiacal ‘man’. There surely is type of spiritual mechanistic quality to it all, and by ‘mechanistic’ I’m referring more to the Time aspect. And of course, the Sun totally embodies it, and reminds us everyday of it.

        So we have interconnected and overlapping ‘spheres’, which contradicts the notion that perceived Time is only a by product of orbiting bodies (Earth, Mars, and so on) spinning at mind-boggling imperceptible speeds around the Sun.

        Steiner has mentioned we are (were) intended to be Lords of Earth, so we cannot physically leave it while still in physical bodies. This is an impossibility.

        That is why the notion of the Eighth Sphere stands out. You have said it is a fortress of Evil. I do agree. But then, what is Evil? In a Manichean perspective, if you distill it down to the very essence, Evil is ‘form’, and Good is ‘formless’. We then have quite a predicament here, for we have to work with Evil for we are ‘fallen’ creatures by way of our very own ‘Form’. Art and Science can also be described as Luciferic and Ahrimanic. So, Evil has it’s place. I can’t recall the exact lecture but it is referring to the Occult movement in the 19th century… Steiner dedicates only one lecture to the Eighth Sphere. This sphere is why we cannot see the supersensible world without effort, if I’m not mistaken. So that right there is a purpose: it requires us to build that ‘will’, for us to individually redeem ourselves, and hopefully that spreads and influences others to do the same.

        It is already in mainstream culture, the Matrix. Although it’s described as a digital world, it’s quite analogous to what the Eighth Sphere is.

        It’s difficult to focus on one theme here, so forgive me if I’m all over the place! But I just would like to share, that perceiving celestial bodies as spiritual spheres, not rocks floating in space, changes everything. I cannot look at the Sun and think for one second that it is this massive fire ball we are spining around. That just seems ridiculous to me, yet, here I am holding on some ‘archaic’ notion, yet it opens up so many doors. The Sun is giving us life and there is concsious energy emanating from it! Modern man doesn’t pay attention enough to it. We shouldn’t even be working or doing anything else when the Sun is rising and setting, we should observe and take it all in. When we do… then we radiate the Sun from within our own being, and put it outwards to everyone we come in contact with. It works, and also it’s easy to look at the Sun when one’s heart is open… the eyes won’t hurt if the heart is open.

        Many variables here. My last notion is that even if one cannot ‘percieve’ the supersensible directly, one can still have faith in it, and be influenced(?) by it. That is why I refer to a cosmo-conception, because that stays in the background of everything one does in daily life. That faith and morality is, I would gather, the most important factor here. Abilities alone does not promise anyone redemption.

        Thanks for letting me share! Best, Kyle

        1. I am struck by what your said here: ‘In a Manichean perspective, if you distill it down to the very essence, Evil is ‘form’, and Good is ‘formless’.
          That notion does not resonate with me as I think of the Manichean perspective as the impulse to redeem evil. Form is not inherently evil- The Christ came into the form of a human being to show us that we can redeem our fallen being on every level from the formless aspects of our being all the way into the physical sheath.

          1. Agree with you Hazel, that form is not inherently evil. Our 3-dimensional existence requires form in order to discern the force that’s acting in a realm unseen to us, a force that would originate from a being (or beings). That being, and the force it’s using, could be either good or evil. We could say that form is a manifestation of the activity of the gods – our sun, Steiner says in GA 132, Lecture 2, The Sun Embodiment of the Earth, is in the form it is as a result of the sacrifices of the thrones to the cherubim. This form brings several benefits to us, one of which is that we call time.

          2. Hi Hazel. This subject is difficult to express. I had put it in absolutes, and of course, it’s not a black and white, this or that, issue – concerning Good and Evil. Perhaps it’s my own lack of interpretive skills, but I took that right from GA 93.

            “We must explain the confluence of Life and Form out of the cooperation of Good and Evil. Life becomes form through finding opposition. It does not all at once express itself in a form. Only consider how Life hurries from form to form. Life has fashioned the lily, then Life overcomes the Form and it passes over into the seed out of which a new form will be born. Life is formless it could (not live out its own nature in itself. Life is everywhere.”

            Add this on top of the phenomena of the Right Sphere… And here Good finds it’s opposition. If we did not have the Eighth Sphere, we would have floating heads. So yes, this is part of our redemption. Spiritualizing ourselves, or redeeming, is essential breaking from Form. It may sound very un poetic of me to put it that way… bit Steiner indicates this all over the place – apocalypse of St John, for example. That Abyss is the Eighth Sphere becoming densified. I couldn’t even possibly make this stuff up.

            1. What I think you are getting at can be summed up in the Michael Revelation:
              The 1st Michael Revelation: The Word Becomes Flesh –
              The 2nd Michael Revelation: The Flesh Becomes Spirit

              1. And of course there are always going to be forces that try to keep us from this…
                So that is why we work with Spiritual Science to meet with consciousness these opposing forces.
                It is easy to be asleep to how the 8th Sphere pulls us in, so being vigilant in the Great Work of Knowing Thyself is square one…
                Then we can humbly bring in the Christic impulses that assist us in the work of spiritualizing matter…

            2. Hi Kyle. The 8th sphere is not a subject I choose to dwell on, but I did listen to a Steiner lecture (Lecture 5 from The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century, titled The Eight Sphere), and he says some interesting things; one of those being that due to its “imaginary” nature, we can’t use the same language system as we use here on Earth. This means that we’re talking two different things when you talk about Form in the 8th sphere, and what we commonly associate with Form on Earth, in our 3-dimensional consciousness.

              And yes, Hazel, the two Michaelic revelations you mention are relevant – Michael, as the “countenance of Christ”, is setting forth a revelation about the impulse of love that Christ demonstrated, and it’s that love that keeps us out of danger as far as anything to do with the 8th sphere is concerned.

    2. “Imagination places the future world for us either above or below or in reincarnation. We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.” ~Novalis

      1. If I recall, Novalis was very much in love. I wouldn’t doubt that much of his understanding of the universe was grasped by seeing the depths of the universe in his lovers eyes, and how the universe looks back at him, and through him, with the deepest form of love anyone could possibly experience.

  2. Anthroposophy is unique in declaring there were two Jesus boys. The three wise men are described in the Gospel of Matthew, and the shepherds in the Gospel of Luke. Anthroposophy indicates that the two boys became combined at the age of twelve when the child of the Matthew gospel, the Solomon Jesus, sacrifices its physical life for the child of the Luke gospel, the Nathan Jesus, and for 18 years they remained spiritually combined until the Nathan Jesus reached 30 years of age. Then, just before the Baptismal Event of John, the Individuality behind the Solomon Jesus, Zarathustra, departs the sheaths of Jesus in order to make way for the entry of Christ. Now, though, Zarathustra is inseparably linked to Christian evolution and history as the Master Jesus Who flows on and on with the Advent of the Christ and its inevitable forward progress. For example, the Rhineland Mystics were all influenced spiritually in some way by the Master Jesus. As well, Rudolf Steiner was influenced in a certain way by the Master Jesus.

    1. I wrote this simply to indicate that the Epiphany story, which celebrates the 12 days of Christmas from December 25th to January 6th, is an amalgamation of two stories involving the birth of two separate (but related) Jesus children. Only Rudolf Steiner fully described this phenomenon, which was made possible by exact clairvoyance. The full realization comes with the birth of Christ as the Earth Spirit coming from out of the Sun Sphere on January 6th, which completes the 12 days. Thus, the symbolizing of the Shepherds and Magi together is an homage to the Christ, who received the destiny of the children born under different circumstances. Steiner indicated that the birth of the two boys was separated by just a few months, which makes the proximity to the summer solstice and winter solstice the likely demarcation. Solomon Jesus first, and then the Nathan Jesus at Christmas.

  3. Okay, I’ve taken more time to read this Hazel. You did warn us, that it’d require deep thought. I can see why this was left out of the English translation of Karmic Relationships.

    The point at which Steiner loses me is this: ” You only experience Time itself when you come into the sphere of the soul’s experience. There you do really experience Time, but there you also go out of Space. There, Time is a reality, but within the earthly world of Space, Time is no reality.”

    From this point on he’s lost me – his conviction that Time and Space cannot be combined, that one must leave Space in order to comprehend Time. Everything he says from that point on becomes murky for me, because my understanding is that Earth is the place where Time and Space do combine to give us exactly what is mentioned – our soul’s experience. Or, to use John’s words from the beginning of the Revelation: “I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation (Time) and kingdom (Space) and patience of Jesus Christ.” (1:9). I think it’s so sad that Steiner and Cayce never met – it’d have made for some fascinating insights. Cayce told us that here on Earth we live in a trinity of dimensions, one of those being the trinity of Time, Space and Patience. This insight may have been based on the verse from the Revelation, but this added dimension of Patience is also based on Jesus’ words, where He said that it’s in patience that we possess our souls (Luke 21:19). This is what Christ descended for – to give us an example of how we might possess our souls. The highlights of how Christ did this are given by Steiner, in the trinity of festivals, but the absolute highlight has to be the rending (tearing) of the veil in the temple, from top to bottom (very significant that it was from top to bottom). This, as Emil Bock points out, makes Christianity the religion that “opens the heavens” to us. This is how we can possess our souls. It’s not by gazing into the stars as portals of light, because the Sun of righteousness has risen with healing in its wings within us. We are now the temples that contain the God within, because that veil has been rent. We now have access into the presence of the Father of Lights, the presence that was denied humanity throughout the period of the Old Testament, when only the High Priest could enter, and that only once a year and with many requirements. That physical longing that every living thing has for the Sun (Time) has now been met in our souls, and we no longer need to gaze longingly at the Sun as something separated from us, since it has arisen in us.

    Getting back to Time and Space, there are many deep thoughts which could be discussed from this Lecture 49, but my understanding is somewhat different from Steiner’s. How sad that we can’t discuss this with him.

    1. Interesting that you end your thought with: ‘How sad that we can’t discuss this with him’.
      For me this lecture shows us that we can!
      Steiner is not now holding that name – but his individuality, like all of us potentially, are eternal beings – so he may be on earth in space incarnated in another body, or outside space in eternal time with the spiritual beings – either way his entelechy can be accessed. Perhaps we don’t have the clairvoyant skills to have a conversation consciously, but we can be like Nicodemus & meet him in the ‘night’ – meeting soul to soul to receive insights…Haven’t you ever taken a question or a concept consciously into your sleep & then perhaps after some time…woken up with a deeper resonance…?

  4. I have to say, Hazel, when I read these words of Steiner, I think the person was right in saying that Steiner was experimenting with drugs, such as L.S.D. His intentions were right, but his mind was losing its foothold on reality.

    In other words, his concepts were correct, but the drugs were producing an hallucinatory effect on his mind.

    This is only my conjecture, so I’m only being honest with my reaction to what I’m reading. Not meaning to be critical at all; in fact, if Steiner was present, I wouldn’t hesitate to bring it up with him personally.

    1. ha, interesting reaction…
      Since Steiner never did drugs (except coffee & I also heard he did snuff when he was younger) Perhaps he is bringing us a great truth which is hard to comprehend…
      my take is that it is a deeply complex mystery of how Time (Christ as a Sun Being) creates Space

      1. Thanks Hazel, for your interesting take on it – I’ll give it another read with that in mind. Maybe there was something blocking me from understanding him the first time round.
        Cheers.

        1. It is a long passage, but he is really setting something up in each realm, starting with the image of the blue sky as an image of the etheric.
          I probably should have broken it up to make it more digestible, but it really all leads to the meaning of the earth = The Christ deed – which is transforming not only the Earth but our entire existence.

          “As I look up to the Sun, I must behold in the sunshine that Time, which in the world of Space is hidden. Within the Sun is Time, and from out of the Time that weaves and works within the Sun, Christ came forth, came out into Space, on to the Earth.”

          When we look up from the Earth to the Sun, we are at the same time looking into the flow of Time.

          For in truth, the Sun does not only radiate light, it radiates Space itself, and when we are looking into the Sun we are looking out of Space into the world of Time. The Sun is the unique star that it is because when we gaze into the Sun we are looking out of Space. And from that world, outside of Space, Christ came to men.

          Christ came to bring the element of Time again to men, and when the human heart, the human soul, the human spirit, unite themselves with Christ, then man receives once more the stream of Time that flows from Eternity to Eternity”

          1. Yes, I’ve experienced receiving the answer to questions that come from somewhere in that time of sleep, but it has been a while since I had something pressing enough to do that – maybe this situation will bring something up that requires an answer.

            It occurred to me in meditation this morning that the answer may lie in that mysterious phrase he’s put into brackets – “(“Time,” as here used, is what we usually designate as “Eternity”, i.e. a continuous, unbroken time-experience.)” Is Steiner using the word Time to mean a being? A being who has sacrificed their eternal nature for the purpose of allowing souls to experience themselves? Because otherwise this bracketed phrase makes no sense to me, since Eternity and Time cannot coexist – one cannot be in both simultaneously. When I mentioned a trinity of Time, Space and Patience, I was thinking of what we are living through in our Earth experience, where Time has been broken up into rhythmic portions for our development. But if he is disregarding this understanding of Time, and thinking of a being, (which I can see him doing, knowing a bit of how he thinks), then we’re not going to understand each other, at least not until we’re on the same page.

            I do agree with you that there’s a possibility of his communicating with us, and I think this is the value in a group discussion such as you provide. It leaves an opportunity for that to happen.

            1. Yes, I think of Time as a being. & the essence of this being is that it, like all spiritual beings, is eternal – it’s lesson to us is that we come to Earth to meet the Christ in the realm of Time which the Christ created as the Being of the Sun, so that we can learn to become eternal beings…

              I love this image you set here: ‘…A being who has sacrificed their eternal nature for the purpose of allowing souls to experience themselves?’

              I think Time & Eternity can coexsist.

              That is the gift.

              Why does time have to be broken? Isn’t it really more like a spiraling helix? Like the image of the constellation of the crab.

              And the rhythm lives in our etheric body, which ebbs & flows.

              Granted at this point when we cross the threshold of death it seems like our time in Time is broken, but is it?
              Doesn’t it just take a different form – that outbreath that allows us to re-member we are eternal beings – that pralaya where the most powerful spiritual forces can penetrate us…
              Just like now when everything seems to be dead but is in truth the most alive…

              1. This is a very interesting exchange between Hazel and Maverick. I have yet to pursue all its salient features but what comes to mind first is that Rudolf Steiner’s lecture of June 4, 1924, is not a Karma lecture, but a lecture on Pentecost as it relates to Christmas and Easter. This is why Steiner invokes EDN, ICM, and PSSR throughout and not on any kind of karma situation.

                This is why it is absent from the English edition of GA 236. No conspiracy at all. It is a Festival lecture given just before Steiner goes to Koberwitz in order to effect the pentecostal renewal of agriculture.

                What is most important, and Hazel has given the testimony to this in her analysis, is that Christ is the Being of Time from out of Space, and this is how the temporal element was first added to the spatial element in order to make humankind what it is today. Thus, Christ adds the coveted fourth dimension to the equation of the previous three, which are all spatial, and this gives us our present parameter, which is actually a fifth parameter. Consciousness in the Fifth Cultural Epoch.

                This is the gist of this lecture given in the midst of GA 236. Christ is the Being of Time from out of Space, and Man was a rather spatial being until this entry of Christ occurred. Today, time predominates in a rather more narrow scope, and yet it can be shown that the Christ was the progenitor. Space is three-dimensional, but has expanded infinitely due to Christ bearing Time. This is the vision we need to explore.

                Something about LSD lost me. Was Maverick trying to make a connection? I’ll look, but this was not a Karma lecture. Steiner was gearing up for an interlude based entirely on Pentecost 1924.

              2. Don’t be alarmed, Steve, by the LSD comment I made; Hazel was patient with me in posting my remarks. I didn’t give Hazel’s post the deep thought she warned about, and then Steiner lost me with some of his remarks, which I mentioned in a second, more thoughtful reply the following day.

                The LSD thought actually came from a couple of sources – a person in a Steiner Facebook post was wondering if Steiner had dabbled in it, and someone in a study group also asked if there was any evidence of him experimenting. I believe psychologists were experimenting with it in the 1900’s; it’s actually how Stanislav Grof got started as a young psychologist – he has moved on and left it behind, and is now making use of his “holotropic breathwork” as a more legitimate means of achieving the same hallucinatory effects on the brain. I only mention this to explain that I wasn’t trying to be critical of Steiner – there were legit experiments being done.

                And thanks for pointing out the festival nature of the lecture.

              3. Hi Maverick,

                This lecture coming in the midst of the KR series, volume II, was indeed a lecture which wanted to encompass Pentecost in relation to Easter and Christmas. These are the first three in the series, which leads to Saint John’s Tide at Summer, Michaelmas at Fall, and then a mysterious *next* in the second series, which Steiner never was able to elaborate for the cause of his final illness.

                Relative to LSD, which is humorous but not alarming in any way, Steiner has been accused by his opponents over the years as being psychotic, schizophrenic, megalomaniac, or any other version in between. You heard it from a Facebook nerd, so go figure your response.

                Now, here is what you need to understand. There is very minimal relationship between Steiner and Cayce. Steiner was a clairvoyant on the astral plane, and Cayce was a clairvoyant on the etheric plane. Thus, Steiner was able to stand up at the lectern, while Cayce had to recline on the couch and go into a trance mode in order to reveal. Big difference.

              4. We can analyze these two men, as humans are wont to do, but the fact remains that both were used by Michael to advance the Christ message in this age of the consciousness soul. I see them as a continuation of the two Michaelic streams, such as we read of in Luigi Morelli’s book, where he speaks of the Aristotelian and Platonic streams, to be followed by the shepherd and wise men streams, who came together at the birth of the child. Morelli speaks of both streams occurring in Steiner, but he fails to take into account Cayce’s role.

                There are advantages to lying on a couch and knowing nothing of what has just been said; it became blatantly clear that the Source of the information coming through Cayce had nothing to do with the man himself. Cayce left us 14,300 readings kept by the Association for Research and Enlightenment, while Steiner left us many books and lectures kept by his organization. One thing they shared was their view of the centrality of the Christ being; coming together just like the shepherds and wise men did over the child of Mary.

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