Assumption :
- The act of taking to, or upon oneself: assumption of an obligation. The taking over of another’s debts or obligations.
- The act of taking possession or asserting a claim: assumption of command.
- The act of taking for granted: assumption of a false theory.
- Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof; a supposition: a valid assumption.
- Presumption; arrogance.
- Logic, A minor premise.
- Assumption in Christianity: The taking up of the Virgin Mary into heaven in body & soul after her death, observed as a feast on August 15.
From the Latin: assūmptiō <assūm(ere) to take up
August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary. This mysterious event, which represents the 1st fruits of the Resurrection, comes during what the ancients called the season of Lammas or Loaf-mass, the Cross-Quarter between, the Summer Solstice (St. John’s) & the Fall Equinox (Michaelmas). This is the time when John Barleycorn is cut & ground to make our bread; it is a time of sacrifice, of death, in service to life; a time when we leave the sleepiness of summer, to begin the conscious work of harvest.
Also at this cross quarter time we experience the Perseid meteor showers – our wake-up call – so we can activate & forge the iron in our blood for the battle that takes place at Michaelmas.
It came to me clearly that Michaelmas is a reversed Easter festival. Easter reveals 1st: the mystery of death, (conscious sacrifice) -then resurrection, (transformation). Michaelmas, a festival of the future-now, gives us 1st: a resurrection of our soul forces, thru the awakening of our heart-thinking – then a conscious death, the courage to make a mindful sacrifice; to give up nature consciousness to achieve self-consciousness & ultimately to sacrifice the self – “Not me, but Christ in me” to gain spirit consciousness.
And the Feast of the Assumption is a symbol of this sacrifice, a conscious death; the transformation that makes it possible to go into the spiritual world awake. – The life & death of the 3 Mary’s show us a way to live a life that prepares us for a worthy death, which is a revolution, like the sacrifice the caterpillar makes to become a butterfly. A conscious death in the physical world is a Resurrection into the Spiritual World.
So today, on this Feast of the Assumption of Mary, we have an opportunity to remember that thru our work with Anthroposophy, individually & in community, we too can re-emerge like the butterfly, enlivened by the Sun, fortified by cosmic iron from the stars, ready to work with Michael & the being of Anthroposophia, in full wakefulness.
~hag
15 August 2020 –“Speaking with the Stars”: August is prime Milky Way time! After dark, the Milky Way extends up from low in the the south (where it runs between the tail of Scorpius and the spout of the Sagittarius Teapot), up & left across Aquila & thru the big Summer Triangle very high in the east, & on down through Cassiopeia to Perseus rising low in the north-northeast.
Early in the dawn of Sunday the 16th, Pollux & Castor shine left of the waning crescent Moon.
Before sunrise on August 14, 15 & 16, 2020, watch for the waning crescent moon to pair up with the dazzling planet Venus in the predawn sky. Even as dawn breaks, it’ll be hard to miss these two brilliant & beautiful celestial bodies. If you’re watching in early morning darkness – especially if you’re in a rural location – you might also see a sprinkling of Perseid meteors, although the Perseid shower is past its peak now & the meteors numbers are falling off rapidly.
***
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
In a letter from August 15th, 1906, Rudolf Steiner wrote about the origin of the ‘Cognitive-Ritual‘: “This ritual can be nothing else than a mirror image of what is a fact on the higher plane. At the end of the 18th & beginning of the 19th Century there hovers in the immediate neighborhood of the physical world of sense, a great super-sensible event, consisting of super-sensible acts of ritual, an unfolding of mighty pictures of the spiritual life of beings of the universe, the beings of the hierarchies, in connection with the great ether-workings of the universe, & the human workings upon Earth. It is interesting to see how at this most favorable moment a little miniature picture of this super-sensible ritual & action flowed into Goethe’s spirit. Transformed & changed in miniature we have this picture set down by Goethe in his fairy story of the Green Snake & the beautiful Lily...”
One of the themes central to this tale is that of the Temple – with its Three Kings: the representations of Wisdom, Beauty, & Power or Strength. This is also characterized by Rudolf Steiner as a path of initiation: The power of perception of the Golden King coming from the Imaginative faculty giving us Wisdom; that of the Silver King, an inspiration from the equanimity of feelings; & that of the Bronze King, which we are still learning to strengthen, building us up to Intuition springing from the Will.
The Three altars, in the the Fairy Tale, are also in Steiner’s Cognitive-Ritual, & artisticly shown in the Temple scenes of the Mystery dramas.
Also from the letter of August 15, 1906, Steiner further states, that the ritual appropriate for our time, was prefigured by esotericists & in particular the initiate Melchizedek, stating over 2,300 years ago, & then taken up by “The Rosicrucians who said: ‘Shape the world in such a way that it contains, Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength, then will Wisdom , Beauty & Strength, be mirrored in us. If you have used your time to this end, then you will depart from this life taking with you the mirror-image of Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength. Wisdom is the image of Manas; Beauty, piety, goodness, the image of Buddhi; Strength is the image of Atman…It is not through idle contemplation that the human being progresses on Earth, but by incorporating Wisdom, Beauty & Strength into the Earth”.
From Marie Steiner in reference to Steiner’s autobiography The Story of My Life, she writes: “When Rudolf Steiner first made his public appearance with the intention of removing the veil of esotericism, he took Goethe’s Fairy Tale as his starting point, & spoke about the altars of Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength. He placed them in the Temple of his Mystery Dramas & spoke to us in greater depth about their significance. And again he placed them into our Esoteric School (specifically in the Cognitive-Reverse Ritual of the Misraim Service) & let us approach again & again the various aspects of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, which are an expression of these altars”.
A start had been made in fulfilling the central demand of Goethe’s Fairy Tale: to bring the Mysteries – ie. the Temple – out of occult obscurity into the full light of day, to the attention of the public.
Rudolf Steiner: “What is Anthroposophy in it’s reality? My dear friends, if you comprehend all the wonderful, majestic imaginations which are present as a Super-sensible Reverse Ritual & translate them into human concepts, that is Anthroposophy” ~Dornach, July 8, 1924, Karmic Relationships Vol. 3.
In this sense Goethe’s fairy Tale, developed further in the Cognitive-Ritual, with its Three altars, was the sign & seal of Rudolf Steiner’s activity, brought out of the depths of the Temple, since the time when the Mysteries 1st existed, & handed over to humankind.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Himmelfahrt Mariae Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary, is the day the mother of Jesus Christ, ‘died’. Her body was not subjected to the usual process of physical decay but was “assumed” into heaven & reunited there with her soul. This holiday, which has been celebrated since the fourth century CE, is a Christian version of an earlier harvest festival &, in many parts of Europe, is known as the Feast of Our Lady of the Harvest.
Feast of Isis
For centuries celebrations were held in the honor of the goddess Isis of the Sea, who was born on this day according to mythology. With the coming of Christianity church leaders decided that the easiest way to handle this pagan ritual was to simply change it into a Christian holiday, hence the introduction of Assumption Day came forth.
In Italy remnants of the ancient celebration include night time bonfires & public illuminations, symbolic of the Sun. The idea of prosperity is also evident in the throwing of coins from windows down to the street in some cultures. Symbolic images of the Virgin Mary & her assumption into heaven are paraded throughout the day. Blue is the color most often associated with the Virgin Mary. It symbolizes truth & clarity, & it is the color of the sky, which symbolizes heaven. The lily, which is a symbol of purity, chastity, & simplicity, is also associated with the Virgin Mary.
1248 – In honor of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid
1281 –The Mongolian fleet of Kublai Khan is destroyed by a “divine wind” for the second time in the Battle of Kōan in Japan
1309 – The city of Rhodes surrenders to the forces of the Knights of St. John, completing their conquest of Rhodes. The knights establish their headquarters on the island & rename themselves the Knights of Rhodes
1534 – Jesuit Order Founded
1549 – Jesuit priest Francis Xavier comes ashore at Kagoshima, Japan
1769 – Birthday of Napoléon Bonaparte
1812 –The Battle of Fort Dearborn is fought between United States troops & Potawatomi at what is now Chicago
1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark (Tivoli inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland)
1910 – Very 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 1st Mystery Drama “The Portal of Initiation” opens in Munich
1914 – Julian Carlton, A servant of architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people & sets fire to the living quarters of Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin
1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon
1915 – A story in New York World newspaper reveals that the Imperial German government had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort & diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production
1917 – Deathday of Hermann Joachim, Anthroposopher & Freemason. Rudolf Steiner did his funeral address see GA 261
1935 – Will Rogers & Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska
1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in LA
1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower at 7:12 am making him the last person to be executed at the Tower of London for espionage
1945 – Surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea gains Independence from Japan. The Allies proclaimed V-J Day a day after
1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule & joins the Commonwealth of Nations
1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north
1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock
1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era
1971 – President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. Nixon also announced a 90-day freeze on wages, rents & prices
2001 – Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system outside our own. They had discovered two planets orbiting a star in the Big Dipper
2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years
2015 – North Korea moves its clock back half an hour to introduce Pyongyang Time, 8½ hours ahead of UTC
***
My POD (Poem Of the Day)
~She is the early light
& the purpose of dusk
Who Is
The song bird of The Logos renewed…
She will
Rattle the seeds of the sistrum
To Awaken
A brilliant moment in eternity: Today
I will
Lift Her veil…
~hag
***
Join us for the HOMECOMING of the Classroom Alive Crew-
Bring a dish to share to welcome the travelers back to Chicago
Details of when & what time TBA
ANY FINANCIAL SUPPORT IS ALSO APPRECIATED FOR FOOD & SUPPLIES https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/UrbanFirstAid?locale.x=en_US
With love and light,
Ultra, Stefan, Robbie, Frank, Dottie, and the rest of the Classroom Alive sole-power team
August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries
Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618
August 20: COMMUNITY POTLUCK GATHERING to Welcome the Youth. Please bring a dish & beverages to share – Time TBA
Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.
August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.
August 23: Return to Chicago WELCOME HOME POTLUCK COMMUNITY GATHERING – Please support the youth with dinner, beverages & desert!
Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.
Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.
The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”
registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform
Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!
Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost + Threefold Cultural Hub, 4251 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618
Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator
***
August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
Michaela Gloeckler of the Medical Section in Dornach and cofounder of Allianz ELIANT brings the Archetypal Picture of Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors and their courageous movement for a Michaelic renewal of civilization as a World War II raged all around them. 
Bart Eddy of Brightmoor Makers and Sunbridge will speak to what it takes to initiate our ideals into action that are inspired by the our higher natures and our wish to serve others in our time. His ‘brought down to earth visioning’, is serving the youth in one of the poorest parts in Detroit where entrepreneurs for the good are in training, not only learning to support their own livelihoods but also empowering change in their communities where devastating health and environmental issues abound: his inspired ideas for our time keep unfolding new forms for these youth! 
Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and Repairers of the Breach, working with Reverends William Barber and Liz Theoharis, and a small beyond dedicated team, will share on this ‘turning inside out’ and what it takes to organize for social change along side of four pillars: Racism, Poverty, Ecological Devastation and the War/Prison Economy which requires a new narrative above all and a capacity to work with those who have very divergent views in the activist community. John Bloom of Rudolf Steiner Finance and General Secretary of the Anthropsophical Society will offer a conversation Toward Justice and Freedom and Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter.
Nicanor Perlas, a long time advocate for social change in the Philippines and youth mentor, will shape a conversation around ‘The Future will be what we Fight For’. His country continues to be on lockdown where they are not allowed to go outside their houses even for food and whose president recently said that he ‘would work with the military to distribute the vaccine’.
Laura Summer of Free Columbia, an art and education initiative in Philmont New York, will present on New Forms Around Art – Art Dispersal and Local Grants to increase diversity in diverse communities. Art Accessible to 100% of the People!
Naim Edwards, Seneca Gonzalez, Melody Brink, Kristin Buckbee, Akil Bell, Monika Pudelko, Joan Jaeckel, Patrice Maynard, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, 
Dottie Zold and Frank Agrama of the Elderberries community and newly formed Circles for a Renewal of Culture non profit, will invite an open conversation as to how it is that the Steiner students here in our country and around the world can be good advocates for emergent healing forms, where the essence of what is human is at the center of our concerns. This threefold social form has yet to be realized and yet we see all around us new forms coming into being. What do the Steiner students have to contribute to the conversation of human rights in these three realms and do we have the will to unite together for the common good of humanity? Can we organize for the future needs out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work in the world? Do we have the will for this? If so can we make a beginning at organizing and shaping our actions now?
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
Hi Hazel,
I wasn’t intending to write from atop a soap box, but I can see how that can be perceived in our day and age. We live at a very crucial point in time in which the cultural imperatives of a new age of soul and spirit recognition have been largely dashed over these last 120 years since the advocation of spiritual science, c. 1900. Steiner spoke, for example, of how the driving forces of World War I were the accumulation of the European karma that had over many centuries made it the so-called, “cause celebre”. Well, it took place, and even had room for a much larger second war, which as we know was warned about by the “little lady of the rosary” on July 13, 1917. She even had the prescience and audacity to name the Pope who would be in power that year, i.e., Pius XI in 1939.
Now, if we take the Miracle of Our Lady of Beauraing, which is in Belgium, in November of 1932, it constitutes some 33 individual appearances of so-called “lights in the sky”, which were seen from November to early January 1933. This was also carefully investigated by the authorities of the Catholic church, and eventually approved and made a dogma of the Miracle of Beauraing. What makes it especially important, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, is that it represents the direct herald of the Second Coming of Christ.
From 1933 to 1945, it was all taken up in the lead to WWII, and then also the several years in which the German civilization was punished by the allied nations, and especially the United States right up to 1950. So, it is possible to see clearly the duplicity of the Catholic church in this rather sad and empty assumption of the mother of Jesus.
Now, if Rudolf Steiner had lived until 1933, when he would have been 72 years old, I think and feel that all the necessary supports would have been put in place for the continuance of the anthroposophical movement as a driving force until the end of the twentieth century, as originally intended. But, he was put down in 1925, wasn’t he?
And even his main student, Carl Unger, was put down on January 4, 1929, when all he wanted to do was extend the Science of the Spirit as a renewal into the German nation. Yet, you say that he was murdered by his own karmic debt of egotism and self-aggrandizement, and even Rudolf and Marie knew of it. Well, this is highly salacious material, Hazel.
Carl Unger was a very righteous man; he was Hassidic, which denotes the extreme form of the Jewish community, and Unger was a German Jew. Yet, he found his way into the domain of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical spiritual science, wherein he would remain for the rest of his life, and would eventually cost his life. So, whatever American notions think today about what was really going on back then when Steiner and Unger lived, is really a poor representation of the facts. Maybe that is why we have all these current initiatives about sending the young people into the wilderness in order to possibly find their counterparts in the spirit, and then meeting the demands of the younger generation, which wants it all to be participatory, and “now”, in terms of the practical life, and its demands. This is all good.
And yet, Carl Unger was a family man with a wife and four children. He was the son-in-law of Adolf Arensen, who he learned a great deal from, and especially how music can move the spirit of a thinker. And so, he invested his entire compass into the domain of the work of Rudolf Steiner. Yet, you say he was murdered for his own good, and Steiner and Marie agreed with it. Shame on you, Hazel.
This man was the continuator of Rudolf Steiner, and even designated by Steiner himself to Marie in a very last letter in which he makes clear how Unger is to be taken care of by the GAS. He was to be brought into the fold, and yet, she didn’t do it. So, he was left to his own devices, as the “odd man out”, and finally met his own fate, which will be his lasting testimony. What Is Anthroposophy? It is still a very good question, isn’t it, in our day and age?
To put a judgement good or bad, shame or salaciousness on someone’s Karma is not the right way to unfold it’s treasure. I apologize if my statements came off in any way that would invoke shame upon me or our dear Unger.
as to karma & Anthroposophy:
Rudolf Steiner: “What is Anthroposophy in it’s reality? My dear friends, if you comprehend all the wonderful, majestic imaginations which are present as a Super-sensible Reverse Ritual & translate them into human concepts, that is Anthroposophy” ~Dornach, July 8, 1924, Karmic Relationships Vol. 3.
Hi Hazel,
I was born today on August 15th. The year was 1950, which is the very year that Pope Pius XII declared “ex cathedra” for the first time, the Assumption of the Holy Mother into Heaven. This came on November 1, 1950. Of course, in the eastern orthodox church, this assumption of the bodily resurrection of the Mother had been already confirmed since the 5th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munificentissimus_Deus
What is unique for the Roman Catholic Church, and caused its delay in making this recognition, concerns the various so-called “Marian Apparitions”, which had the effect of producing various investigations as to authenticity, and feast days in honor of the various appearances of the Holy Mother, e.g., Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, Beauraing. Thus, we can account for several prominent supersensible events involving the incorruptible reappearance of the Mother of Jesus from the 16th to the 20th century.
It can be shown that Pope Pius XII had a deep feeling for what occurred at Fatima from May to October of 1917. In fact, as Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, he had received the coronation as head of the Holy See at Sardis on the very day that Lucia de Santos and the two other children had experienced the first appearance of the ‘Little Lady of the Rosary’ at Fatima, Portugal on May 13, 1917. This began his obsession in realizing the eventual assumption event in his lifetime. By the early 1940’s, he had gained the impetus for a full investigation into making the declaration, which finally occurred when he had an experience in the Vatican Rose Garden on three successive days in relation to All Saints Day in 1950. He experienced the opaque Sun on three successive afternoons, October 30, 31, and November 1st. This convinced him to promulgate the apostolic constitution of the Munificentissimus Deus.
On October 13, 1951, Cardinal Tedeschini, Cardinal to the Pope, declared to the one million people who went to Fatima on that day, that Pope Pius XII had seen a vision of the descent of the Sun the previous year, and took it for a sign that Fatima was, indeed, a miraculous event involving the Holy Mother of Jesus. In reality, the Pope had experienced the penultimate event which had occurred at Fatima on September 13, 1917, which involved the diminution of the light of the sun, which appeared opaque enough that the naked eye could look directly upon it. This is what the Pope actually saw, and it convinced him of something very important concerning the Catholic Church.
He declared the assumption of the Holy Mother that very day, i.e., November 1, 1950, and the matter has been put to rest ever since. Only supersensible parameters can help us in our cause today. The Catholic Church is an obstacle to the truth.
For example, let us consider the three Mary’s. We know that at a certain significant point, these three stood below the Cross as Christ was about to die in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. There they were; the Mother of Jesus, her sister-soul, Mary, wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
These three form a triune depiction of “the realm of the mothers”, it seems to me. Rudolf Steiner in his Basle course on the Gospel of John indicates that the mother of Jesus represents the Consciousness Soul-Spirit Self, so indeed, the 6th age upcoming will be as much of a Sophia age as it will also be the time of Christ. The Marriage in Cana is when the Mother of Jesus and Christ first came together, at the wedding ceremony, where the wine has given out, and Christ performs the first of His seven miracles. His time had not yet come, but He brings Her a step forward for the 6th cultural epoch when Christ-Sophia will be a marriage. The sister-soul, Mary, is the stepmother of Jesus, and she represents the Intellectual Soul. Mary Magdalene, who loved Jesus as a person, represents the Astral body-Sentient soul nature.
Christ sees these three below the cross, ref. Gospel of John, 19:25. It is the Mother of Jesus who is introduced to her new son, John, the disciple whom the Lord loved. And it says: “And from that hour she entered his household”. This is of untold proportion as to what it means. It certainly means that we need to extend the Saint John Imagination to the farthest limit possible before we transcend into the Saint Michael Imagination, which is definitely encroaching.
John wrote the Book of Revelations when he was old, and the Mother of Jesus was there to help him write it because she was of the “realm of the mothers”, and bore the so-called “crystalline affinities”, which made it possible to construct the several occult seal pictures, and the other images that were an echo of the Ephesian mystery. Then, when John died, she went to the place where Christ was, and prepared the various “Marian Apparitions”, which did take place as a testimony to Christ-Sophia working in the world.
Blessings on your 70th Natal Return! On this most auspicious date.
This year i have been thinking about the connections with Isis, so it’s interesting to bring in the apparitions, a preparation for the purification of the astral body that we may give birth to the New Isis.
A friend in our Sophia Circle, Jennifer Fox, brought up the question of what is the connection between the Assumption & the Ascension, which i am also pondering. I have many pat anwswers which i am holding back to see if something beyond the obvious comes forth around that.
May the Christ-Sophia work thru us all.
Happy Birthday…& many more…
xox
Thanks, Hazel. I like the Assumption & the Ascension question, and how are they related. We know through spiritual science that the mother of Jesus died not long after the return to Nazareth from the Passover event when he was twelve. This is when the Zarathustra Ego behind the Solomon Jesus entered Jesus, and would remain for eighteen years, until he was thirty. The mother ascended into the spiritual world for the same period of time, and taking with her the etheric body of the Solomon Jesus boy, so that it could be preserved and ennobled for her return, and for when Zarathustra would received it back and become the Master Jesus. This occurred at the Baptism, when John first identifies his cousin as the “Lamb of God”. Don’t you find that designation interesting? The Book of Revelation is centered around the lamb, and we know that Jesus can be traced to the unfallen Adam Soul, and even Krishna, as an interim incarnation before his very first birth on earth.
When Christ ascended after the three years on earth, and having performed the Mystery of Golgotha, He took on the outer form of an Angeloi, and dwelt in the etheric envelope of the earth for the purpose of developing the moral etheric element needed for earth, and its highly moral destiny. This took place for some 1500 years, until the fourth cultural epoch passed into the fifth culture in 1413. This is when a profound change began in human souls. Souls began to acquire materialism during their life on earth, and when they died, this materialism in the soul had an effect on the Christ. Christ was forced out of the etheric world around the earth, and banished into the Astral World.
Yet, as we know, this became the fundamental condition for the eventual reappearance of Christ as an experience in the human etheric body. This is also why the Mystery of Golgotha had to be re-enacted on the etheric plane for this reappearance to be possible. The Mother for her part, took the role of forerunner before the second coming of Christ, and began to make earthly appearances at intervals for this purpose. She is the Herald, with the various so-called “Marian apparitions”, and this is why the Catholic church has clung to her for so long before announcing its own date for the Assumption, which was November 1, 1950.
Reading the Munificentissimus Deus of Pope Pius XII is very interesting because it contains all the reasons for approving the dogma of the Assumption throughout history, and yet never tries to justify the various appearances of the Holy Mother as its own reason for holding off on the declaration until 1950.
Rudolf Steiner gave two important lectures wherein he describes the situation wherein Christ was forced out of the Etheric World, and the necessary consequences, as briefly described here. Ref: Michael and the Mystery of Golgotha, GA 152, May 18 & 20, 1913. These are available online.
I am thankful you are bring up this important date because it contains a number of unsolved riddles. For example, what if the Mother of Jesus makes another appearance; what will the Catholic church have to say about it?
Ok, so i hear you saying that the Ascension & the Assumption have to do with opening the etheric realm…
And because of the Ascension, the human soul can come into contact with the cosmic sphere where Christ derived the forces for His Resurrection Body.
The sphere of the Father, where the Atma, or future Spirit Human, is derived.
And now, since in the resurrection, Christ has united the forces of the cosmic midnight hour directly with earth evolution, this created a bridge for all human beings over the cosmic abyss Unlocking the gate between the cosmic midnight hour & the midday moment of cosmic existence.
The Ascension provided the opportunity for The Holy Spirit, who illuminates individual ego-consciousness, to be able to appear in earthly evolution among human beings at Whitsun, to pour into the them the true knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha & the Ascension in full wisdom.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is a direct consequence of the Resurrection & the Ascension.
At the Baptism the Christ Being united with the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth & therefore was united with earthly evolution as a whole.
At the Transfiguration Christ permeates the etheric body of Jesus. In the scene of the transfiguration, Christ reveals his higher sun nature –to the 3 chosen disciples – A visionary manifestation of the fully transformed etheric body, which radiates light like a Sun.
Ascension relates to the Transfiguration & Whitsun to the Baptism. We see in the Ascension the metamorphosis of the scene of the Transfiguration; -& in Whitsun, the transformation of the Baptism by John in the Jordan.
In the Ascension Christ showed the connection to the spiritual Sun forces, which became manifest in the Transfiguration, with the etheric bodies of all human beings.
When Christ entered into Jesus at the Baptism, His Sun-Being took over the ego of Jesus. –After the resurrection the Christ impulse can live within mankind without taking over the ego-consciousness. But in order for this to happen Christ had to Ascend.
10 days after the Ascension or 50 days after the Resurrection, Christ sent the Holy Spirit- that divine Being of the Trinity that does not overpower, but enhances the ego of mankind.
Now the Christ impulse can enter human souls thru the mediation of the Holy Spirit, so that humanity can retain ego-consciousness without being overwhelmed by Christ’s powerful sun nature.
The benevolent Sun, that gives life generating warmth to all existence, is a bridge, connecting the macrocosm with the microcosm.
The phantom body of Christ is a reconstituted New Adam, & the Resurrection Body points us in the direction of our future evolution, not back to the garden, but going forward toward the New Jerusalem. Materializing & dematerializing at will.
The ‘ Resurrection Body’ encompasses the whole of humanity – Rudolf Steiner calls it a redeeming of the group-soul of mankind. It is like a cell that is multiplying; growing ever more evident in the etheric realm. I believe this is the connected to the Assumption. And like you say, the Marian apparitions prime us for this.
The expression “Put on the resurrection body” used by the apostle Paul is a true picture of what can happen for us. An imaginative picture of this is secreted in the allegory of the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz .
Goethe’s Fairy Tale is another powerful imagination that captures the essence of the Ascension & the Assumption.
It’s been said that The Green Snake & the Beautiful Lily which is full of esoteric symbolism, was born out of Goethe’s reading of The Chymical Wedding – which is a picture of the Michael School Cosmic Cultus.
Putting on the Resurrection Body is something that can, and actually “must” take place, else what was the Mystery of Golgotha for? Christ has entered earth evolution for the duration precisely because it will take Time for the Resurrection to be completed. This is because we of the human race have all experienced the downfall of the originally conceived and implemented Physical, Etheric, and Astral Archetypes. The Physical Phantom has densified into minerality and visibility; as such, we are mineralized through and through, and the Eighth Sphere wants more and more, even as we speak. The Etheric Body was once much larger and more profound than the physical body, but was forced to contract more and more in order to live within a densifying physical-mineral world conception. And, the Astral Body was once a 12-fold structure that encompassed supersensible-sensible organs for simultaneous discrimination. Today, the astral body is divided 7 + 5, and with the seven being of the slumbering kind, whilst sense perception lives within the lower five.
Christ came to bring these all back to their original formations, but it takes Time. Rudolf Steiner is the Emissary of Michael for the purpose of drawing the personal and individual intelligence, which Michael made a sacrificial deed in the 9th century, back to the Cosmic Intelligence of Michael. In his second biographical sketch to Edouard Schure in September 1907, ref. GA 262, he clearly indicates that Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is the transformed Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, anno 1459. Thus, it took four hundred years to effect a metamorphosis from the Orient to the Occident for our time, and the end of Kali Yuga in 1899 made it imperative that spiritual science become a cultural demand for the beginning of an age of great destructive powers working in the world.
So, whatever gets sent down from above, we had better be prepared to receive it, and this requires perseverance/steadfastness of soul and spirit. As well, goodwill, sincerity, and fire & enthusiasm. Michael is receiving back the Cosmic Intelligence that He sacrificed out of the Supersensible Council of 869, and now His goal of seeing it realized at the highest level of existence, when it was beheld by the Divine Spiritual Beings Themselves stands to be ours. This is what Michael wants most, and Rudolf Steiner is His emissary. He has extended this role to all of us who care. We are the Initiates of the Consciousness Soul Age at the present time.
Amen Brother!