Foundations at the Periphery: Rudolf Steiner's Observations on Star Knowledge

“He now gradually realises why the seers of all times connected the activity of the spleen with the action of Saturn, the activity of the liver with the action of Jupiter, and the activity of the gall-bladder with the action of Mars. For what he thus sees in his own inner self is, indeed, fundamentally different from what presents itself to the external view. He becomes aware that he actually has before him portions of the outside world enclosed within the boundaries if his inner organs.” (63, pg. 61)

“Every such individualising of any being, making it independent, is called in occultism saturnine, something brought about by the Saturn influence. This, as a matter of fact is the original idea associated with Saturn, that from the existing world some sort of Being is isolated, individualised, in such a way that within itself and of itself it can evolve regularity.

“In a certain way the spleen does something similar within our organism. Certainly we do not in this organism of ours have to do with a separating from the entire outside world, but only with a separating from this surrounding world in so far as it contains the nourishment for our organism and we ourselves introduce its activities into ourselves. The spleen is the organ we first meet when we do this, dealing, so to speak, with everything within our solar system, within the orbit of Saturn. The forces that are in the spleen isolate the circulation of our blood from all outside influences, and make of it a regular rhythm within itself, a system having its own rhythm.

“The inner rhythm, although it has established itself, must again strive after doing this to fashion itself in accordance with the entire outside world, which means that it must eliminate itself. Thus the being first comes to have an inner existence of its own; but, because it can now work independently, it aspires to adapt itself to the outside world and to become harmonious with it. To put it in other words, everything that has made itself independent as a result of a saturnine activity, is doomed at the same time, because of this saturnine activity, to destroy itself again. Saturn, or Kronos, devours his own children, so the myth tells us. Here you see a deeply significant harmony between an occult idea, expressed in the name Kronos or Saturn, and a myth which expresses the same thing in a picture. A symbol: `Kronos devours his own children!'.”(63, pp. 67-69)

“Now, I have already pointed out, and we shall see even more definitely to what an extent such a giving of names as we have described is justified, that in occultism the activity of the spleen is characterised as a Saturn-activity, that of the liver as a Jupiter-activity, and that of the gall-bladder as a Mars-activity. On the same basis on which these names were chosen for the activities here referred to, occult knowledge sees in the heart and the blood-system belonging to it something in the human organism which merits the name of the Sun, just as the sun outside merits this name in the planetary system. In the lung-system, there is contained what the occultists, according to the same principle, characterise as Mercury, and in the kidney-system that which merits the name Venus. Thus, by means of these names, we have pointed out in these systems of the human organism, even if at the present moment we do not in the least undertake a justification of the names, something like an inner world system.” (63, pp. 84-85)

“These seven members completely metamorphose, on the one hand, the vital activities peculiar to the nutritive substances into inner vital activities; and with these metamorphosed substances they provide for the human organism. They make it possible for man to reopen himself to the outside world. But, in addition to this, they bring it about that what he evolves as an excessively strong inner vital activity, which would not harmonise with the vital activity that penetrates into him from without, is brought into balance with this outer vital activity by being thrown off through the excretional processes of the lungs and the kidneys. So that we have before us the complete and regular control of the inner vital activities in this inner cosmic system of man. And in fact this entire relationship manifests itself in such a way that the best picture occultism can give us is to conceive the heart standing as the sun, at the centre, and caring for the three bodies of the inner cosmic system which signify the upwards rising and upward bearing process. In the same way in which the sun is related to Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the planetary system, so is the inner sun, the heart, related to Saturn, spleen; Jupiter, liver; and gall-bladder, Mars, in the human organism. For it is an absolute fact that the relationship existing in the outer cosmos has been so adopted into the organism that what goes on in the great world or macrocosm, in our solar system, is mirrored in the reciprocal action among these organs. And those processes which go on between the sun and the inner planets working inwards from the sun to our earth, are again reflected in the relationship of the heart-sun to the lungs as Mercury, and to the kidneys as Venus. Thus we have in this inner human cosmic system something which mirrors the external cosmic system.

“To contemporary man, who sometimes comes upon such things in the mangled writings of the Middle Ages yet cannot look upon them as anything but a jumble of superstition, it sounds quite amazing when he hears that for thousands of years occult science has not only examined, profoundly and thoroughly, the correspondence between the vital activities of these organs of the inner organic system, and certain external substances possessing the opposite vital activities; but that also, through countless observations made with the clairvoyant eye, there has resulted the knowledge, for example, that when the inner `Jupiter' oversteps its limit it can be checked if confronted with the external vital activity manifest in the metallic substance tin. The inner vital activity of the gall-bladder, we combat by what is manifest in the metallic substance iron. And we ought not really to be surprised to learn that the gall-bladder is the very organ to be combated by iron. For iron is that metal which we require particularly in our blood, and which therefor belongs to the instrument of the ego; and we have seen that in the gall-bladder we have the very organ which brings about the connection of the ego with the densest matter deposited in the human being through the digestive process. In the same was the spleen (Saturn) has its correlative in lead; the heart (Sun) in gold; Mercury has its own name: that is, the metal mercury (or quicksilver) corresponds with the lungs; and the metal copper corresponds with the kidneys.

“From this we now see that certain of these metals to be found on the earth have their respective kinship with the organs or members which we find embedded in the upper blood-organisation. That which, in the lungs for example, opens itself upward in the larynx, thus becoming an organ of the higher human organisation, and which otherwise presses down into the gall-bladder as a dim life, acts correspondingly as a mars- or iron-system in the larynx which contains the upper part of the lungs. These things are, of course, hard to differentiate; but I should like, nevertheless, to point out some of them. In the same way the upper part of our head containing the brain-formation corresponds, as regards its position in the upper course of the blood, to the position of Jupiter-liver (tin) in the lower course of the blood; and tin, or Jupiter; and, in the same way, between the back of the head and lead, or Saturn. And so it is with the organs which may be looked upon as imbedded in the upper cosmic system.” (63, pp. 184-187)

“If we were to look into early post-Atlantean times, we would find that human beings built their dwelling places by methods quite different from those used today. In those days they made use of all kinds of growing things. Even when building palaces, they summoned nature to their aid by having plants and branches of trees interlace with one another, and so on. Today, human beings must build with broken fragments. We make all culture of the outer world with the products of fragmentation. In the course of the coming years you will understand even better how much in our culture is the product of destruction.

“Light is destroying itself within our post-Atlantean earthly processes. Until the time of Atlantis the earthly process was a progressive process, but since then it has been a process of decay. What is light? Light decays, and the decaying light is electricity. What we know as electricity is light that is destroying itself within matter. The chemical force that undergoes a transformation within earthly evolution is magnetism. Yet a third force will become active, and if electricity seems to work wonders today, this third force will affect civilization in a still more miraculous way. The more of this force we employ, the faster the earth will tend to become a corpse and its spiritual part prepare for the Jupiter embodiment. Forces have to be applied to destroy the earth in order that man can become free of the earth and that the earth's body can fall away. As long as the earth was involved in a progressive process, this was not done, since only the decaying earth can use the great achievements of electricity. Strange as this sounds, it must gradually become known. We must understand the process of evolution to evaluate our culture in the right way. We shall learn thereby that it is necessary for the earth to be destroyed; otherwise, the spirit will not become free. We shall also learn to value what is positive, namely, the penetration of spiritual forces into our existence on earth.” (17, pp. 130-131)

“ `Menes' was the Egyptian name of him who inaugurated the first `Human' civilization, and it is at the same time hinted that man thereby became liable to error, for thenceforward he was left to look for guidance to the instrument of his brain. That man was liable to fall into error is symbolically indicated by the fixing of the date of the construction of the labyrinth at the time when humanity was abandoned by the gods; for the labyrinth is an image of the convolutions of the brain as the instrument of man's own thoughts, - windings in which the thinker is able to lose himself. The Orientals called man as a thinking being `Manas' and Manu stands for the first great thinker. The Greeks called the first organizer of the human principle of thought Minos, and with him is associated the myth of the labyrinth, because it was felt that, since his time, mankind had gradually passed from the direct guidance of the gods to a guidance in which the `ego' feels the influence of the higher spirit-world in a different way.” (132, pp. 41-43)

“A person who is able to look into the spiritual world is called esoterically a `clairvoyant', but merely to be clairvoyant is not enough, for such a man might be able to see well enough but not be able to discriminate. He who has acquired the faculty of distinguishing the various beings and events of higher worlds, is called an `Initiate'. Initiation brings with it the possibility of distinguishing between different kinds of beings. It is possible to be clairvoyant in the higher worlds without being an Initiate. In ancient times distinguishing between spirits was not specially important, for when the ancient occult schools had brought a pupil so far as clairvoyance, there was no great danger of error. Now, however, this danger exists to a high degree. Therefore in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation should be acquired in addition to clairvoyance. In proportion to the extent of his clairvoyance must a man become capable of distinguishing between the various kinds of supersensible beings and events. Therefore in all esoteric training, care should be taken that initiation should be acquired in addition to clairvoyance. In proportion to the extent of his clairvoyance must a man become capable of distinguishing between the various kinds of supersensible beings and events.”(132, pp. 60-61)

“It was during the third epoch of civilization, the Egypto-Chaldaic, the Angels (or lower dhyanic beings according to Oriental mysticism) were to some extent independent leaders of humanity. They were not so during the ancient Persian civilization. For then they were subject to a higher direction in a much greater degree than in the Egyptian times, and had to regulate everything in conformity with the impulses if the hierarchies immediately above them. In this way everything was under the immediate guidance of the Angels, but these themselves submitted to the rulership of the Archangels. And in the Indian epoch when post-Atlantean life had reached such a height in spiritual matters as has never been attained since - a natural height under the direction of great human teachers - then the Archangels themselves were subject in a similar sense to the guidance of the Archai or Primal Powers. Thus if we trace the evolution of humanity from the Indian epoch through the ancient Persian and Egypto-Chaldaic civilization, we may say that certain beings of the higher hierarchies withdrew, as it were, ever more and more from the direct guidance of humanity. And in the fourth post-Atlantean period of civilization, i.e., the Graeco-Roman epoch, man had become in a certain sense quite independent. The guiding superhuman beings were certainly intervening to develop humanity, but only in such a way that the reins were tightened as little as possible, and also that the spiritual leaders themselves might profit as much through the deeds of men as men profited through them. Hence there arose that peculiar and quite `human' civilization in the Graeco-Roman time in which man was made to rely entirely on himself. For all the distinctive characteristics of Art and political life in Greek and Roman times are traceable to the fact that man had to live out his own life in his own way.”

“We are now living the fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization. The leading beings of this period belong to the same hierarchy as that which ruled the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans. In fact those beings who then took the lead, have again begun to be active in our times, for it has been stated that certain beings remained behind during the Egypto-Chaldaic civilization, and that these are to be found manifested in the materialistic feelings and perceptions of our own period.

“The progressive angels are intervening to guide the fifth post-Atlantean civilization by means of capacities which they themselves had won during the third or Egypto-Chaldaic civilization. Through the progress they make they are acquiring for themselves quite special capabilities, for they are qualifying themselves to receive the influx of forces emanating from the most important Being in the whole evolution of the Earth. The power of the Christ is working in them; for that power works not only on the physical world through Jesus of Nazareth - but also in the spiritual worlds upon the super-human beings. The beings who guided the old Egypto-Chaldaic civilization were not at that time under the direction of the Christ, but have only placed themselves under his guidance since. And their progress consists in their following Him in the higher worlds, so that they may guide our fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization in accordance with His influence. And the remaining behind of those beings of whom it has been said that they operate as obstructive powers, is due to their not having put themselves under the leadership of the Christ, and thus they continue to work independently of Him. There will be a materialistic movement under the guidance of the backward Egypto-Chaldaic spirits. It will have a materialistic character, and the greater part of what in all countries, may be called contemporary materialistic science is under this influence.

“Now what will those beings teach who attained their goal in the old Egypto-Chaldaic sphere of civilization, and who then learned to know the Christ? They will be able to instill into man other thoughts than that there are only material atoms; for they will be able to teach that, even to the minutest particle of the world, the substance is permeated with the Spirit of Christ. To-day such a statement appears certainly to many people as something fanciful or worse than that, but in many cases the sense of the future is folly to the past. “ (132, pp. 70-74)

“In a certain sense man is, taken as a whole, a cosmic being. He lives a twofold life-one in a physical body from birth to death, another in the spiritual worlds between death and a new birth. When he is incarnated in a physical body, he is living in dependence on the earth, because the physical body is restricted by the forces and conditions belonging to the earth. A man, however, does not only take the substances and forces of the earth into himself, but is joined to the whole earth's organism. When he has passed through the gate of death, he dose not any longer belong to the forces of the earth; but it would be incorrect to imagine that he belongs to no forces at all, for he is then connected with the forces of the solar system and the more distant star-systems. In this way, between death and new birth, he lives in the domain of the cosmic, just as in the period between birth and death he lived in the domain of the earthly. From death and a new birth he belongs to the cosmos, as on the earth he belongs to the elements-Air , Water, and Earth. Accordingly, while he is passing through a life between death and a new birth, he comes into the region of cosmic influences, for the planets send forth not merely the physical forces of what astronomy teaches, such as gravitation and others, but also spiritual forces, and with these spiritual powers of the cosmos man is connected- each person is a special manner according to his own individuality. If he is born in Europe, he lives in a different relation to warmth conditions, etc., than if he had been born , let us say, in Australia. Similarly, during his life between death and a new birth, one person may stand more closely related to the spiritual powers of Mars, another to those of Jupiter, others again to those of the whole planetary system in general, and so on. It is also these forces which bring man back again to earth. Thus before he is born he is living in connection with the collective whole of stellar space.

“According to the way in which a man stands individually related to the cosmic system, so are the forces directed which lead him to this or that set of parents and to this or that locality. The impetus, the inclination to incarnate here or there, in this or that family, in this or that people, at this or that time, depends on how the person was organically connected with the cosmic before birth.

“The truth underlying the casting of a horoscope is that those who know these things can read the forces which determine a person's physical existence. A certain horoscope is allotted to a person because, within it, those forces find expression which have led him into being. If for example, in the horoscope, Mars stands over Aries (the Ram) that signifies that certain of the Aries forces are not allowed to pass through Mars- and are weakened. Thus is a man put into his place within physical existence, and it is in accordance with his horoscope that he guides himself before entering upon earthly existence. This subject, which in our times seems so much a thing of chance should not be touched upon without our attention being called to the fact that nearly everything practised in this connection to-day is simply dilettantism-a pure superstition-and that for the external world the true science of these matters has been for the most part completely lost. Consequently, the principal things which have been said here are not to be judged according to that which nowadays frequently leads a questionable existence under the name Astrology.

“Now it is the active forces of the stellar world that impel a man into physical incarnation; and when clairvoyant consciousness observes a person, it can perceive in his organization how this has resulted from the co-operation of cosmic forces. And if one were to photograph a person's brain at the moment of birth and then photograph also the heavens lying exactly over the person's birthplace, this latter picture would be of exactly the same appearance as that of the human brain. As certain centres were arranged in the latter, so would the stars be in the photograph of the heavens. Man has within himself a picture of the heavens, and every man has a different one, according to whether he was born in this place or that, and at this or that time. This is one indication that man is born from out of the whole cosmos.” (132, pp. 77-81)

“With the entrance of Christ into the evolution of the earth an entirely new impulse or direction was given to evolution. External facts of history also express this. In the early times of post-Atlantean evolution men knew very well that above them there was not merely a physical Mars, but that what they saw as Mars, Jupiter or Saturn was the expression for a spiritual being. In later times this perception was completely forgotten. The heavenly bodies came to be, according to human ideas, mere bodies to be estimated according to their physical condition. And in the Middle Ages people saw in connection with the stars what only the eyes can see-the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars, etc., up to the sphere of the fixed stars, and then came the eighth sphere like a solid blue wall behind. Then Copernicus appeared and broke down the idea that only that which is perceptible to the senses can be authoritative. It was at that time when Copernicus began to think out what exists in cosmic space beyond the evidence of the senses, that our modern astronomy as a science began.

“Giordano Bruno came as philosophical interpreter of the teachings of Copernicus. He led the gaze of man out into cosmic space, and announced that what people had called the limitations of space, what they had placed there as the eighth sphere limiting everything in space-was in reality no limitation; it was Maya, or illusion; for an infinite number of worlds had been poured forth into cosmic space. That which was formerly considered to be the boundary of space was shown to be only the boundary of the sense-world of man, and if we direct our gaze beyond the sense-world, we shall no longer see the world as known to the senses, but we shall also recognize Infinity.” (132, pp. 91-93)

“Is there any instance of Beings working on another planet who yearn after some other heavenly body as if it were their own true home? Yes, there are such cases; let us take one of them and compare him with the Christ. During the Moon evolution there were powerful Beings, exalted Beings, who however in a certain respect did not reach the goal of their Moon evolution. Among these exalted Beings was a host under its own leader which, when the Moon evolution came to an end and the evolution of the Earth began, had not attained the goal of its own evolution. Now this host of Beings entered into Earth evolution, and participated in the guidance of humanity, but always with this tragic longing for a cosmic star which had been cast out of the Moon evolution in the way I have described in the book Occult Science. Within the spiritual evolution of the Earth are mighty, highly significant Beings, with their leader, who, because they had to quit the Moon and go on to the Earth, without having reached their full development, really feel this yearning for a star outside in the cosmos which they regard as their true home, but to which they cannot attain. These hosts are the hosts of Lucifer. Lucifer himself takes part in Earth evolution with the perpetual longing within for his true home, for the star Venus outside in the cosmos. That is the salient feature of the Luciferic nature seen from the cosmic aspect. Clairvoyant consciousness comes to know just what the star Venus is by entering into the soul of Lucifer, then experiencing from the Earth Lucifer's tragic longing, like a wonderful cosmic nostalgia, for the star Phosphorus, Lucifer, or Venus. For what Lucifer cast off as a husk, what at the death of the Moon was cast out of the Luciferic beings, as the physical body is cast off by the human soul at death, shines down from heaven as Venus.

“I have now put before you from the cosmic aspect something about our Earth and about its neighbouring planet Venus. This was of course not experienced by the Greeks quite in the way I expressed it, but it nevertheless lived in their sensations and feelings. When a Greek turned toward the stars, especially when he turned to Venus, he sensed in his soul the inner connection between such a star and certain beings who inflame and inspire the earthly realm. When the ancient Greek felt what Lucifer was to the Earth, when he said to himself, as it were, `The Luciferic principle wafts through our Earthly existence”, he looked up to the star Venus and said: `There is the wandering point in the heavenly spaces towards which Lucifer's longings perpetually tend.'

“This gives you the Greek's sense of one of the `wonders of the world', and it brings out very clearly that the Greek was far from gazing into space as do modern astronomers, describing Venus as a purely physical globe. What then was Venus to the Greek soul? It was that region of space which he came to identify by observing clairvoyantly the spiritual content of Lucifer's soul; for in the soul of Lucifer he detected the great longing which reaches out as a living bridge from the Earth to Venus. This longing which the Greek souls recognized as being Lucifer's, he also felt to belong to the substance of Venus. The Greek did not see just the physical planet, he saw something which had been severed from the Luciferic Being, just as the physical body is severed from man when he goes through the gate of death, and as the corpse of the Earth will be severed when the Earth has reached the goal of her evolution. But there is this difference. The physical body of man is destined to disintegrate, whereas the body of a Lucifer is destined, when it falls away from the being of soul, to shine as a star in the heavenly spaces. In what I have just said about Venus, I have at the same time described what in the spiritual sense stars are. What are they to a quickened insight - those wonders of the world, those wonders of Nature - but the bodies of gods? What has gone forth into space from the bodies of the gods has become star. Looking up into the starry worlds, this is how the Greek saw the planets and the fixed stars. He said to himself: `The spiritual beings whom we revere as gods were once upon a time out there in space. They have undergone development. When they reached that point which for them corresponds with what for man during earthly existence is death, then their physical substance left them and became star.'

“Stars are the bodies of gods, gods whose souls work on in the world in another way, independently of those bodies - Just as Lucifer became independent of his body and continues to work in our Earth evolution. To grasp this is to have a spiritualised conception of nature and the world. This of course has nothing in common with the wishy-washy pantheism which gives out that all Nature is permeated with a uniform divinity. Such a statement is inadequate; stars cannot simply be defined in this abstract way, as bodies through which the gods manifest themselves; when one looks up to those far-distant worlds one has to understand that the stars are bodies which the gods have abandoned, having progressed to other stages of evolution. But in this we find the difference between all the planetary gods and the Christ. As I have explained, the Christ leaves no such physical star at the death of the Earth, no residue still unspiritualised, but passes on entirely into the spiritual world, and as spirit goes over with the human soul into the Jupiter existence.” (110, pp. 77-79)

“Thus, expressed in terms of Spiritual Science, we have in the first place to see in the sun the dwelling place - or part of it at any rate, for this dwelling-place extends to the other planets as well - the most essential part of the dwelling-place of the upper gods, whom we designated yesterday as one stream of the divine world. But if you look at this whole sun with the clairvoyant eye, you see that everything in it which is those upper gods is there only in etheric form, from the warmth ether upwards to the light ether, the chemical ether and the life ether. But the sun as it moves in space today is not only there for clairvoyant sight as an etheric structure, it is also a globe of gas, it's condensed to the state of air. The sun would never have condensed to the state of air had not the Being of Whom I spoke yesterday, the Being Who descended to Earth with the dove in the Baptism by John in the Jordan, during the Sun evolution detached Himself from the Sun in a body of air and not merely in an etheric body. Thus when we look up at the sun we have to say: `the warmth, light and chemical impulses in the sun are connected with the other Beings, those who are only the ideas or representations of the lower gods; but the gaseous element in the sun is actually the body of Christ.” (110, pp. 161-162)

“Thus we see that while the earth was passing through her Moon-phase, the Spirits of Movement brought into the lives of those Beings who were filled with longing and would otherwise have been desolate - for boredom is also a kind of desolation - the change which is brought about by movement, a constantly renewed relation to ever new Beings and new conditions. Movement in space, movement from one place to another, is but one form of the more comprehensive movement which has just been mentioned. When in the morning we have a definite train of thought in our Soul, not necessarily to be kept to ourselves, but passed on to others - a 'movement' takes place. We can then overcome one-sidedness of longing by means of variety, by change and the movement of the things experienced. In outer space there is only one particular form of change. In this connection let us imagine a planet in relation to a sun: if it always occupied the same position to the Sun, if it never moved, it would be subject to that one-sidedness, which can only accrue when it presents invariably the same aspect to the Sun. Then the Spirits of Movement turn the planet round so as to bring about a change in its conditions. Change of place is but one of many forms of change. And the Spirits of Movement, by bringing change of place into the Cosmos, merely introduce one specific part of Movement in general.” (64, pg. 47)

“Do you know how those who took part in the later compiling of the Gospels convinced themselves as to these events, with the exception of the writer of the John-Gospel, who was an immediate contemporary? They could not above all convince themselves by historical documents, for they had nothing but oral traditions and the Mystery-Books, as is set forth in 'Christianity as a Mystical Fact'. They were able to convince themselves of the actual existence of Christ Jesus by the constellations, for they were then still very learned as to the connection between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. They knew how to set up a map of the heavens for that point of the world's history (as can still be done to-day ); and they concluded: the stars were in such and such a position, then He whom they call the Christ must have lived on earth at that time. In this very way the writers of the Gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke convinced themselves of the historical happenings: they obtained the rest clairvoyantly. But first they convinced themselves in the same way as we can make sure to-day that any particular event will happen on the earth; by the position of the constellations in the Macrocosm. Anyone who knows anything of this cannot but believe in them.” (64, pp. 62-63)

“Parallel with the experience of the plant-seed in the depths of the natural earth, there is a spiritual experience in the earth's spirit-depths - verily a parallel experience. The sufferings in Kamaloca that man must endure in the spiritual world because Lucifer has been at his side since he began to incarnate on the earth - the clearest vision of all this is presented in the mighty Imaginations which can come before the soul during the Thirteen Days and Nights between the Christmas Festival and the Festival of the 6th of January, the Epiphany. The soul gazes at a vista of all that man must experience in the spiritual worlds because, under Lucifer's influence, he alienated himself from the Powers by whom the world was created. Hence there is no better preparation for the revelation of that Imagination which may be called the Christ Imagination and which makes us aware that by gaining the victory over Lucifer, Christ Himself becomes the Judge of the deeds of men during the incarnations affected by Lucifer's influence.” (l8, pp. 5l-52)