The Spiritual Universe Quotations from Astrosophy Rudolf Steiner ~ Elisabeth Vreede ~ Willi Sucher
Martha Keltz A Studio Editions Publication
1
The Spiritual Universe Quotations from Astrosophy Rudolf Steiner ~ Elisabeth Vreede ~ Willi Sucher
A Studio Editions Publication © 2020 Cover: Aries and Onyx
https://www.studioeditions.com
2
Sources Ten Quotations by Rudolf Steiner from Astronomy and Astrology, Finding a Relationship to the Cosmos, From the Work of Rudolf Steiner. Compiled and edited by Margaret Jonas; published by the Rudolf Steiner Press, Forest Row, England, 2009.
Ten Quotations by Elisabeth Vreede from Astronomy and Spiritual Science ~ The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede, Foreword by Norman Davidson; published by SteinerBooks, 2007.
Ten Quotations by Willi Sucher from Cosmic Christianity and The Changing Countenance of Cosmology. Published by the Anthroposophic Press at the Astrosophy Research Center, Inc., 1985.
Permission has been granted by the Rudolf Steiner Press, SteinerBooks and the Astrosophy Research Center for the thirty quotations in this Studio Editions publication, intended as an introduction to the spiritual science of astronomy and astrology.
3
Biographical Information
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) Austrian, founded the spiritual philosophy of “Anthroposophy,” meaning true knowledge of the human being or the human being as microcosm of the macrocosm. His work was based on direct knowledge through developed spiritual perception, which he taught to others throughout his life. In 1924 he founded the Anthroposophical Society, and today there are worldwide branches of the Society as well as hundreds of individual initiatives and movements.
Elisabeth Vreede (1879-1943) was a Dutch mathematician, astronomer and Anthroposophist. In 1904 she heard Rudolf Steiner’s lecture on “Mathematics and Occultism,” and eventually moved to Dornach, Switzerland to help with the building of the first Goetheanum. In 1923 she was appointed leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical section for the School of Spiritual Science, in Dornach. She met Willi Sucher in 1928.
Willi Sucher (1902-1985) was born in the German town of Karlsruhe. Introduced to Anthroposophy as a young man, Willi, a mathematician, knew that this would be his path in life. He attended lectures given by Rudolf Steiner, but never met Steiner personally. Over a lifetime he advanced Astrosophy through his devotion to Spiritual Science. 4
Ten Quotations by Rudolf Steiner
Nostradamus [Michel de Nostradame 1503 – 1566] had a special room in his house into which he often withdrew ‌ from this room he watched the stars, just as they presented themselves to his gaze. In other words, he made no special mathematical calculations but immersed himself in what the soul, the heart, the imagination can discover when gazing with wonder at the starry heavens. Nostradamus spent many an hour of reverent, fervent contemplation in this curious chamber with its open views on all sides to the heavens. And we have from him not only specific predictions but long series of diverse and remarkably true prophecies of the future. ~ Prophecy: its nature and meaning, page 23
5
To speak of Christ as the leader of successive worlds and of the higher hierarchies is the teaching of the science that has unfolded since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries under the sign of the Rose Cross, a science that has increasingly proven essential for humanity. Looking at Christ from this perspective, we gain new insights into the being who lived in Palestine and then fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. ~ Cosmic influences on the individual and humanity, page 44
6
If we could take a picture of the entire brain with all of its details visible, we would get a different picture for each person. If we photographed a person’s brain at the moment of birth and took a picture of the sky directly above his or her birthplace, the two pictures would be alike ‌ Thus, our brain is really a picture of the heavens, and we each have a different picture depending on where and when we were born. This indicates that we are born out of the entire universe. ~ Cosmic influences on the individual and humanity, page 47
7
The impulse Christ gave to evolution could be given only once. Only once could the entire cosmos be reflected as it was in Christ; the constellation that existed then will not appear again. This constellation had to work through a human body in order to be able to impart its impulse to the earth. Just as this particular constellation will not occur a second time, so Christ will not incarnate again. People claim that Christ will appear again on earth only because they do not know that Christ is the representative of the entire universe and because they cannot find the way to the Christ idea presented in all its elements by spiritual science. ~ Cosmic influences on the individual and humanity, page 56
8
Ego and sun are the inner and the outer aspects of the same being. What orbits out there through space as the sun is the cosmic I. What lives within me is the human I.
~ The forces of the planets, page 101
9
Human beings are not primarily a creation of the earth. They are formed out of the cosmos; they are the offspring of the world of stars, above all, of sun and moon ‌
Saturn Jupiter Mars Sun Mercury Venus Moon
upper part of the whole astral body thinking speech ego mediation of the astral elements with the rhythmic activity of the human being activity of the human etheric body stimulator of reproduction
~ The forces of the planets, page 104, 112
10
Saturn, then, is the preserver of the memory of our universe; Jupiter is the thinker in our universe. To Jupiter the human being owes all the impulses he is able to receive from the spiritual present in the universe. To Saturn he owes all the impulses of soul and spirit he can receive from the cosmic past. ~ The spiritual individualities of the planets, page 121
11
We have, then, something very wonderful in the human blood organism. We have in it an actual, genuine means of expression of the human ego which, on the one hand, faces the external world and, on the other, its own inner life ‌ The whole inner organism of the human being is joined to the heart on the one side, and on the other this inner organism itself is connected directly through the heart with the rhythm, the inner vital activity, of the outer world. ~ The human being’s inner cosmic system, page 129, 130
12
When in astrology we ascertain the positions of the planets and also their relative positions to those of the fixed stars, this gives some indication of what we ourselves have inscribed in the several spheres. What actually has an effect upon us is what we ourselves have inscribed in the several spheres. Here is the real reason why the planetary constellations have an effect upon the human being’s nature. It is because he actually passes through the several planetary spheres ‌ So it is really the moral inheritance deposited by us between death and rebirth that appears again in a new life as a stellar constellation in our karma. ~ The planetary spheres and life between death and rebirth, page 154
13
This is the great mystery, that the human being’s heavenly occupation consists in weaving together with the spirits of the higher hierarchies the great spiritual seed of the future terrestrial human being. Inside the spiritual cosmos, all of us are weaving, in magnificent spiritual grandeur, the fabric of our own earthly existence, which will be attained by us after descending again into earthly life. ~ The spiritual preparation of the human body between death and a new birth, page 162
14
Host
15
Ten Quotations by Elisabeth Vreede
Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science has given us a cosmology that is in accordance with spiritual law, and through which humankind is once more placed within the world-picture, and heaven and Earth are again united. He repeatedly attempted to establish the connection between this spiritually-based scientifically-based
knowledge
and
astronomy.
that The
of
modern
necessity
of
establishing such a connection springs from the very foundations of spiritual science – the idea that the external world is maya, or illusion, and that spiritual science seeks to penetrate to the reality that lies behind it. Where and how maya and reality meet with one another is the great question.
~ Astronomy and Anthroposophy, page 3
16
Hierarchy
Offspring
Seraphim, Cherubim
Spirits of the Revolution of Time
Thrones
Group-Souls of the Minerals
Spirits of Wisdom
Group-Souls of the Plants
Spirits of Movement
Group-Souls of the Animals
Spirits of Form
Fire Spirits
Spirits of Personality – (Archai)
Gnomes [Earth]
Archangels
Undines [Water]
Angels
Sylphs [Air]
[Note: Seraphim, Cherubim, Love and Harmony; Thrones, Saturn; Wisdom, Jupiter; Movement, Mars; Form, Sun; Personality, Mercury; Archangels, Venus; Angels, Moon.]
~ Astronomy and Anthroposophy, page 8 17
The idea that the stars are so far away from Earth that the distance must be computed in thousands and tens of thousands of “light years,” one light year being the distance light travels in one year, such a concept turns the universe into an infinitely vast and empty space, wherein – despite their immense numbers – comparatively few and isolated stars are scattered and wandering. One of them is our own Sun, a star of moderate magnitude and no longer in its first youth, and Earth meanwhile is a little speck of dust, dark in itself, and without any significance at all.
~ On the Diurnal Movement of the Stars, page 24
18
Newton [Sir Isaac Newton 1642-1727] applied the mechanical terrestrial and lunar laws to the whole universe. He did away with the last remaining celestial sphere and substituted for it radial forces, earthly force components. By this means a further necessary stage in the evolutionary history of the human spirit was accomplished. The question of the movements in the planetary system became, for the entire middle period of Earth-evolution (i.e., from the Atlantean epoch to our own time) a question that has no longer to do with the gods, but is mainly an affair of human consciousness and its attitude toward the universe.
~ Concerning Our Planetary System, page 61
19
In Rudolf Steiner’s Man and the World of Stars (Lecture 1, Dornach, November 26, 1922), it is explained how the human soul, which is passing through the life between death and rebirth, comes in the Mars sphere to the world Logos or world Word, and in the Jupiter sphere to the world thoughts, and in the Saturn sphere to world orientation. That is to say, the human being experiences the cosmic archetypal images of those forces which during the first years of childhood one must again master as Earth forces.
~ More About the Planetary World, page 77, 78
20
Let us take Saturn … It has a strong connection with the human astral body, especially in the head region. It incorporates this astral body into the human being’s physical body. Now Saturn is the outermost planet, the one furthest from the Earth and nearest to the fixed stars. It is the creator of lead, not only what is found on the Earth as a relic of long past ages, but also the lead found in a finely dispersed, more etheric form in the Earth’s atmosphere. It thus brings weight to the human organism.
~ More About Astrology in the Light of Spiritual Science, page 143
21
Saturn, which we know to be the planet of the spiritual investigator, will transform the inscriptions of the spiritually aware human being into bodily faculties in the next life, so that he or she will be gifted with spirituality by nature, will be born a person attuned to things of the spirit. The natural Christianity of the painter Raphael, for instance, his quite natural relation to the Christ impulse, is the disposition given him from the Saturn-sphere. This in turn issues naturally from his karma as John the Baptist, out of his many inscriptions in the Saturn-sphere as John the Baptist.
~ The Life Between Death and Rebirth I, page 169
22
Let us look at such characteristic constellations as the Great Bear, Orion, and Leo. That these configurations are just so and not otherwise, that the stars are in just this relationship to each other, and that they pursue their way in a definite curved path over the vault of heaven by night – and naturally also by day – is the result, the enduring remnant, of the working together of divine spiritual beings. They are the deeds of the highest hierarchies that have become visible. The constellations have a deep spiritual meaning. Their forms are the actual archetypes of all forms and shapes upon Earth.
~ The World of the Stars II, page 267
23
When, for example, here on Earth a human being uses the larynx, there emerges as sound what live as forces built up in the larynx, there emerges as sound what live as forces in the constellation Taurus, in the Bull. These physical but imperceptible forces built up the larynx while, on the way to being born, the human being passed through the spiritual-invisible Taurus constellation that is under the beings of the first hierarchy.
~ The World of the Stars III, page 279
24
The Kali Yuga, or Dark Age, lasts from 3101 BC to 1899 AD. Its duration is 5,000 years. In the second half of this period falls the Mystery of Golgotha. After this comes another age, our own [1929], which began three decades ago, and which will last 2500 years. In accordance with a term often employed by Rudolf Steiner, we may call it the Age of Light. In spite of all the hardships it has already given us and no doubt will provide in the future, we know what the light of this age is. We are in the age of resurrected spiritual faculties, of a newly awakened clairvoyance.
~ The World Ages, page 376
25
Elements
Ten Quotations by Willi Sucher
26
Ten Quotations by Willi Sucher
Mercury draws into the zodiac a hexagon, two triangles intertwined. The one triangle is connected with the inferior conjunctions in front of the Sun, the other with the superior conjunctions behind it ‌ How do we imagine that the ancient people became aware of these rhythms of Mercury, since the observation of this planet is so very difficult? Yet, on the other hand, the ancients must have known it, as we conclude from their mythologies and knowledge of the working of the planetary genii. We must assume that these people, particularly the sages in the ancient temple centers, had a power of perception that was essentially different from our present intellect-bound perception.
~ The Origin of Occult Symbols, page 33, 35
27
Spiritual science indicates that Beethoven was in the dim past incarnated as Prometheus. Prometheus, the son of the Titan Iapetus, decided to assist the human race. He stole the fire of heaven and brought it down to Earth, to humanity. For that he was severely punished by Zeus ‌ The deed of Prometheus was a decisive step on the road toward the emancipation of humanity from the guidance and domination of the divine world. His punishment was the pain of being chained to matter and sickness. The traces of this fate we see in the physiognomy of Beethoven. He carried it all through his life. Yet, there is also that determination which seems to say: I shall go on to bring the fire of enthusiasm and will to the Earth and to humanity. Beethoven did so with his compositions ‌
~ The Archangel Michael and Astrosophy, page 71, 72
28
We are not an insignificant coincidence on the planet Earth. A spiritual and really modern cosmology and astrology can indeed reveal that the fruits of human endeavor on this planet can become significant, even creative, in the cosmos. During a long interval of separation from the spiritual cosmos
we attained selfhood.
With this potential
realization of self, we can again raise ourselves to become citizens of the universe, standing firmly on the Earth and at the same time working with the forces of the universe.
~ The Archangel Michael and Astrosophy, page 77
29
The constellation of Pisces, the Fishes, is close to present humanity because whatever some people say, the vernal equinox is still below the effigy of the western Fish. Certainly, the waters of Aquarius are already approaching below the present vernal equinox. In other words, we are moving toward a double proposition as far as the latter is concerned. This constellation spans the heavens between Aries and Aquarius. Aries stands for the past, which culminated in the acquisition of head and brain capacities. Aquarius is the uncharted future, which will demand the ability to handle forces of cosmic origin in a healthy way. Between the two stands present humanity, and it is constantly called upon to strike a balance between them, or else face disaster of some kind.
~ Symbology and Astrosophy, page 91, 92
30
Beyond the orbit of Saturn are those of Uranus, Neptune, and as far as our present knowledge goes, Pluto. These then belong to the realms where the sidereal ingredients have not yet been drawn into the suction stream toward gradual condensation. They are still in a higher spiritual-archetypal form. Moreover, these are the spheres that would eventually receive the respiritualized essences, thrown out again by the Sun, after the process of dissolution of spacematter has been completed on the latter. Thus we can understand that those spheres are not immediately connected with the solar system. They are something like bystanders and try to speak to the human being of the invisible worlds, of the spiritual worlds of the divine hierarchies, of all that which is of an absolutely nonmaterial, even nonspatial, nature.
~ Workings of the Planets and Their Spheres, page 101 31
At present some people seem to be in a great hurry and maintain that the vernal point is already in the Waterman. However, this contradicts the astronomical facts, on the basis of the generally acknowledged maps of the fixed-star heavens. Our contention that the ingress will happen only in approximately 400 years’ time has been confirmed by Cyril Fagan … Thus we shall then, during the twentyfourth century, have a kind of three-cornered proposition in the cosmos: There will be the waters of the Waterman below the ecliptic, above it the western Fish, and still higher the constellation of Pegasus. This situation will have to be prepared by humanity, in the sense that a future new cosmology will require that we “speak” actively and creatively to the stars.
~ Turning Points in History – II, page 124
32
One of the first books written by Rudolf Steiner was Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. About twelve years before that he published The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. His intent with these publications and all the activities that followed was to show ways that would eventually lead to a scientific breakthrough to spiritual perception, to a new awareness of the higher worlds, which are closed to physical senses. Thus can modern humanity rise to new levels of experience and of capacities by which it can master its life on this planet in a constructive and positive fashion. Rudolf Steiner ‌ did everything from the realization that the whole cosmos is looking down on present humanity and expecting ideas and deeds that will bring the world forward, to continue the great work of creation that the hierarchies began long ago.
~ Turning Points in History – II, page 130, 131 33
One day people will realize not only that the Christ events did take place 2,000 years ago but also that those events can be here and now with humanity, but in a new fashion, not in the physical but on a higher plane, on a plane that is accessible only to spiritual experience. A new clairvoyance will arise in humanity. This is a very profound perspective. ‌ There are so many problems. We have heard it proclaimed publicly, even by ministers of religion, that God is dead. You see, if this should be widely accepted, it would mean the end, not only of religion in general but of Christianity as well. Also, you know that the historicity of those events, about 2,000 years ago, is by no means established as a fact in modern history.
~ The Movement of Saturn During the Three Years, page 136
34
The moment of Golgotha, that is, the time from the third to the fifth of April 33 AD, displays a unique situation in the heavens. During those days there existed a harmony throughout the heavens, right down to the Earth, which did not exist before and will not come back to the universe for a long time, if it will recur at all. A period of about 26,000 years is involved in this rhythm, which is the precession of the vernal point. During such a time interval the whole composition and organization of the universe will fundamentally change, so we cannot be sure whether a similar configuration will return in the heavens. There was a harmony between the three zodiacs which we can discern in the universe.
~ The Sun During the Three Years, page 171, 172
35
At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, particularly on Easter Sunday morning, before sunrise, three space sectors were oriented into space in perfect harmony. Rising in the east were at that moment in the Earth-space sector of Aries, the first “house,” the ecliptic sign of Aries and the fixed star constellation of Aries. So, the “astral” Aries and the “etheric” Aries were received into the “house” or spacesector Aries. With slight differences that one can calculate, all three zodiacs were in perfect harmony. It will take 26,000 years until the same harmony can happen again in the cosmos. But by then the conditions and the constellations might have changed completely. They certainly will no longer resemble the present shapes. In this sense a unique situation in this universe occurred at that moment when the Resurrection took place.
~ The Sun During the Three Years, page 176 36
Vidar, Aesir
37
A Studio Editions Publication March 2020
38