understanding
Iskariot
Dylan, Goethe, the Ascension, and
more..
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Thu May 20, 2004 10:53 am
Subject: Dylan, Goethe, the Ascension, and more.. (was: understanding
Iskariot)
At 18:23 20.05.2004, Bradford
wrote:
Dear friends, far from letting this issue
of Iskariot wander in the toilet bowel of stray anthro leads,
for those who are Anthro impaired, Tarjei established that Bob
Dylan had a reincarnation dream where he dreamed he was somewhat
a part of the death of St. Augustine.
There is something that comes to mind here,
and which may be possible to mention because four decades have
elapsed since all those stoned, crazy hippies were spreading
so many wild rumors and speculations about their idols, such
as Bob Dylan and the Beatles. The turmoil around those idols
has quieted down since then; otherwise, this stuff would dissolve
into the mist of the Sybilline Acid Queens.
Remember that wacky "Paul is dead"
rumor? Ironically, Paul McCarthy is one of the only two surviving
Beatles, but in the mid-sixties, people said he was dead and
had been replaced by a look-alike. You played the end of a certain
track from the Sergeant Pepper album backwards and heard someone
whisper "Paul is dead," and on the Abbey Road Album
he's walking barefoot - the other three well-shoed - with a black
or red rose or something that should symbolize his funeral. Plus
dozens of other "clues." A few years later, when John
and Paul were having public flame wars in intrnational headlines
and in their hit lyrics, John came up with "How Do You Sleep"
and sang, "Those freaks were right when they said you was
dead." Yes, those were the days.
So naturally, there was also a lot of wild
speculation around Bob Dylan's nearly fatal motorcycle accident
as well. There were speculations about the accident being an
attempted suicide, based upon a lyric from "Blonde on Blonde",
the last album before the accident:
Well, I return to the Queen
of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
(from "I Want You", Blonde on Blonde,
1966)
So the freaky fans thought death was where
Dylan wanted to be but it didn't matter, and that's why he had
that motorcycle accident.
Leaving all this nonsense far behind us where
it belongs, we should contemplate something Rudolf Steiner said
about Goethe. In "The Karma of Vocation" (Das Karma
des Berufes des Menschen im Anknüpfung an Goethe's Leben,
GA 172), Steiner tells us about how Goethe became fatally ill
in his youth and how this brush with death had a decisive influence
on his entire future career. There are many aspects of Bob Dylan's
biography that place him in some very interesting company, but
we'll leave that aside for now. The nutty sixties are still too
close for that, and perhaps that is also why Michael A. Miller
has had a hard time getting his book about the spirituality in
Dylan's lyrics published (http://www.uncletaz.com/thiefspoke.html).
After the release of "Blonde on Blonde",
Bob Dylan had an almost fatal motorcycle accident, followed by
two years of silence before the release of the "John Wesley
Harding" album. And it's on this very album that we we discover
lyrics of unbelievable depth, as though the singer had indeed
been across the threshold and brought something back. And in
this context, Bob Dylan's dream about St. Augustine, which is
of an entirely different character than say his wacky "Bob
Dylan's 115th Dream" a few years earlier, where he starts
cracking up into hysterical laughter on the first take, which
was so funny they had to release that too.
What social, etheric forces from Augustine's
amazing confessionals, his psychotherapy and penetrating his
disfunctions and etheric shadows and his double with such intensity
might equate the work of Dylan with in the social body and the
etheric patterns of Dylans fine poetry, with a metamorphosis
out of Augustine's spiritual development? Or had the pattern
Christ indicated that the disciples who were given the Etheric
or Astral body, could bestow fragments of this bread to others,
would link Dylan to a profound betrayal and meeting of the actual
Augustine.
It's Ascension Day, and I'll use that as an
excuse to add an aside so to speak about the disciples and the
mystery of the etheric body and how it relates to the Mystery
of Golgotha and the vision of the Ascension that the disciples
experienced. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place,
the physical body of man would have deteriorated and made future
incarnations impossible, and the etheric body would have dissolved
into the sun. The physical body is drawn to the earth by gravity,
and the etheric body is drawn to the sun, to the Christ.
Rudolf Steiner:
To turn now to the biblical
event of the Ascension, we must realise that at that time the
disciples had become clairvoyant to a degree at which they were
able to behold what is, in truth, a deep secret of earthly evolution.
These secrets remain unnoticed by man's everyday consciousness,
which is incapable of knowing whether at one point or another
in the evolution of humanity something of supreme importance
is taking place. There are many such happenings, but the everyday
consciousness is unaware of them. The picture of the Ascension
actually signifies that at this moment Christ's disciples were
able to witness spiritually an event of untold significance,
enacted “behind the scenes” as it were of earthly evolution.
What they witnessed revealed
to them, as in a picture, the prospect of what would have come
about for men had the Mystery of Golgotha not taken place. They
beheld as a concrete spiritual happening what would have then
befallen, namely, that the physical bodies of men would have
so deteriorated that the whole future of humanity would have
been endangered. For the consequence of this physical deterioration
would have been that the human etheric body would have obeyed
the forces of attraction which properly belong to it. The etheric
body is being drawn all the time towards the sun, not towards
the earth. Our constitution as human beings is such that our
physical body has earthly heaviness, gravity, but our etheric
body, sun-levity. Had the human physical body become what it
must have become if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place,
the etheric bodies of men would have followed their own urge
towards the sun and have left the physical body. The existence
of mankind on earth would inevitably have come to an end.
Until the Mystery of Golgotha,
Christ's dwelling-place was the sun. Therefore in that the etheric
body of man strives towards the sun, it is striving towards the
Christ. Now picture to yourselves the scene on the day of the
Ascension. In spiritual vision the disciples see Christ Himself
rising heavenwards. A vision is conjured before them of how the
power, the impulse of Christ unites itself with the etheric nature
of man, in its upward striving; of how at the time of the Mystery
of Golgotha man was facing the danger of his etheric body being
drawn out into the sun like a cloud, but how, in its sunward
streaming, it was held together by Christ. This picture must
be understood, for in truth it is a warning. Christ is akin to
those forces in man which naturally strive towards the sun and
away from the earth, and will always do so. But Christ remains
in union with the earth. Thus the Christ Impulse holds man securely
on the earth.
"The WHITSUN Mystery and its Connection
with the Ascension", 7th May, 1923, GA 224
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Lectures/AscenPent/19230507p01.html
One of Tarjei's most interesting and wonderful
insights recently was using the spring board of how High Summer
sends us out into spiritual space, that indeed the vast Saturn,
Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan expanded inner vision
of the High Expansion of summer could mean. Imagine, we look
into the wide spiritual spaces using the springboard of High
expanded, dream lit summer.
Thank you Bradford; like I said, it's Ascension
Day and Whitsun is upon us in ten days, so I'm going to share
a quote from another Ascension-Whitsun lecture by RS that should
blow everybody right out of their seats and into the cosmos and
make their monitors levitate - Send this to NASA! They need it
badly!
Steiner SAIZ:
The physical as we behold
it in the mineral kingdom, the etheric as we find it working
in the plant kingdom, and the astral as we find it working in
the animal kingdom - all these are to be found in the environment
of man here on Earth. In the Cosmos surrounding the Earth we
have that Universe into which, if I may so describe it, the Earth
extends on all sides. Man can feel a certain relationship between
what takes place on the Earth and what takes place in the cosmic
environment. But when we come to Spiritual Science we have to
ask: Is this relationship really so commonplace as the present-day
scientific conception of the world imagines? This modern scientific
conception of the world examines the physical qualities of everything
on the Earth, living and lifeless. It also investigates the stars,
the sun, the moon, etc.; and it discovers - indeed it is particularly
proud of the discovery - that these heavenly bodies are fundamentally
of the same nature as the Earth.
Such a conception can only
result from a form of knowledge which at no point comes to a
real grasp of man himself - a knowledge which takes hold only
of what is external to man. The moment, however, we really take
hold of Man as he stands within the Universe, we become able
to discover the relationships between the several instrumental
members of man's nature, the physical body, the etheric body,
and the astral body and the corresponding entities, the corresponding
realities of Being, in the Cosmos.
In regard to the etheric body
of man, we find spread out in the Cosmos the universal Ether.
The etheric body of man has a definite human shape, definite
forms of movement within it, and so on. These, it is true, are
different in the cosmic Ether. Nevertheless the cosmic Ether
is fundamentally of like nature with what we find in the human
etheric body. In the same way we can speak of a similarity between
what is found in the human astral body and a certain astral principle
that works through all things and all beings out in the far-spread
Universe.
Here we come to something
of extraordinary importance, something which in its true nature
is quite foreign to the human being of to-day. Let us take our
start from this. (A drawing is made on the blackboard). We have,
first, the Earth; and on the Earth we have Man, with his etheric
body. Then in the Earth's environment we have the cosmic Ether
- the cosmic Ether which is of the same nature as the etheric
in man. In man we also have the astral body. In the cosmic environment
too there is Astrality. Where are we to find this cosmic Astrality?
Where is it? It is indeed to be found, but we must first discover
- what it is in the Cosmos that betrays the presence of cosmic
Astrality; what it is that reveals it. Somewhere or other is
the Astrality. Is this Astrality in the Cosmos quite invisible
and imperceptible, or is it, after all, in some way perceptible
to us?
In itself, of course, the
Ether too is imperceptible for our physical senses. If I may
put it so, when you are looking at a small fragment of Ether,
you see nothing with your physical senses, you simply see through
it. 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.
At first contact, we see through
the Ether. It allows us to do so; and yet, it makes itself perceptible
in the blue heavens. Hence the existence for human perception
of the blue of the sky is expressed in that we say: The Ether
itself, though imperceptible, yet rises to the level of perceptibility
by reason of the great majesty with which it stands there in
the Universe, revealing its presence, making itself known in
the blue of the vast expanse.
Physical science theorises
materialistically about the blue of the sky; and for physical
science it is indeed very difficult to reach any intelligent
conclusion on this point, for the simple reason that it is bound
to admit that where we see the blue of the sky there is nothing
physical. Nevertheless men spin out the most elaborate theories
to explain how the rays of light are reflected and refracted
in a peculiar way so as to call forth this blue of the sky. In
reality, it is here that the supersensible world begins already
to hold sway. In the Cosmos the Supersensible does indeed become
visible to us. We have only to discover where and how it becomes
visible. The Ether becomes perceptible to us through the blue
of the sky.
But now, somewhere there is
also present the astral element of the Cosmos. In the blue sky
the Ether peers through, as it were, into the realms of sense.
Where then does the Astrality in the Cosmos peer through into
the realms of perceptibility? The answer, my dear friends, is
this.
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 Astral. Look at the starry heavens
in their manifold variety; in one part the stars are gathered
into heaps and clusters, or in another they are scattered far
apart. In all this wonderful configuration of radiant light,
the invisible and super-sensible astral body of the Cosmos makes
itself visible to us.
For this reason we must not
consider the world of stars unspiritually. To look up to the
world of stars and speak of worlds of burning gases is just as
though - forgive the apparent absurdity of the comparison, but
it is precisely true - it is just as though someone who loves
you were gently stroking you, holding the fingers a little apart,
and you were then to say that it feels like so many little ribbons
being drawn across your cheek. It is no more untrue that little
ribbons are laid across your cheek when someone strokes you,
than that there exist up there in the heavens those material
entities of which modern physics tells. It is the astral body
of the Universe which is perpetually wielding its influences
- like the gently stroking fingers - on the etheric organism
of the Cosmos. The etheric Cosmos is organised for very long
duration; it is for this reason that a star has its quality of
fixity, representing a perpetual influence on the cosmic Ether
by the astral Universe. It lasts far longer than the stroking
of your cheek. But in the Cosmos things do last longer, for there
we are dealing with gigantic measures. Thus in the starry heavens
that we perceive, we actually behold an expression of the soul-life
of the cosmic astral world.
In this way, an immense, unfathomable
life, yet, at the same time, a soul-life, a real and actual life
of the soul, is brought into the Cosmos. Think how dead the Cosmos
appears to us when we look into the far spaces and see nothing
but burning gaseous bodies. 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,
- processes which have only been explained to us by means of
physical hypotheses that do not lead to any real understanding.
Stars that were not there before, light up for a time, and disappear
again. Thus in the Cosmos too there is a “stroking”
of shorter duration. 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.
We ourselves in our own astral
body have feelings of delight and comfort in the most varied
ways. In like manner in the Cosmos, through the cosmic astral
body, we have the varied configuration of the starry heavens.
No wonder that an ancient science, instinctively clairvoyant,
describes this third member of our human organism as the “astral”
or “starry” body, seeing that it is of like nature
with that which reveals itself to us in the stars.
It is only the Ego that we
do not find revealed in the cosmic environment. Why is this?
We shall find the reason if we consider how this human Ego manifests
here on the Earth, in a world that is in reality threefold, -
physical, etheric and astral. The Ego of man, as it appears within
the Universe, is ever and again a repetition of former lives
on Earth; and again and again it finds itself in the life between
death and a new birth. But when we observe the Ego in its life
between death and a new birth, we perceive that the Etheric which
we have here in the cosmic environment of the Earth has no significance
for the human Ego. 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. What, then, must happen to us, if we would go out
of the Space in which we live between birth and death and enter
into the spacelessness in which we live between death and a new
birth? What must we do? The answer is this: We must die!
We must take these words in
their exact and deep meaning. 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.” You can also express it in other words,
for it is really nothing else than - to die. It means, in very
deed and truth: to die.
Let us now turn our eyes to
this cosmic world that encircles the Earth - this cosmic world
to which we are akin both through our etheric body, and also
through our astral body - and let us look at the spiritual in
this cosmic world. There have indeed been nations and human societies
who have had regard only to the spiritual that is to be found
within our earthly world of Space. Such peoples were unable to
have any thoughts about repeated lives on Earth. 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. But if we consider this earthly
world together with its cosmic environment, or, to put it briefly,
all that we speak of as the Cosmos, the Universe; and if we behold
the spiritual manifest in it, we are then apprehending something
of which it can be said that it had to be present in order that
we might enter into our existence as earthly human beings; it
had to be there.
Unfathomable depths are really
contained in this simple conception, - that all that to which
I have just referred, had to exist in order that we as earthly
human beings might enter this earthly life. Infinite depths are
revealed when we really grasp the spiritual aspect of all that
is thus put before us. If we conceive this Spiritual in its completeness
as a self-contained whole, if we consider it in its own purity
and essence, then we have a conception of what was called “God”
by those peoples who limited their outlook to the world of space
alone.
These peoples - at any rate
in their Wisdom-teachings - had come to feel: The Cosmos is woven
through and through by a Divine element that is at work in it,
and we can distinguish from this Divine element in the Cosmos
that which is present, on the Earth in our immediate environment,
as the physical world. We can also distinguish that which, in
this cosmic, divine-spiritual world reveals itself as the Etheric,
namely that which gazes down upon us in the blue of the sky.
We can distinguish as the Astral in this divine world, that which
gazes down upon us in the configuration of the starry heavens.
If we enter as fully as possible
into the situation as we stand here, within the Universe, as
human beings on this Earth, we shall say to ourselves: “We
as human beings have a physical body: where, then, is the Physical
in the Universe?” Here I am returning to something which
I have already pointed out. The physical science of to-day expects
to find everything which is on the Earth existing also in the
Universe. But the physical organisation itself is not to be found
in the Universe at all. Man has in the first place his physical
organisation: then in addition he has the etheric and the astral.
The Universe on the other hand begins with the Etheric. Out there
in the Cosmos the Physical is nowhere to be found. The Physical
exists only on the Earth, and it is but empty fancy and imagination
to speak of anything physical in the far Universe. In the Universe
there is the Etheric and the Astral. There is also a third element
within the Universe which we have yet to speak about in this
present lecture, for the Cosmos too is threefold. But the threefoldness
of the Cosmos, apart from the Earth, is different from the threefoldness
of the Cosmos in which we include the Earth.
Let these feelings enter into
our earthly consciousness, the perceiving of the Physical in
our immediate earthly dwelling-place; the feeling of the Etheric,
which is both on the Earth and in the Universe; the beholding
of the Astral, glistening down to the Earth from the stars, and
most intensely of all from the Sun-star. Then, when we consider
all these things and place before our souls the majesty of this
world-conception, we can well understand how in ancient times,
when with the old instinctive clairvoyance men did not think
so abstractly, but were still able to feel the majesty of a great
conception, they were led to realise: “A thought so majestic
as this cannot be conceived perpetually in all its fullness.
We must take hold of it at one special time, allowing it to work
on the soul in its full, unfathomable glory. It will then work
on in the inner depths of our human being, without being spoilt
and corrupted by our surface consciousness.” - If we consider
by what means the old instinctive clairvoyance gave expression
to such a feeling, then out of all that combined to give truth
to this thought in mankind in olden time, there remains to us
to-day the institution of the Christmas Festival.
On Christmas Night, man, as
he stands here upon the Earth with his physical, his etheric
and his astral bodies, feels himself to be related to the threefold
Cosmos, which appears to him in its Etheric nature, shining so
majestically, and with the magic wonder of the night in the blue
of the heavens; while face to face with him is the Astral of
the Universe, in the stars that glitter in towards the Earth.
As he realises how the holiness of this cosmic environment is
related to that which is on the Earth itself, he feels that he
himself with his own Ego has been transplanted from the Cosmos
into this world of Space. 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.
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.
I want you to realise how
our conception of the Universe changes, in comparison with the
ordinary present-day conception, when we really enter into all
that has come before our souls this evening. There in the Universe
we have the Sun, with all that there appears to us to be immediately
connected with it - all that is contained in the blue of the
heavens, in the world of the stars. At another point in the Universe
we have the Earth with humanity. 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. 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. The reason why it is so hard for us to understand
the traditions of primeval epochs, when we go back to them with
the consciousness of present-day civilisation, is that they always
had in mind Time, and not the world of Space. They regarded the
world of Space only as an appendage of the world of Time.
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 to
so great an extent a being of Space that Time was lost to him.
Christ brought Time back again to men.
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.
We can now say: On the Earth
man has his three bodies, the physical, the etheric and the astral.
The Etheric and Astral are also out there in the Cosmos, but
the Physical is only to be found on the Earth. Out in the Cosmos
there is no Physical. Thus we must say: On the Earth - physical,
etheric, astral. In the Cosmos - no physical, but only the etheric
and the astral.
Yet the Cosmos too is threefold,
for what the Cosmos lacks at the lowest level, it adds above.
In the Cosmos the Etheric is the lowest: on the Earth the Physical
is the lowest. On Earth the Astral is the highest; in the Cosmos
the highest is that of which man has to-day only the beginnings
- that out of which his Spirit-Self will one day be woven. We
may therefore say: In the Cosmos there is, as the third, the
highest element, the Spirit-Selfhood.
Now we see the stars as expressions
of something real. I compared their action to a gentle stroking.
The Spirit-Selfhood that is behind them is indeed the Being that
lovingly strokes, - only in this case it is not a single Being
but the whole world of the Hierarchies. I gaze upon a man and
see his form; I look at his eyes and see them shining towards
me; I hear his voice; it is the utterance of the human being.
In the same way I gaze up into the far Spaces of the world, I
look upon the stars. They are the utterance of the Hierarchies,
- the living utterance of the Hierarchies, kindling astral feeling.
I gaze into the blue depths of the firmament and, perceive in
it the outward revelation of the etheric body which is the lowest
member of the whole world of the Hierarchies.
Now we may draw near to a
still further realisation. We look out into the far Cosmos which
goes out beyond earthly reality, even as the Earth with its physical
substance and forces goes down beneath cosmic reality. As in
the Physical the Earth has a sub-cosmic element, so in Spirit-Selfhood
the Cosmos has a super-earthly element.
Physical science speaks of
a movement of the Sun; and it can do so, for within the spatial
picture of the Cosmos which surrounds us, we perceive by certain
phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image
of the true Sun-movement,- an image cast into Space. If we are
speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves
in Space; for Space itself is being radiated out by the Sun.
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.
THE WHITSUNTIDE FESTIVAL- Its place in the
study of Karma, 4th June, 1924, GA 353
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Lectures/AscenPent/19240604p01.html
Cheers,
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 1:30 pm
Subject: Dylan, Goethe, the Ascension, and more
Tarjei Straume wrote:
Steiner SAIZ:
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 to so great an extent a being of Space that Time was lost
to him. Christ brought Time back again to men.
Bradford comments;
I like it. The Disciples of Sais (Novalis
reference and Schiller reference) or Steiner Saiz. Nice. Spirit
Selfhood that Steiner refers to in the lecture Tarjei brought
up is a phase above the Consciousness Soul. We try to define
these states of consciousness and layers of soul development
to be able to see them clearly. Some prefer that all things remain
vague, moody, unclear. But it doesn't work out that way. We glimpse
in the lecture how an Initiate is humbly describing how he experiences
the world and the stars in his Spirit Self. It is very different
from how Nasa and the Intellectual and Consciousness soul prefer
to view great masses and clumps of matter gathered out in the
infinite space. Matter that, if it be rovers on Mars or probes
to Jupiter, see Earth clumps extended as markers and gateways.
Just as Mars is also Mars, but also the Devachan plane of Buddha
and the transformation of hatred and rage into brotherhood and
I AMness, worked out of Mars.
Sentient Soul layers can be clearly understood
and we have not gotten very much beyond this phase yet. Intellectual
and Consciousness Soul paradigms and people can be diagnosed
as a measured Time Soul observation and most of us struggle in
this region today. But Spirit Selfhood..you know, when you read
what Steiner is attempting to make us Wonder at, you see him
say, BLUE SKY, etheric. You see him say, twinkling Stars and
Astral. Colonies of Spiritual Beings. You see him say, (see the
words in the electronic sea, we see) I AM incarnates and Time
is difficult to see, but Christ gives us Time as we leave space
condense ourselves in Time and reincarnate into Space.
Here the Devachan that is depicted as Inner
World, that blows up to enormous dimensions, our inner worlds
become Devachan regions. This is what "What Dreams May Come"
the Robin Williams film can tell you about our inner world in
the Time of Spacelessness.
Christ crossed the mighty worlds of Beings
and floated, feather like, dove like into our world of Space.
Author of Space from his region of mighty Sun Beings He dropped
in to see what condition our condition was in. Here is the bearer
of the great Sun Evolution that authors Space and holds Time
and is the bearer of I AMness. Such a title as Lord of Karma,
means He is outside of Time reviews, catch this, reviews the
spirits phases, needs, karmic circles, constellations of people
in small form constellations, where the I AM will be set into
their destiny like a jewel. A path of adventure to See self and
others and discover the Way-Truth-Light. Light Space-Truth I
AM-Way Time?
Let us examine technology and the Blue of
the Etheric. Presently with film, many films that I have indicated
on this list, are Occult Imaginations drawn, that normally, in
the progress from Novel to imagination, were done in our mind's
eye. Many of us have wrestled and still do with what we see in
our mind's eye and say the Tolkien pictures. How close our pictures
are to the special effects are important to us.
But now let us say, that in Eurythmy the Blue
Curtain represented the Etheric and stands for this etheric in
many Waldorf Schools and performance arenas. We cannot replace
the true Etheric Christ with a technological Blue Ether can we?
Or Can we? The Blue curtain represents the etheric and in front
of the blue curtain Eurythmy colors weave and merge with music
and poetry.
"Blue Screen : In Compositing, the foreground
and background shots are shot seperately and later superimposed
one on the other. Certain areas of the foreground have to be
transparent for the background detail to show through. (If the
foreground detail fills the entire frame, the background detail
will not be visible)! For this purpose, the foreground object
is usually shot against a plain blue screen. A particular shade
of blue called Chroma Blue is used for this purpose. (Human skin
does not contain this shade of blue). The blue area is later
erased from the frame making the area transparent. The background
detail can now show through this blank area. "
Special effects, now bringing us closer to
Initiation Pictures, ask us to bridge underlying occult stories
and themes with collective and specific pictures. Huge quetions
arise in our psychic development as to whether as adults or as
children we view such images and if we are conscious in our intellects
or unconscious in the childhood edge of etheric formation of
the brain. Forming the intellectual ripeness in the brain and
finding ourselves in a world with real human actions, morals,
deceptions and beings, allows the developed intellect and the
conscious intellect to see behind the story. We can read the
script with some grounding in common sense and common intellect.
The Child in the forming of the brain and
building of the etheric thinking and visual capacity is struggling
and can be jolted into ADHD and other disturbing fields if the
child is too early assaulted with a wild array of unrelated pictures.
All sorts of interior formation in the brain are put in motion
in tics and shambles and nervous disorders. Yet, discovering
and building Intelligence, Poetry, Language and picture allows
us to know and understand Inner from OUter and how the unseen
works its way into the motives and deeds of human beings.
Technology and film uses the BLUE SCREEN to
bounce images off of, and specialize these images so that we,
as adulted formed intellects, can see the workings of beings
that we cannot yet see. Here the novel and Imagination and the
difference between inner esoteric development and sound common
sense meet on the ground of the culture and Time we share. This
tells us in no uncertain terms that to particpate healthily in
our culture we must protect children in their early forming from
being swept away in a fallen Atlantean Wave of media images that
destabalize the delicate formations of a child.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Bradford continues;
The above is an offering by Blake. John Donne
has made researches into the being of Time and how Time, sometimes
infinite moments as gifts of Christ that stand there, and stun
us... and we feel the gifts of the Child Christ. I think that
title is something of a George MacDonald title is it not?
But below, are a series of sayings. These
sayings are part of what Blake offered with the above indication
of eternity. But here in the further offering we come into something
unique and strange. Steiner often recounted how the clever gnomes
would chatter and the country folk would hear the wise chattering
of the gnomes and these little clever sayings were part of the
moral universe that gnomes and the elemental kingdom whispered
to peasants.
Today we don't hear these chatterings much,
these cliches. But here for our understanding we can listen to
what Blake could still collect and heard from the wise gnome
klans. Gnomes that for us have disappeared into the Silcon streaming
of electronic highways, as if the ancient streams and rivers
of precious metals in the earth, which were the highways of the
gnomes, bound to the starry streaming, has arisen from caves
to our computer screens.
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro' all its regions.
A Dog starv'd at his Master's Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus'd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.
He who shall train the Horse
to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar's Dog and Widow's Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy's Foot.
A truth that's told with bad
intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro' the World we safely go.
Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
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