The Rudolf Steiner Archive

II. The Zodiac and Evolution

In the preceding part, an attempt has been made to show that ancient civilization recognized the starry heavens as the external manifestation of a Divine world. All ancient cosmology reveals this fact, though it may have differed according to national capacities in various parts of the Earth. For instance in Celtic mythology, the knowledge of the relationship between a divine cosmic world and human affairs is still more evident than in Greece, although it may be more difficult to detect it. It is hoped that an opportunity will be forthcoming in the future to present the beauty and grandeur of Celtic sidereal mythology.

However, the task of this present publication is to find a new star wisdom. For all ancient cosmology was evolved on an entirely different level of human consciousness and therefore cannot simply be revived in our present age. We must search for a new star wisdom that corresponds with the capacities of modern humanity.

The prevailing conception of the cosmos of the stars, which modern humanity has created, seems to forbid any attempt to look upon this universe as the manifestation of a Divine world. We have learned to regard the stars as gigantic celestial bodies, consisting of matter similar to that found on the Earth. Their movements can be calculated, their ages and their distances are supposed to be computable. The whole universe appears to the modern mind as a gigantic mechanism. There is no room in it for a spiritual world; everything seems to be explicable by mechanical laws alone. This modern astronomy has certainly made awe inspiring discoveries, and it is one of the great features of our present civilization. However, it has disappointed the searching mind of humanity where it tried to create cosmological theories on the basis of an all powerful mechanical and materialistic world conception. One may take any of the many hypotheses that have arisen concerning the creation of our solar system. Whether the planetary system is described as having come into existence by the centrifugal action of an original central Sun or by the collision of two giant stars, the question of the original cause is never satisfactorily answered. The initial cause is mostly shifted from one level to another, and any supposed original act of cosmic creation ultimately appears only as an effect of something we do not yet know. Usually these conceptions are borrowed from facts and theories concerning the laws of nature on the Earth. It is astonishing to see that just these comparative methods do not at once suggest to everybody the shortcomings of such one-sided mechanical ideas. For instance, one may try to explain an avalanche by mechanical causes only. It may be said that it is due to weather conditions. But what causes the changes of the meteorological conditions? One may again search, even successfully, for mechanical causes in meteorology, only to shift the problem to another level where a similar question can be asked. There is no end to this kind of self-deception if one remains in the purely mechanical and material sphere only.

There is ultimately no escape from the fact that spirit is at the foundation of all world existence. Certain sections of present humanity may still try to explain, even for a long time to come, existence on the basis of mechanical causes alone. There are still endless possibilities to do so. However, another section of humanity has already moved away from the original crude materialism. They realize that matter does not exist as one imagined it previously and instead consists of energy which one can calculate, to a certain extent. Thus some modern astronomers already admit that the foundation of the universe is possibly “thought”, because the cosmos operates on the basis of mathematical laws. These mathematical laws, inherent in the world of the stars, are supposed to have existed first in some kind of thought form before they could be imprinted in the physical universe. Can we then expect that such cosmic thoughts have been flying wildly through space without having originated in some kind of directing and supervising cosmic intelligence? It does not help very much to go only half way, and we may be confronted here with another of those shifting practices that merely push the problem from the level of a materialistic world conception to a purely mathematical picture of the world, without providing a real solution.

It is, of course, uncomfortable at first to accept the existence of a real spiritual world working within the physical. The spirit does not submit to laboratory methods, and there is a widespread fear that one becomes unscientific if one cannot control and master things any longer by physical experiment. This present age has accepted the idea, or rather the dogma, that the spirit, if it exists at all, is a closed realm for human cognition once and forever. Any attempt to pass that threshold is widely regarded as a dangerous undertaking, which can only lead to deception, unhealthy speculation, or uncontrollable mysticism.

Rudolf Steiner, as a western scientist, has described in many books the existence of a real spiritual world of cosmic intelligences who have created the physical universe and work through it. He has not only given numberless details about that world hidden from the physical senses, he has also described in such books as, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, An Outline of Esoteric Science, and others, methods and exercises, which if followed can open the gate of knowledge to that hidden world. Since ancient times, eastern world conceptions have spoken of practices that enable human beings to attain knowledge of higher worlds, but Rudolf Steiner has given his methods in forms that suit the conditions of especially modern western humanity. These methods are built firmly on the discipline of modern thinking. Thinking relentlessly controls the development of higher faculties of cognition, just as experiments in a laboratory might be controlled by mathematical discipline. Therefore, that higher thinking or spiritual perception, which is attained on the path of knowledge suggested by Rudolf Steiner, cannot be identified with any kind of dim and illusionary mysticism. It is based on strict scientific methods and a discipline which, in natural science, is applied to experimental research.

In his An Outline of Esoteric Science, Rudolf Steiner speaks in detail about the creation of the present universe in successive processes of cosmic evolution. He describes how a world of spiritual beings created the world during long stages of self manifestation. What the author considers to be one of many manifestations and revelations of that world of spiritual beings in the structure and the dynamic properties of the present cosmos of the stars will be describe in this book. If more publications beyond the present edition become possible in the future, then the results of many years of empirical research will also be made accessible, which will show the impacts of that spiritual cosmos on earthly events and facts. It must be emphasized that the author would not have permitted himself such statements as are contained in this book if intensive and far-reaching research, especially on historic grounds, had not justified and supported the final formulation of the picture of the starry world presented here. The statements are, therefore, not just wild speculations. They are based on spiritual research and on numberless astronomical and historical inquiries. [Editors: The author of this present book has occupied himself for many years with those descriptions. Moreover, he has worked intensively to confirm that picture of the world, both on the basis of the above mentioned path of knowledge given by Rudolf Steiner and also in connection with external facts in the physical world. For the traces of those spiritual beings who created the universe and still work through it must be found manifest everywhere in nature and in the human world.]

For the description of spiritual beings and facts of the spiritual world, we will employ the terminology used by Rudolf Steiner in his book, An Outline of Esoteric Science. It will be sufficiently explained, but we shall not constantly refer to that work. A thorough study of An Outline of Esoteric Science, therefore, could assist the reader considerably.

The Threefold Human Being

In the following chapter an attempt will be made to investigate the dynamic character of the Zodiac. The Zodiac is composed of 12 constellations or groups of fixed stars that since ancient times bear the familiar names: Aries or Ram, Taurus or Bull, Gemini or Twins, Cancer or Crab, Leo or Lion, Virgo or Virgin, Libra or Scales, Scorpio or Scorpion, Sagittarius or Archer, Capricorn or Goat, Aquarius or Waterman, Pisces or Fishes. They form a kind of circular ribbon that seems to hold the sky of the fixed stars together. Moreover, this circle of the Zodiac appears to be the path of all the planets belonging to our solar system, including Sun and Moon. We cannot go into detail here about the movements of the planets, but if we regularly observe the Moon and also the planets, it becomes obvious that they all seem to move through the Zodiac according to their rhythms of revolution. As they move through space at different distances from the Earth, we can imagine that the Zodiac is the outer fringe of a huge plane on which the orbits of the planets appear to be attached, thus forming a kind of stairway from the fixed-star world down to the Earth. Therefore, the constellations of the Zodiac seem to be of major importance, regarding the connection between the stellar world and the Earth.

The questions which must follow are: How can we find out anything about the spiritual and dynamic character of that stellar world? Have we any means of investigation? The telescope gives us only the external aspects of the starry world; it does not reveal spirit in the stars.

We shall use the human being as an instrument of research in this field of knowledge. This may appear at first as sheer nonsense or superstition. Certainly we know that in ancient times the human being was regarded as a microcosm, or considered to be a perfect reflection or image of the greater universe. Modern science, however, will claim that we have no proof for this conception that could only flourish on the basis of the ignorance of those bygone ages. To this one can reply that the history of science during the last few centuries is in itself a proof that it cannot possibly claim to have found the absolute and final truth about humanity and the universe. The development of scientific knowledge during this century and the last one, the many radical changes in scientific outlook, and the helplessness with regard to certain fundamental questions are rather signs that the truth about life and existence cannot be found without an exact science of the spirit. Here the author can only state that an occupation with anthroposophical spiritual science has convinced him that the human being is a microcosm of the great macrocosm and that the ancient views were not founded on sheer ignorance. The ancient world conceptions were originally based on very exact perceptions with regard to the spiritual nature of humanity and the universe. Certainly, we must search for these facts on a different level of consciousness from that of ancient times.

In the light of modern spiritual science, we are not only an image of the present universe, but also a perfect reflection of the great steps of cosmic evolution since the dim past. A clear picture of our organization is, therefore, necessary in order to detect that hidden script of creation.

The human body can be perceived as a threefold organization of head, chest, and limbs. The central organ of the head is obviously the brain, toward which the senses are oriented, but also the whole nervous system radiates from it or toward it. It is the region from which the contact with the external world is established. A certain direction of the movements and functions of the body, moreover, is obviously centered there. Heart and lungs are the central organs of the chest. They appear to be connected with the intimate life processes. Heartbeat and breath are expressions of the presence of life within a human body, but this realm of life processes is closed to our consciousness. We experience the activity in this region as a reflection or realization of well-being or ill health. The limbs and the whole organization connected with them provide the possibility to move and to act independently, up to a certain point, but here we again become aware that this bodily region is veiled in deep unconsciousness. We have no notion of the complicated processes that take place in the human organism if, for instance, we lift our arm or when the food which we take in is digested.

Thus we are confronted with a threefold organization of our bodily nature. As a whole, it appears as a passage or stairway into depths of unconscious existence. And yet we notice that this bodily organization serves as a vehicle for our more or less conscious soul activities. Just as the body constitutes a passage from the clarity of the sense organs and the brain to the unconscious depths of the limbs and the metabolic system, so the soul capacities have an inherent capacity and urge to rise to ever clearer consciousness. These faculties seem to need the bodily nature as a kind of resistance, and by battling against this bodily complex of resistance, these faculties appear to be able to raise the level of consciousness. Thus, on the basis of the head system, we develop a consciousness of the objectively existing world around us. By the harmonic coordination of perception and thinking, we can evolve to higher degrees of consciousness in this realm. Against the chest or rhythmic system, we are struggling to evolve our feelings and raise them from the level of dim dreaming to clearer consciousness. Thus we are able to develop harmonious and conscious connections with our fellow creatures in nature. The battle against the limb or metabolic organization is the most difficult, because this bodily region resists by complete, sleep-like unconsciousness, and only very slowly can we develop our willing in this battle.

Thus we have come to an illuminating contradiction in our threefold being:

This threefold being is an exact image of the stages of cosmic evolution. Any genuine spiritual investigations in the past, and also modern spiritual science, distinguish three great steps of cosmic creation preceding this present universe. During the first cosmic stage, the foundation was laid for that world we call the physical world. Then divine thoughts or ideas were densified into the first traces of substance. On a vast cosmic scale a world embryo was created; just as during the earlier embryonic stages of a human being, the head is predominantly developed. The foundations of the sense organs were then also created, and thereby that world came into being that became the plane of resistance against which human beings learned (much later) to unfold the conscious capacities of perception and thinking.

During the second great cycle of cosmic evolution, life was infused into that which had come to exist physically at the previous stage. The very first foundations of breathing and circulation were created; but this was possible only because the physical substance derived from the first stage became at more densified and coarsened the second stage. In order to create the foundation for the later development of feeling, one part of creation fell deeper into unconscious matter. It is similar to the connection between the region of almost unconscious breathing and circulation and the dormant faculties of feeling.

During the third great stage of cosmic evolution, about which we shall speak later in greater detail, some of the created beings, mainly human predecessors, were imbued with the first traces of independent movement. This was again bought at the price of a further densification and coarsening of the original physical substance. It fell still deeper into unconsciousness; in other words, it moved further away from its origin in divine thought. By this sacrifice the foundation was laid for that realm, in the bodily existence, against which the human being will be enabled in future to develop conscious willing. During the fourth great cosmic cycle, part of the original physical substance was densified to such a degree that it no longer showed any trace of its divine origin. Thereby one of the species of creation, humanity itself, was enabled to realize, through their participation in the emancipated substance, their own independence, their ego. Thus humanity realized the great split, which had been enacted in order to initiate higher stages of consciousness, and could also work toward the great union of that which has fallen and that which rose. This is the stage of our present universe.

We are indeed a microcosmic image of macrocosmic evolution. By studying and recognizing our true nature, we can at the same time develop a recognition of the dynamic character of the universe. This fact was always known by the wise and prominent spiritual leaders of humanity. With regard to the bodily nature, one knew that the human being on Earth is a perfect image of the facts and details in the great universe of the stars. In ancient times, studying the becoming and development of the human body meant at the same time studying the genesis of the universe. For human beings were perceived as having derived their bodily organization from the stars during the stages of their prenatal descent to the Earth. Thus the human body has been perceived from ancient times as a twelvefold unit akin to the 12 constellations of the Zodiac. This ancient knowledge has come down to our age by tradition, but modern spiritual science has rediscovered it as a fact which new spiritual insight reveals. Therefore the human being appears in the following relationship to the constellations of the Zodiac:

1. Head: Ram
2. Organism of the larynx: Bull
3. Arms: Twins
4. Chest: Crab
5. Interior of the chest: Lion
6. Organs and intestines below the diaphragm: Virgin
7. Pelvis: Scales
8. Organs of propagation: Scorpion
9. Thighs: Archer
10. Knees: Goat
11. Calves: Waterman
12. Feet: Fishes

If we recall now what we said about the threefold nature of our bodily organization and take into consideration the connection with the Zodiac, then we must expect to also find this threefold being in the world of the stars. In other words, if we have to search for the origin of the human body among the stars of the Zodiac, then the Zodiac itself must be of a threefold nature, revealing the same history of cosmic evolution that the human body reveals.

We can imagine that the constellations from Ram to Twins constitute the cosmic equivalent of the head organism, the constellations from Crab to Scales or Scorpion the middle organization, and Archer, Goat, Waterman and Fishes the limb organization. However, it would be a crude picture, and we must not imagine that the ancient wisdom was crude or primitive. The knowledge of human evolution and of the universe was much more elaborate and exact than we generally assume nowadays.

The secret of our threefold nature and its relationship to the universe was known in the ancient mysteries as the Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery. It is the mystery which is so deeply connected, for instance, with the ancient Celtic wisdom of the Triads, the knowledge and the deeper meaning of, “Three are one and one is three”. Only incomplete fractions of those mysteries have come down to us, and it was Rudolf Steiner who presented them in new forms appropriate to the consciousness of modern humanity. (See Rudolf Steiner’s, Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy, Oslo, June 1912, especially lectures V-VII.) When in ancient times the pupils of the mystery places and sanctuaries were going along the path of careful preparation for the attainment of higher knowledge, they experienced themselves as that threefold being of which we spoke above. They had to make great efforts and exercise great strength of character and self-discipline in order to maintain in themselves the unity of the three beings which they had discovered. They could do it by realizing the cosmic nature and origin of their being. The circle of the Zodiac in which they could experience the great archetypal image of their small earthly being helped them to regain the unity, because the circle, and above all the great circle of the Zodiac, is in itself the essence of perfect harmony and union.

Those scholars of ancient spiritual science realized by looking at the harmony and order of the celestial world, especially of the Zodiac, how the “three” of the human being and of the whole universe were united by the great spirit of the universe in “one”. Thus looking upon the human being, they perceived the threefold being originating in the spiritual being of the Zodiac—the great Father being whom the ancient Persians called Zaruana Akarana, from which the word Zodiac is derived. They also became aware that each one of the three human organizations was itself a sevenfold unit, which had the following relationship to the Zodiac:

Upper Body

1. Ram: Upright position, radiating into the body from the structure of the head and brain through the skeleton, especially the spinal column.
2. Bull: Forward direction expressed by the organism that is directed toward utterance and perception of sound (larynx and middle ear).
3. Twin: Symmetry, starting in the duplexity of the eyes and ears, extending into the symmetry of the arms and of the whole body. The word expressed by the Bull organism here becomes the deed.
4. Archer: Upper arms, the word transformed into the deed is aiming at the external world.
5. Goat: Elbow, the initial stiffness is taken away and flexibility infused.
6. Waterman: Lower arm, the stream of warmth originating in the warmth of the body meets the warmth of the external world.
7. Fishes: Hands, the union is established between internal and external world.

Middle Body

1. Twins: The spinal column and spinal cord. They connect the upper human being with the lower human being (unequal twins). The spinal cord also constitutes a kind of brain of the middle human being.
2. Crab: Chest, the sheath enclosing and protecting the organs within the chest.
3. Lion: Interior of the chest—heart and lungs.
4. Virgin: Interior below the diaphragm, seat of the organs of digestion, and the mysterious region of the transformation of food substances.
5. Scales: Balance between interior regions (Lion and Virgin) and external world.
6. Scorpion: Organs of reproduction.
7. Archer: Direction toward the external world below the human being.

Lower Body

1. Virgin: Solar plexus with kidneys, the “brain” of the lower human being.
2. Scales: Pelvis and hips, the organ of balance of the lower moving human being.
3. Scorpion: External organs of reproduction.
4. Archer: Thighs, movement is facilitated by the tension and relaxation of muscles and sinews of the upper leg.
5. Goat: Knees, facilitation of flexibility and grace in the movement of the legs.
6. Waterman: Lower legs, meeting of internal warmth in the blood (carrier of emotions, etc.) and external conditions.
7. Fishes: Feet, touching the Earth.

(From Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy, 1965 edition, page 118.)

Thus the human being was perceived in ancient times as “Three in one and one in three”. We have come into a position in our age to regain that lost knowledge in a modern sense. If we look at it from the viewpoint of a spiritual cosmology, we can also realize the unifying factors. For instance, we can see that the upper and lower person are partly overlapping with regard to their relationship to the Zodiac, whereas the cosmic middle person acts as a connecting link between the constellations above and below the equinoxes.

We need to go one step further in order to achieve our initial aim to use the knowledge of our bodily nature as a key for the understanding of the spiritual nature of the Zodiac. Previously, we pointed out that our threefold being is a microcosmic recapitulation of the three great stages of cosmic evolution that were molded into a fourth one, the present stage. To this we have now added the aspect of the sevenfoldness of our three organizations and their relationship to the Zodiac. If such a connection between the human being and the Zodiac exists, then it logically follows that the Zodiac is also built from the substance of a world memory, as it were, of those bygone stages of cosmic evolution. Just as our body is a kind of living monument of the past, the Zodiac is a living and still creative memory-being of the past. Our further task will now be to detect this active cosmic memory. Thereby we shall gain an insight into the dynamic character of the constellations of the Zodiac that is not solely dependent on the inexplicable astrological interpretations which tradition has brought down to us.

The Zodiac as Revelation of the Stages of Cosmic Evolution

The three great stages of past cosmic evolution that are memorized, as it were, by our threefold organization, were known in all genuine ancient wisdom. The mythologies of the various ancient peoples speak of them in pictorial form. Usually they were presented as deities of very exalted nature. As we can easily understand, varying names were used for them. We will use here the conceptions that modern spiritual science has coined for those three stages. They are given in Rudolf Steiner’s book, An Outline of Esoteric Science, as:

1. Ancient Saturn - the first stage
2. Ancient Sun - the second stage
3. Ancient Moon - the third stage
These three were amalgamated in a fourth stage, the present Earth evolution.

The Evolution of Ancient Saturn

The Ancient Saturn stage represents the beginning, the foundation of the physical universe from pure spiritual existence. It is represented, or “remembered”, in the upper human being and in the Zodiac as the constellations from Twins via Fishes to Archer (see Fig. 21, pg. 34). Thus we can say that Ancient Saturn represents something like a gigantic cosmic embryonic process, during which the first indications of a “head-being” were created, so to speak, out of nothingness, i. e., out of a spiritual world. If we compare it with the mysterious first stages of embryonic development of a human being, we can also understand that this “head” had nothing of a likeness to the head of a present human being. Thus we must first imagine nothing but a world of spiritual beings, who created the “ovum”, as it were, of that which was to become the future universe. First of all, we need a very clear picture of the hierarchical choir of those spiritual beings who were experienced as individual Intelligences in all the ancient mysteries. In the following list, we give their divine names as they were used in ancient times and also by Rudolf Steiner in his various writings:

Occult Science	Bible	Greek
Spirits of Love Spirits of Harmony Spirits of Will	Seraphim Cherubim Thrones
Spirits of Wisdom Spirits of Motion Spirits of Form	Dominions Mights or Virtues Powers	Kyriotetes Dynamis Exusiai
Spirits of Personality Spirits of Fire Spirits of Twilight	Primal Beginnings Archangels Angels	Archai Archangeloi Angeloi

Spiritual investigation leads back to a point when neither space nor time existed. Only the spiritual beings of the hierarchies lived in a timeless and spaceless condition. We can get a faint idea of this condition of existence if we try to comprehend the spacelessness and timelessness of thought. Then the Spirits of Will or Thrones (see above) stepped forward and, according to the counsel of the highest divinities, sacrificed a part of their own soul being or substance. This substance appears to spiritual perception as an entity of divine will forces. This will substance subsequently became the foundation of all physical existence. Thus we can say that in reality, divine soul force is the essence of all physical and material being; and we can, therefore, also understand that eastern world conceptions regarded the physical material world as Maya, as a great illusion. According to those ancient views, which were born of spiritual perception, matter does not exist as a reality in itself. It was regarded as spirit or divine soul substance which had been densified to such an extent that it appeared as matter.

The will, which had been sacrificed by the Thrones and was thereby detached from its origin, formed a kind of immense celestial body of yet chaotic nature. Into this cosmos of soul substance another hierarchy of divine beings began to work, the Spirits of Wisdom or Kyriotetes. With the advent of this activity, cosmic evolution had already crossed the border to the very first indications of development in space and time. We can therefore speak from now on of events that happen subsequently. Hence the actions of the Thrones and Kyriotetes can be regarded as having taken place during vast cycles of time. We call them for our purposes “rounds” or “conditions of life”, and thus we can speak of this initial activity of the hierarchies mentioned above as the first round of Ancient Saturn. We shall find seven such vast cycles of evolution or rounds in Ancient Saturn and also in the subsequent great stages of Ancient Sun, Ancient Moon, and Earth.

In the sense of our previous remarks, we will now try to find the cosmic memory of this first round of Ancient Saturn in the Zodiac. We found Ancient Saturn connected with those constellations to which our upper body has a certain affinity. The root of the upper body is the head, especially the brain, which we saw in relationship to Ram. We can also find the first phase of Ancient Saturn, of which we spoke, remembered in Ram. In ancient times it was called the Prince of the Zodiac, the leader who looks backwards and watches his flock following him.

The Ram is the first sign of the Zodiac. It stands in the cosmos as a sign or of something that is a new beginning. The Fishes is the last constellation and, therefore, signifies something that has come to an end, to a certain perfection. Thus we can see in Fishes the memory image of the great act of sacrifice of will, which was given by the Thrones. After a long “inner” or purely spiritual development, they had come to a point where a part of their own being had become so perfect that they could give it away. Of course, we are speaking here in terms of time that seem to be a contradiction of what we said previously about the beginning of Ancient Saturn. However, there is no other possibility, as long as we use human language that is adapted only to facts in space and time. Yet, we can have an inner impression of what we have in mind here, when we imagine inner or spiritual experiences of a human being that are not bound to space and time and which can, as we know, take place in minute flashes of time. Thus we must imagine that the Thrones had come to a point in which a principle of their own being had come to an absolute perfection. We may compare it with the moment when a human being dies and lays earthly existence aside. Then one should expect that one’s life has come to a certain perfection, and the essence of one’s earthly existence can be handed over to other powers in the universe. This comparison, of course, can only lead a certain distance, and we must imagine the sacrifice of the Thrones on an infinitely higher level of consciousness than the human plane.

We should not imagine, however, that a gigantic process of this kind is “fixed” solely in the cosmic memory of Fishes. We are speaking here of rounds of evolution, immeasurably long intervals of time, which are on the utmost border of the concept of time in a human sense. We ought to imagine these cycles or rounds of time as comprising the totality of the Zodiac. The inner development of the Thrones is expressed, so to speak, as a movement through all the constellations starting from Fishes and going through Waterman, etc., until it reaches a kind of maturity or climax, which is then given away. With regard to the present visible cosmos, we usually speak of longer or shorter rhythms of movement, for instance, of the very slow precession of the vernal point through the Zodiac, which takes nearly 26,000 years. There are, however, still greater cosmic rhythms, such as the movement of the perigee which needs, according to present calculations, more than a hundred thousand years for one revolution; and there may be others of still longer periods that we have not yet discovered. These rhythms must have been initiated by some kind of cosmic force, and it is this inner activity expressing itself, ultimately in externally calculable astronomical facts, which we have in mind when we speak of rounds or cycles.

(The perigee, according to the Copernican conception, is the point of greatest proximity of the Sun to the elliptic orbit [→] of the Earth.)

First there was purely spiritual and incommensurable activity that became calculable movement much later through a visible Zodiac. The present Zodiac and the rhythms connected with it are then only a kind of cosmic record of what went on in the past when the external universe did not yet exist in the present sense. Thus we should read in the progression of the Zodiac from Fishes to Ram the record of the sacrifice of will by the Thrones and the activity of the Kyriotetes or Spirits of Wisdom. This constituted the first round of Ancient Saturn.

How can we read in Ram the deeds of those Spirits of Wisdom? Their name suggests that they are connected with divine wisdom. The Thrones gave the initial impetus, for by their sacrifice they created the vessel for all existence hereafter. The highest divine wisdom was then needed in order to mold the vessel (that totality of the creature), according to the premeditated intentions and purposes of the highest divinity. A “plan” of the subsequent phases and features of all evolution had to be infused into the creature, although we must confess that the concept “plan” is not very satisfactory because it suggests, according to present standards of thinking, something abstract and lifeless. However, if we visualize processes of organic growth in nature, we might achieve a better comparison. For instance, a plant grows out of a small seed; it expands in space according to an invisible but very definite archetype of its species. It reaches a certain climax of existence, after which it withers away and finally decays. All this takes place according to a strict rhythm that is the common law of the species of that plant. This law or archetype of the species is obviously a very powerful entity. We might call it an active “idea”. With regard to the single plant, it expresses itself as “life” manifest in space and time. It is this kind of “idea” or “life” but extended to the totality of all cosmic evolution in the past and future, which we have in mind when we speak of the Kyriotetes as bearing the divine plan, the living divine wisdom in their being. Therefore, it is more advisable to imagine this planning activity of the Kyriotetes as the absolute totality of the spiritual kernels of cosmic life archetypes.

Out of the power of this hierarchical dignity, the Kyriotetes worked upon the will substance of the Divine Father-world. Spiritual investigation reveals that they were not yet able to permeate the celestial body, consisting of will, with life. Here we are confronted with one of the most fundamental laws of spiritual development in the cosmos and in the human being. Only an abstract mind would expect that cosmic evolution must move along an absolute straight line, as it were, from the intention to the goal. The fact is that all evolution works in curves. The original impulses and intentions may carry the object forward to a certain point of perfection, but then a relaxation takes place during which new forces are gathered. After such a period of rest, another effort is made to take evolution still nearer to the ultimate aim, and so forth. Thus the immense variety of objects and beings in the universe are created.

The activity of the Kyriotetes could not yet be assimilated by the Ancient Saturn body. Instead, a certain reflection of it, as in a mirror, was created which nevertheless had a deep effect on Ancient Saturn. It is, naturally, extremely difficult to imagine what then took place. There are those archetypal kernels that carry the absolute spiritual potentiality of all possible life manifestations in them, working upon and overshadowing the celestial body of Ancient Saturn. They can only exist as reflections within the latter, but they themselves are flung back into the surroundings of that “star”. Where can we find anything in the present world which appears to bear a recollection of those events in the past? The function of the brain of a human being is a microcosmic recapitulation of the events during the first round of Ancient Saturn. We say that through the capacity of the brain we are thinking beings. We have a certain contact with the external world through our senses. In our thoughts we conceive the nature of the objects around us, but we experience over and over again that the thoughts which we have are shadowy entities that come and go. They are connected in a certain sense with the inherent wisdom of the object world, yet we realize that these thoughts are only reflections of a reality to which we seem to have no direct access. This is a similar situation to the one on Ancient Saturn, only on an entirely different level of our microcosmic existence. We cannot expect, of course, to find on that celestial body, at this stage, a brain or any object world with inherent thought or wisdom. Rather, we must imagine that the thought or wisdom was not incorporated in any kind of object. There existed only an objective world of divine thought or wisdom, part of the being of the Kyriotetes. It created a reflection in Ancient Saturn; in other words, it established the germ of a capacity to grasp the objective being of divine wisdom as shadowy and powerless images. Thus the very first foundation was laid for that brain capacity which the human being now possesses. We can realize the culmination of this initial step of evolution in the cosmic spiritual properties of the constellation Aries or Ram. This region of the cosmos is indeed the field from which emanates those forces that enable the human being to build up the ethereal foundations of the head and brain long before birth. Therefore, the spiritual science of all ages has regarded Ram as the archetypal region of the head and brain, as we indicated earlier.

After the phase of evolution initiated by the Spirits of Wisdom had reached a certain culmination, the Ancient Saturn universe entered another phase of its development. Now another hierarchy of divine beings were so far evolved that they could take over the heritage of the preceding stage. They were the Spirits of Motion or Dynamis who now made it their task to further develop what had been achieved by the Spirits of Wisdom. They penetrated it with inner activity, which we might compare on a grand cosmic scale with what lives as soul impulses, as emotions and feelings within a human being. Thus they added to the sublime and calm wisdom coming from the Spirits of Wisdom, the inner motion and the power of executing the Divine Will. Thereby they became the fathers of all that later flowed into external cosmic manifestation and activity. For instance, they are the originators of the movements and rhythms in the world of the stars. These movements were originally brought about by great cosmic impulses, feelings, and emotions, which existed in the beings of the Spirits of Motion before the stars had become the visible bodies that we see now. At that time, there existed only this soul world of the Dynamis in their place. Later the Dynamis withdrew, when they had to leave the universe of creation to itself for the sake of the evolution of freedom. Consequently, an emancipated and objective physical starry universe only imitated the original cosmic soul movements as mechanical and computable rhythms.

The activity of the Spirits of Motion was received by the Ancient Saturn cosmos only in a reflecting passivity. Earlier this cosmic body could not be permeated by the life-giving impulse of the Spirits of Wisdom, and far less was it in a condition to assimilate the animating activity of the Spirits of Motion. Therefore, their reflected psychical impact mingled with those life forces that surrounded Ancient Saturn and which had come into being through the previous activity of the Spirits of Wisdom. An amalgamation of cosmic life and cosmic forces of animation took place, and this entity, consisting of the life and the soul of the world, enwrapped Ancient Saturn like a mighty but super-sensuous Zodiac or aura. Thus the life of the cosmos, which was the emanation of the wisdom plan of the cosmos, was permeated and animated by those sublime cosmic soul forces that later activated the movements and rhythms of the stars. In other words, that cosmic divine life was organized by an archetypal, purely psychical, star order.

This was a most decisive step in cosmic evolution for all later creation, although it appeared to be based on the failure of Ancient Saturn to receive the life of the cosmos and the cosmic psyche into its own being. The life of the world, which contained the archetypal potentiality of all later features and aims of cosmic evolution in a state of sublime divine calmness, was endowed with the capacity of spanning the “time-dome” of the successive cosmic ages. Time was activated and strengthened by those forces which “take time” for the manifestations of the divine will. They are the same forces that worked as time-founded rhythms and movements in the cosmos of the stars. This cosmic aura of life and soul created, as we said above, only a reflection on Ancient Saturn. Thereby, the very first archetypal foundation of the physical kingdoms of the Earth was laid; and this is the origin of the division of the mineral kingdom into 12 great groups of substances, of the 12 species of the animal kingdom, of the human twelvefold physical body, etc. The twelve-foldness and other cosmic principles of numbers, which appear manifest in these kingdoms, still bear the imprint of that reflection which was impressed on Ancient Saturn through the amalgamation of the aura of cosmic life and cosmic soul or astral forces (astrum: Latin - astron, Greek - star in a spiritual sense).

This whole phase of Ancient Saturn evolution is written into the constellation of Bull. It must have been known in ancient times, because we find Bull depicted on old star maps with lowered head and horns and in the momentum of a powerful forward movement. But more is hidden here. Earlier we pointed out that the Bull was always recognized by ancient star wisdom as the archetypal region of the human larynx and the adjoining organism for hearing and speaking. Indeed, experience can show that this region of the human organization is built up by forces having their origin in the cosmic direction of Bull. However, it is not only the human larynx that is formed by those forces. They are active in the totality of nature, and we can recognize in Bull that cosmic sphere which is related to the beginning of all creation. Creation is the successive manifestation of the divine Word in the physical world. We might also call it the outpouring of the divine Word into the manifoldness of the universe, in the sense that we hear it proclaimed in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God... All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made”. This archetypal divine Word, whose origin goes back to Ancient Saturn, we must seek spiritually in the region of Bull. The Bull is, as it were, the divine larynx. Even the human word reveals this origin. We know that the Ur-alphabet was a reflection of cosmic facts. The consonants were realized as originating in the constellations of the Zodiac, the vowels in the seven planetary bodies. Of course, later in history the human word lost much of its cosmic character by the development of the differentiated and individualized languages. But we can still realize that the thought can become creative when it is taken hold of by the word. Then the reflection of thought-wisdom and psychical movement unite. This was initiated by the amalgamation of divine wisdom-life and cosmic soul forces on Ancient Saturn.

We find this archetypal creativeness of Bull forces in all ancient mythologies. For instance, in ancient Egypt the divine Hathor/Isis forces were venerated. Hathor was imaginatively experienced as the world cow, who gave sustenance to all creatures. Even in later times Isis was still imagined with a crown of cow horns. This is one example of how the divine Bull forces were experienced in ancient times; for it was Isis who spoke to those, who approached her in the temples, of the mysteries with the words, “I am the ALL that has been, that is and that will be...” She was experienced as the Great Mother of all that had been created and that will come to pass in the future. Thus the ancient times were expressed in its own language as the knowledge of the world creative background of Bull.

To come back to the evolution of Ancient Saturn, we ought to be aware of the fact that by the amalgamation of divine wisdom-life and cosmic psychical forces, a region was created in which dwelled the spiritual archetypes of later physical differentiation. These forces were held back in the aura of Ancient Saturn in a latent but extremely powerful condition; and in order to guide its impact into the realm of physically differentiated manifestation; in other words, into that chaotic will of which the body of Ancient Saturn consisted, another step of cosmic evolution was necessary.

After the cycle that we see remembered in Bull had reached a certain culmination, another hierarchy of spiritual beings, the Spirits of Form or Exusiai came to the foreground. They had the power to form the still formless, but they also carried in their being the impulse for individualization. They are indeed those hierarchical beings who insisted through all cosmic evolution on the development of the ego or “I”. Their efforts were always concentrated on the establishment of this faculty in the creature. They certainly could not awaken it in the substance of Ancient Saturn, and only at a much later stage of evolution did they succeed in implanting the power of the ego in humanity. Consequently, their impulse was also unable to permeate the body of Ancient Saturn, but their activity left an imprint or reflection on it. Thus it happened that during their phase of influence, external images of individualization or differentiation appeared in the substance of the celestial body. It had a twofold effect. That chaotic will substance, of which we spoke in the beginning, appeared divided into many small entities. This was only a reflection, an image as it were, of what went on in the aura of the planet. For the activity of the Spirits of Form had been flung back into the environment of Ancient Saturn and there had individualized that subtle Zodiac consisting of divine wisdom-life and cosmic soul qualities. The particles of the planetary kernel of Ancient Saturn itself, which bore the image of individualization and differentiation, became later on the bodily vehicle of all objects and beings in the kingdoms of nature, including the human kingdom. The whole “planet”, as one might call it if an observer could have seen it from outside, would have appeared like a mulberry or a blackberry. Thus the impulses of the Spirits of Form prepared the way for the ultimate manifestation of the divine Word in physical reality, and thus they also established the fact that the interrelationship of the kingdoms of the physical world became an image of the cosmic order. The mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms represent a kind of projection onto the Earth of the laws and the order in the planetary and zodiacal worlds. Ancient humanity represented them in its hierarchically oriented social organisms of the past. It has lost this connection in modern times, but it must consciously rediscover its cosmic archetypal order if it wants to survive.

This great cycle of Ancient Saturn is inscribed in the constellation of Twins. On all ancient star maps we find there the two, and if we take into account all the mythologies that are connected with Twins, then we shall realize that we are confronted here with the origin of “cell division” in all creation. The constellation of Twins, indeed, indicates the direction in which we have to search for the archetypal cell division of the Spirits of Form, when they divided the body of Ancient Saturn into single particles. This archetypal cell division is, for instance, still present as reflection in the Twin region of the human organization. As we demonstrated earlier, Twins appear manifest in the shoulders, arms and hands, and also in the spinal cord, which establishes the connection between the “twins” of head and limbs. We are obviously confronted here with a kind of memory of the beginnings of a cosmic cell division in the past. Everything that appears connected with symmetry in the human body is based on it. However, there is also another aspect. With ones hands one touches and grasps an external natural world. The human being is even capable of molding this external world through activity, to a certain extent. Through this confrontation, the human being experiences itself as an emancipated and individual being. Thus we have recapitulated, in the Twin region of the human body, both the cosmic processes of emancipation and self-realization, which was initiated on Ancient Saturn by the Spirits of Form.

In order to have self-realization one must be a personality. Of course, the human being was not able to make itself manifest as a personality on Ancient Saturn. Only the very first indications and physiological conditions were created, which should much later enable self-realization as an emancipated human being. Undoubtedly, we cannot speak of the existence of a human being with arms and hands on Ancient Saturn. There was not yet an external world, in the present sense, in which the human being could stand against in order to have an opportunity of self-realization. All this had to be prepared through immeasurably long ages of cosmic evolution. For instance, if we had, the possibility to catch the moment, when during the embryonic development the organism was just on the point of developing arms, etc., we should have a truer picture of the archetypal Twin forces.

In order to prepare the way for the working of these Twin forces, another hierarchy of divine being, the Archai or Spirits of Personality, exerted their influence on Ancient Saturn after the Spirits of Form. They had then reached a remarkable stage of their own development, because they experienced themselves on a similar level of consciousness to that of humanity under present world conditions. They realized themselves, in a certain sense, as individual beings. This was made possible by the preceding evolution of Ancient Saturn. We heard that the body of Ancient Saturn acted as a kind of reflecting mirror for the activities of the spiritual hierarchies. Thereby, something that originally had been of divine soul nature, the will, had been sent on the way to externalization. This helped the Spirits of Personality find a plane of external resistance against which they realized their own personality. They extended their own being into those differentiated entities of which the “planet” now consisted, and in the passive resistance, which they encountered in that region, they saw the reflection of their own being, as in a mirror. Thus we again have a twofold effect. The Spirits of Personality were able to go through a kind of “human” development, and the differentiated entities, in which we have to see the “ancestors” of humanity, received a reflection or imprinted image of emancipated personality.

This reflection we can understand again as a kind of “physiological” effect only, but it caused a tremendous change in the nature of those entities. The will substance, a cosmic psychical substance, was transformed into warmth. This warmth was the foundation of everything that we meet later on in cosmic evolution as “physical” substance. It was obviously the first indication of the emancipation from the original divine soul substance, of a falling away from the origin. We have thus described the nature of that reflection, which was caused by the “human” development of the Archai on the “ancestors” of humanity. We have here also the moment in cosmic evolution where we see a divine element of cosmic-psychical nature changed into something of apparently non-divine nature (ultimately matter), by a change of perspective, as it were. Ancient eastern peoples who knew this fact could therefore say that the external material aspect of the world is Maya and the reality behind it is spirit.

Two other facts are also connected with that past phase of cosmic evolution. The first is the truth that humanity of our present stage of development needs the sphere of resistance coming from the physical body in order for the self-realization of our individuality. All the experiences that we can have through our bodily organization, including illnesses, etc., make us aware of a distinction between our individual selves and the external world. We can see in this a kind of recapitulation of the “human” experience of the Archai on Ancient Saturn, although on an entirely different level. In the fact that we need the warmth of our blood in order to realize ourselves as an “I”, reveals the intimate connection with that stage on Ancient Saturn when the will was transformed into warmth under the impact of the personality experience of the Archai. The warm bloodstream of the human being is the physiological vehicle of this self-realization as an “I”. Thus we find another correlation with the Twin cycle of Ancient Saturn, where we first saw the Spirits of Form and then the Spirits of Personality at work.

We see the externalization and individualization, starting on Ancient Saturn, also expressed in a different cosmic direction. We said that Twins constitutes a cosmic region that contains, in archetypal tendency, the “status nascendus” of externalization and radiation, as expressed in the human body. The act of going from a central point to the periphery is indicated by the upper arm and upper leg. They are, as we said previously, a manifestation of the constellation of Archer, which is opposite Twins in the sky. Thus we must also include the aspect of Archer in this whole phase of Ancient Saturn evolution. In other words, we can see those activities of the Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Personality recorded in the interplay of the constellations of Twins and Archer. Thereby the foundation of a physiological instrumentality, the Archer-organization, was created by which the human being could later on be “sent out” into the loneliness of self-realization, as a bodily entity detached from the external universe. We can then also understand that ancient peoples had the imagination of the Centaur when they looked in the direction of Archer. The Centaur is a being that is half human and half horse, which is only on the way to becoming a fully developed human being. Through the battle between the upper self striving to become human and the lower animal organism, the aim of “I” realization can be attained. The Archer aims with bow and arrow at something in the distance, which is nothing other than the attainment of its Self.

On the basis of the beginnings of externalization, the physiological impulse of emancipation and self-realization was implanted into the Ancient Saturn ancestors of humanity. The planet then entered a further cycle of its existence. It follows quite logically that a being, which had been put on to the path of evolution described, would sooner or later have to acquire organs with which it could realize an external world in contradistinction to its own internal being. We should expect to find such organs, according to present standards of human existence, somewhere in the direction of the sense organs. Indeed, during the following phase of Ancient Saturn, the very first indications of the present sense organs were founded. In order to achieve this, another hierarchy of spiritual beings, the Archangeloi, came to the foreground. At that time, they had not yet achieved the consciousness level of the present human being. They were, therefore, not able to act independently. They could only work to serve a much higher hierarchy, the Seraphim or Spirits of Love. This hierarchy had attained a very high level of development. In mighty imaginations, they beheld the events that were taking place on Ancient Saturn. But they sacrificed their visions, and the Archangeloi were thereby enabled to weave out of this sacrificed substance the first ethereal foundations of the sense organs. These germs “radiated” light into the darkness of the Ancient Saturn body, and the Seraphim permeated these radiations with their sublime clairvoyant experiences of the Saturn universe.

Thus we are here confronted with the actual foundation of the objective external universe, which we now perceive through our senses. The coming into existence of the external universe is closely bound up with the development of the activity of the human sense organs. Originally, it was clairvoyant beholding in the Seraphim or Spirits of Love; then it was sacrificed. In other words, it was emancipated from its origin and transformed by the divine creative faculty of the Archangeloi into an objective appearance existing in and through the senses.

Here we are again, from a different angle, confronted with the background of the ancient truth that the universe, which we perceive through the senses, is in reality of spiritual essence. Modern humanity has forgotten this truth, and therefore the universe appears to be divorced from the spirit. However, now a moment has come when the human being must again begin to learn that the world, which presents itself through the senses, contains a much greater spiritual reality hidden “behind” the mere appearance. We have now acquired the capacity to realize, in full self-consciousness, the spiritual subjectivity hiding behind the veil of the apparent “objective” external universe. We can gradually approach the sublime truth, “I am the universe and the universe is in me”. One will realize that this is one of the most profound aspects of a spiritual Christianity. Of course, present humanity, generally speaking, is still far away from such a realization, but if humanity is to attain the Pauline ideal (Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians), “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”, then at least a few must start on the road toward this goal.

This cycle of the combined activity of the Seraphim and the Archangeloi in Ancient Saturn is written into the constellations of Capricorn and the opposite, Cancer. However, in order to get a clear picture of the progression of evolution as it appears in the Zodiac, we must add another viewpoint to our previous consideration of the preceding Twins cycles. During one of those cycles, we found the Spirits of Form or Exusiai working upon Ancient Saturn. We saw this inscribed into the constellation of Twins. Then the Spirits of Personality or Archai took over, and their activity appears in Archer or Sagittarius. We must imagine that the Archai worked from Twins toward the opposite constellation of Archer.

The Archer (Centaur) is like an imagination of the Ancient Saturn ancestor of the human being in whose warmth or heat organism the Archai were able to experience their humanhood. Thus we should find two impulses or cycles of evolution inscribed in Twins. In a certain sense, one can even say that Twins appears at first like two constellations, whereas Archer did not yet exist. Then through the working of the Archai the foundation was laid for the new constellation of Archer. In other words, the foundation for the new hierarchy—humanity—was created, whereas Twins became one. Thereby the original duality of Twins would show a twofold cosmic impulse, which is also responsible for the creation of Twins as a visible constellation. Thus appears the divine intention of the Spirits of Form, who prepared through immeasurable ages of cosmic evolution the time when the creature was able to receive the “eternal individuality”, which goes from incarnation to incarnation as an indestructible entity. Also inscribed here is the impulse of the Archai or Spirits of Personality to imbue the human being with “personality”—the experience of the self in a bodily frame. Now we can also understand the Twins mythology of Castor and Pollux, i.e., Pollux being the immortal twin and Castor is described as being of mortal nature.

Thus we followed evolution by going from Twins across to Archer, and the following cycles we can then find in the constellation of Goat and its opposite, Crab.

From such viewpoints, the Zodiac becomes, indeed, a kind of chronicle of the working of the Divine world in Ancient Saturn. However, we must not forget that there did not yet exist a visible Zodiac on Ancient Saturn. Instead, it is surrounded by that kind of aura that we mentioned previously and which only much later became the present Zodiac.

Can we recognize in the dynamics of the constellations of Goat and Crab that foundation of the ethereal sense organs on Ancient Saturn? The imagination of Goat, on ancient star maps, shows us a creature that stands on the summit of a high mountain, reaching out with its mighty horns into the pure spheres of cosmic light and warmth. In this we might recognize an indication of the highest hierarchy, the Seraphim; but with its hind part, this animal reaches down into a much lower realm. In representations, which go back thousands of years BC, the ibex appears with a fishtail instead of hind legs. We may take this as an indication of the sacrifice of the Seraphim. Even the age-old symbol that is used for Goat expresses this twofold aspect very clearly:

In the top part of the symbol, there appears an element of universal receptiveness; whereas the lower part indicates a kind of involution.

The imagination of Crab presents us with an animal that is enclosed in a hard shell. Some of the species have the capacity to move backwards with great rapidity, to retreat, so to speak, into the cavity of their own house. In this picture, we find emphasized the working of the Archangeloi on Ancient Saturn. In order to create those ethereal indications of the sense organs, they had to work from within the ancestor of the human being. They withdrew this human ancestor behind a kind of shell or very subtle skin, and those primitive sense organs might be more likened to a general “skin-sense”. But the imagination of Crab also demonstrates a kinship to the spiral fishtail of Goat, as if receiving in an act of involution the sacrifice of the Seraphim. This is strongly emphasized by the symbol which we use for Crab: ♋︎

One question still remains to be answered: How can we reconcile these views with the zodiacal archetypes of the human body? The Goat is connected with the joints of the arms and the knees. These joints seem to have a purely mechanical function, but they also have another significance. The upper arm and the upper leg represent in the human organism the tendency to turn from an inner, enclosed sphere to the external world. If there were no joints intersecting arms and legs, the legs would constitute rather clumsy stilt-like instruments. However, by this “intersection” a kind of gradual and harmonious linking up with the external world is established. In a certain sense, the lower arms and legs already belong to the external world. If we then take the concept “sense organ” widely enough, we may well call all the joints sense organs in a primitive sense. They establish a focus between internal and external dynamics. Thus we can see in Capricorn or Goat, as it is manifest in the human organism, a kind of memory of what happened on Ancient Saturn and also a forecast of the future function of that primitive sense organ, which was then created. This connection of Goat with the sense organs has always been known in occultism. One knew that this constellation is the archetypal region of the sense of ocular vision. A study of the human eye can justify the idea that the eye is a knee which has been transformed into an organ of sight, because in the eye, the impact of a so-called external world meets the realm of conception within the human being.

The Crab, which is manifest in the chest of the human being, has a different character. The chest embraces and protects the organs of heart and lungs. But even these organs can be regarded as sense organs, although their “perceptions” may appear to be below the surface of human day consciousness. The withdrawing, inward aspect of sense perception is emphasized more. Occult wisdom connects Crab with the sense of touch, which one might call a kind of primitive skin-sense. Thus we also find here a perspective of facts that ultimately lead back to that phase of Ancient Saturn described above. Of course, it would be quite wrong to imagine that there existed anything like the present sense organs on Ancient Saturn, as there also wasn’t an “external” world that these senses could have perceived. The senses existed only as purely ethereal potentialities. It might be helpful to imagine that during the initial phases of embryonic development, there exist already faint indications of the sense organs, for instance the eyes, and ears, etc. They can develop into healthy sense organs, but during embryonic development they could not be used as such.

The Archangeloi developed their own being through the foundation of the archetypal sense organs in our human ancestors. They could make use of them, but the human being had no consciousness of what was going on through them. In order to have such notions, soul capacities are needed. These were developed only much later in evolution, but the foundations for such capacities were already laid on Ancient Saturn. This took place during another cycle of evolution. After the Archangeloi had achieved what could be done under the prevailing conditions, the hierarchy of the Angeloi or Sons of Twilight began to work. They founded in our human ancestors a kind of archetypal metabolism. However, as they were on a still lower level of consciousness than the Archangeloi, with regard to their own capacities, they were even less able to work independently. Therefore, they needed the cooperation of the exalted hierarchy of the Cherubim or Spirits of the Harmony. Their name suggests that they lived in the sphere of the celestial harmonies, so to speak, in the music that permeated the whole Ancient Saturn universe, which they experienced from without, as a great musical instrument that they could create sound with according to laws akin to the laws of music. The Angeloi, being their servers, implanted the effects of these spiritual-cosmic, musical compositions into the bodies of Saturn beings.

We have a faint picture of their activities, if we try to imagine those forces that work at present on the plant. The dynamic forces, causing the growth of the plant, take up matter and form it into a being, which selflessly imitates the great rhythms and the structure of the cosmos of the stars. We have such a metabolism in mind when we speak of the activities of the Angeloi. In a certain sense, the plant is a much more efficient “cosmologist” than we are, who at present grasp the grandeur of the cosmos only through one of our senses—eyesight. The plant “conceives” it in a totally different manner and with more comprehensive, though unconscious, faculties.

Yet, we must not forget that the Saturn metabolism was totally different from present conditions. It was a metabolism of warmth. Warmth of various degrees flowed through those bodies on Ancient Saturn. However, that warmth was still very near its origin, the divine Will of the Thrones. And we can thus imagine that with that warmth, the most sublime intentions and ideas of the highest spiritual hierarchies flowed through humanity and were “digested”. Thus the potentiality to have and to employ reason at a later stage of evolution was founded in humanity. Through this germinal capacity, there became manifest in the human being of Ancient Saturn the exalted experiences of divine harmony, which the Cherubim had when they “listened” to the events on that planet. A shadowy reflection still lives in present humanity when sense experiences are grasped and sorted out or “digested” in the realm of reason. Then the human being searches for the archetypal harmonies of all things. We know that music has the capacity to stimulate thinking.

We can find this phase of Ancient Saturn written into the constellations of Waterman and Lion. In all true ancient mysteries, and also in modern spiritual science, these two constellations are recognized as archetypal regions in which the heart and circulatory functions of the human body originate. With Lion, one connected more with that which acts as a concentrating faculty, for instance, in the function of the heart; whereas, Waterman was associated with peripheral actions of the circulatory system. Therefore, Waterman was perceived to be concerned with the lower arms and legs. In these regions the bloodstream coming from the heart “loses” itself peripherally. It is common knowledge that the warmth organism of the human body can be influenced and regulated in the lower arms and legs. Thus we have in LionWaterman a cosmic direction from which was born the warmth-metabolism of the bloodstream, and it was founded on Ancient Saturn during the Waterman-Lion cycle, although we cannot yet speak of a circulatory life in Ancient Saturn humanity. They had only a reflection of life, which was caused by that warmth-metabolism flowing through them. On the waves of the Saturn warmth, there moved, as it were, the divine intentions and ideas moved inherent in the divine Will. Thereby appearing in humanity was something like borrowed or reflected life. We might get nearer an imagination of these events if we think of the shadowy existence of thoughts and ideas. They have an objective spiritual existence and life, but in the human being they appear as lifeless reflections.

In a certain sense, we are here reminded of what we said already in connection with the Ram cycle of Ancient Saturn, but now those shadowy reflections were embedded in humanity’s Saturn ancestor. We might say they had, in the meantime, become individualized and constituted a kind of borrowed life, such as the thoughts in the head of a modern human being. This comparison with the head of a human being is correct to a high degree, for the head can only have a borrowed minimum of life in order to fulfill its functions. In this sense, we may even regard Lion-Waterman phase particularly, and the whole Ancient Saturn evolution in general, as a stage of creation during which the first archetypal indications of the human head came into existence. Hence, we come from an entirely different angle to the aspect of the cosmic human being than we indicated earlier. Furthermore, modern embryological research confirms, from an entirely different angle, that the head is the primary foundation of the embryo. However, it cannot reasonably be expected that our Saturn ancestor had a head similar to that of a present human being. Rather, we imagine that the functional potentiality toward a head was then created, similar to the structure of the human head during the very first weeks of embryonic development.

We come now to the last great cycle of Ancient Saturn. The human being appeared then as highly perfected as was possible under those planetary conditions and the preceding stages of development. They had no life and no consciousness, and in a certain sense, human beings were like a mineral of the present day but consisting of a totally different substantiality. They had the appearance of an automaton, a reflection of what took place in their surroundings, guided by beings of the spiritual hierarchies. Consequently, they bore an uncorrupt picture of the intentions and impulses of the Divine world in their being. A faint shadow of this kind of absolute, but unconscious, objectivity is still prevalent in our present physical body, although it is still to a high degree out of the reach of our self-willed soul forces. We can see, therefore, in the physical body a replica of this quality of the Ancient Saturn human. Those warmth entities, which were created then, were the origins of our present physical frames. Corruption overtook them inasmuch as gaseous, fluid, and solid matter was infused into them in the course of cosmic evolution. Beyond these corruptions, we can behold a physical being who is the perfect archetype of the human being as it was intended by the Divine world. Therefore we may call the last phase of Ancient Saturn the cycle of the manifestation of cosmic divine human beings as a lifeless and unconscious image of the totality of the divine cosmos.

This last cycle of Ancient Saturn is recorded in the constellation of Fishes. Before we can realize this in its full significance, we must try to create a picture of that Ancient Saturn human being. Certainly all such attempts can only lead a certain distance, because all concepts that we employ for such descriptions are taken from present world conditions and are inadequate.

On Ancient Saturn we can roughly distinguish seven great cycles or rounds, as they are called in occultism. In the beginning of the first round, we saw the sacrifice of divine Will by the Thrones or Spirits of Will. Then the Kyriotetes or Spirits of Wisdom started to work upon this Will substance, imprinting into it a reflection of life. We said this was the very first indication of a brain, which we should regard as a yet undifferentiated “world brain”. Furthermore, we saw this cosmic event remembered in the constellation of Ram. In the human head, Ram appears remembered, as it were, in the figure formed by the nose and the eyebrows. It has the form of the symbol that we use for Ram (Fig. 1). Nature employed here one of the most fundamental principles of creation, as we shall find out on the following pages. In a symbolic sense, it can also be read as in figure 2.

This leads us to the opposite constellation of Scales, which we must also take into account. There we can see more the “divine act” of the sacrifice of the divine Will (Figs. 3 & 4).

The symbol in figure 4 wants to indicate something similar to a setting sun, the sacrifice of divine cosmic forces.

If we combine the two, we can get something like the following symbol:

The Sun-being, standing for divine cosmic forces, descends to a lower level of existence, thus providing a fundamental impulse of evolution, and thereby a reflection is created. This reflection we may read as in figure 7. It is something like a faint indication of a human skull, so to say, the basic structure of a skull consisting only of the base of the brain with an immanent upward and downward possibility of development. This strikingly resembles the very first phases of ossification of the head during the embryonic stages of the human being.

The second great round of Ancient Saturn we found inscribed in Bull. The Spirits of Motion tried then to permeate the planet with cosmic soul forces. These were flung back and they united with the life forces originating from the activity of the Spirits of Wisdom, thus establishing the divine Word. For Bull we use the symbol ♉︎ which we can well transform into the image of the ancient Egyptian Hathor-Cow, later known as Isis (Fig. 8).

There still exist Egyptian representations of Hathor as a celestial cow with a golden Sun disc between her horns. To the supreme spiritual Sun forces of life are now added the Moon-like forces of cosmic soul existence, but they do not enter the cow, they hover above it. This is also emphasized by the opposite constellation of Scorpion. The Scorpion did not exist in very ancient times; instead, there was perceived in that region of the cosmos the Eagle. For this Eagle we might use a symbol which suggests the hovering element (Fig. 9).

Nevertheless, a reflection came into being in the Ancient Saturn body in which we may see a further elaboration of Ram picture. The skull would then appear ossified to a still higher degree than before, as Figure 10 illustrates. We emphasize, however, that we do not regard the cycles of Ancient Saturn as leading straight from Ram to Bull. Rather, we imagine a cosmic impulse starting in Fishes, as it were, and then going through the Zodiac via Waterman, Goat, etc., until it reaches a culmination in Ram, and so forth.

The third round we saw in Twins, when the Spirits of Form initiated a turn toward individualization and emancipation within the Ancient Saturn universe. Through this process another reflection was brought about in the planet, which made its substance appear divided into many single bodies. This activity we may indicate by the traditional symbol ♊︎. We called it a kind of archetypal cell division, and we can understand the symbol as a further development of the sign for Bull (Fig. 11). Extended to the image of the Ancient Saturn ancestor of humanity, it would be more or less in the direction suggested by figure 12.

We have here the cosmic origin of symmetry in the human body, rooted in a kind of archetypal division of the Ur-brain into two hemispheres. It is possible to imagine that the impact leading to the archetypal division of the Ur-brain “sank” into the organism during later stages of evolution, thereby creating symmetry within it.

Following the Spirits of Form were the Spirits of Personality, during the fourth round of Ancient Saturn. With their activity a turning point was reached. Hitherto we could only speak of a planet consisting of cosmic psychical substance; now it was turned into warmth or heat. The Ancient Saturn cosmos was on the way to creating within its own being a sphere of “external existence”. We saw this as an event that we might describe in modern language as interplay between Twins and Archer. The traditional symbol for Archer is ♐︎. We can transform it in our picture of the Saturn human being as in figure 13. Thus Archer tendency appears like a first indication of descent into the jaws, which is at the same time a turning toward an external world. So to speak, the divided hemispheres of the Ur-brain create their first externalization, the lower part of the skull. The jaws can indeed be regarded as the equivalent of arms and legs. We may again imagine that they were created during a much later phase. We will recall that we do not imagine humanity on Ancient Saturn with a body which had evolved limbs of any kind. Only the potentiality was created and infused into the body, which is also indicated by the elongation of the spinal cord from the brain into the lower organism.

During the fifth round of Ancient Saturn, the Archangels started to build the germs of the sense organs into the Saturn human ancestor. They did it in conjunction with the Seraphim. This development we saw engraved into the constellations of Goat and Crab. For Goat the sign ♑︎ is used, or We have pointed out already that Goat is, in a deeper sense, associated with the sense of sight. If we alter the symbol for Goat into the more archetypal conception of as has been suggested earlier, then we come to the picture of the archetypal human being in figure 14. The horns are an indication of the dawning capacity to grasp an “external” reality; whereas the spiral points toward the combination of this capacity with the faculties of the Ur-brain. This refers not only to the sense organs of ocular vision, but in an even more pronounced sense, to the organ of hearing. The spiral organ or cochlea of the inner ear imitates the spiral fishtail of Goat.

To this was now added the impact of Crab, ♋︎. Thereby the foundation for the later formation of the upper skull was laid (Fig. 15). This may also give us an indication as to how the later conditions of substance (heat or warmth in Ancient Saturn) came into existence. Coinciding with the action of the senses, the external world itself came into existence. And as much as the activity of the sense organs moved away during later stages of evolution from its divine origin, so also was the physical world densified into air, water, and finally solid substance. Therefore, we find the constellation of Crab ultimately connected in occultism with philosophic materialism. It is the heritage of the SaturnCrab carried to its final conclusion in the process of creation.

During the sixth cycle of Ancient Saturn, the Angeloi, cooperating with the Cherubim, established an archetypal metabolism. We saw this stage recorded in the constellations of Waterman and Lion. Their signs are ♒︎ and ♓︎. If we include this activity in the archetype of the human head, we come to a most interesting picture (see Fig. 16 below). Of course the human being on Ancient Saturn had no mouth. Instead, we might imagine the streams of warmth going in and out as does nutrition. The streams of warmth were permeated by a reflection of those harmonies of the Saturn cosmos that were regulated and brought forth by the Spirits of Harmony. Thus, the still dormant capacity to realize universal harmony in individual reason was established within humanity. Through the union of the external stream and the internal capacity located in the Ur-brain (or in cosmic language, through the workings of Waterman and Lion), the potentiality was created to imbue the air current moving through mouth and larynx with the thought. In this way the development of language as the purest expression of human activity and willing was made possible during Earth evolution.

Finally, during the seventh round of Ancient Saturn, the archetype of the human being had reached a certain perfection. It was still lifeless and appeared like an automaton of the surrounding Divine world. We may imagine it to be as a phantom or as the faint image of a human head rising up from the veils of warmth on Ancient Saturn. This final act of Ancient Saturn we can recognize in the dynamics of the constellations of Fishes and Virgin. Of course that head was absolutely unlike a head of a present human being. It was, as it were, a mask-like feature; whereas its living origin was the totality of the spiritual world around. Thus we can also find an approach to the statements of the religious documents of when they speak of the human being as having been created in the image of God. We will have more to say about this last phase of Ancient Saturn and the constellations of Fishes and Virgin later.

Now we come back to the suggestion that we made near the beginning of Part Two. The organization of the human head is a living memory of Ancient Saturn. There exist many more such memories in nature of that stage of cosmic evolution, but the head, or upper human being, is the most conspicuous among them. Yet it would be misleading if we imagined the human beings on Ancient Saturn as a head corresponding to the outlines of a present head. The bodily form at that time had a shape resembling much more that of a chest than a head. It was a chest in the sense that a vertebra-like organization constituted the resting part and more or less ribs the radiating part of the Saturn head. The whole organism consisting of warmth was very subtle and absolutely open, such as a bowl or sieve, to the influxes from the environment.

The human being, as presented by the Mysterium Magnum, is indeed a picture of the whole cosmic evolution of the past (see pages 61-2). The head or upper person bears the traces of Ancient Saturn, the middle person recapitulates the evolution of Ancient Sun, and the lower person resembles the stages of development on Ancient Moon. However, even this is not quite a correct statement, because the three organizations have gone through many metamorphoses to become what they are today. We have already pointed out that the head of the Ancient Saturn human being had more the form of a chest. That chest-like being is really the origin of our material form. At a much later stage it deteriorated, as it were, into the hardened forms of a head. This seems to be a contradiction, but we will get a more satisfactory picture if we try to imagine the archetypal formative principle that works in all three organizations of the human being.

With regard to its functional properties, the human head already contains our whole being in a kind of abbreviation. If we consider the formation of the skeleton of the head, this fact becomes quite obvious (Fig. 17). The upper part is entirely devoted to a resting attitude. In fact, it can only fulfill its mission by its stationary condition. Too much movement exerted from outside disturbs its proper function. The lower part of the skull, especially the lower jaws, constitutes a kind of limb system of the head. In between the two systems, we find those organs which serve respiration and the intake of food. It is consequently a realm that is related to the rhythmic system in the human being. Thus, present in the human head is a kind of archetype or premonition of the whole threefold being of the human organism.

We can also recognize in it the fundamental dynamic principle of human existence altogether. The upper part with the organs of perception and conception indicate humanity’s inclusion into the whole process of creation. There human beings have the possibility of a conscious reflection of that which exists in external space. Even the realization of one’s own bodily frame belongs to that world of external existence derived from immeasurably long ages of cosmic evolution. In the lower part of the head are indications of a totally different relationship to the universe. There are the organs and formations appertaining to an inherent tendency toward transformation, even transubstantiation. Breathing and digestion are external indications of that inherent urge in the human being. Thus the human head manifests, with regard to its dynamic layout, the idea of the human being and of the human being’s divine purpose in evolution. We are supposed to be affiliated with the totality of creation for the sake of transforming creation into something new, which hitherto did not exist. Such a twofold impulse can well be expressed by a lemniscatory form. The circle would indicate something, if one accepts it as a symbol of universal significance, that is absolutely perfect and has come to rest. But a lemniscate represents a polarity; in fact, it is born from a polarity, which works toward the transformation of something existing into something new. Such a lemniscate is written into the head of the human being (Fig. 18).

The birth of this principle of duality, from the perfect circle or sphere, is strikingly expressed by the formation of the skeleton of the chest. There the circular tendency is still strongly emphasized; but in the formation of the vertebra, we already have the indication that a second focus is in the “status nascendus” (Fig. 19). This “status nascendus” we must seek in Ancient Saturn evolution. Therefore, we said that the Saturn head was more like a chest, so to say, a lifeless monad with only an indication of two foci. During later stages of cosmic evolution, the one focus represented by the vertebra developed more and more. Finally there came a moment when it was even overemphasized. Then we come to the picture of the human head (see Fig. 17) where the “vertebra pole” of the upper skull has become predominant over the “rib” pole of the lower head. This overemphasis coincided with the development of intellectual capacities in humanity, which are bound to the function of the “vertebra” pole, the brain.

This one-sided development was counteracted by another exaggeration. The resting part that tends to become like the upper part of the skull shrank, and the pole of movement gained the upper hand. Thus we can imagine the lower extremities having come into existence (Fig. 20). The “vertebra” pole is almost fading out, but the ribs are over-extended, as legs. The middle organization retains, to a high degree, the “status nascendus” of the original archetype and keeps it flexible. However, head and limbs have ossified, so to speak, the extreme possibilities of polarity. The three systems together establish a kind of balance.

We have seen that this archetype of the human being has a definite relationship to the constellations of the Zodiac. Where does this connection come from? Spiritual science gives the answer. As we enter or draw near to our physical existence, we descend from the cosmic Divine world. During this sojourn in the world of the spirit before birth, we built up a spiritual form-body. We took the substances from the starry universe, from the constellations in whose being are recorded the great phases of past cosmic evolution. Thus in building up the spirit-kernel, which then molds the material embryo into a human form, we also obtain the great “genesis of creation”. Therefore, this genesis expresses itself in the features of the human body. As far as we have elaborated the evolution of Ancient Saturn, something similar to the features of the human head are created in this manner from the memory substance of the Zodiac. This head-human has the potential to become metamorphosed into the whole human form, with regard to the threefold human being (see Fig. 21 below).

The Zodiac is the expression of the beings of the Divine world, the spiritual hierarchies. How can we then imagine the coming into existence of the present visible Zodiac? On Ancient Saturn the starry world did not exist visibly. Instead, we saw a kind of huge circle or sphere surrounding the planet. This spiritual circumference was the dwelling place of those hierarchical divinities who worked upon the Ancient Saturn planet from the periphery. With the great sacrifice of the Spirits of Will, a line of evolution was already initiated that became, in subsequent stages, the leading principle of all creation. The hierarchies withdrew in certain moments from the objects of their activity, after they had handed over the initiative to a lower spiritual hierarchy. The aim of creation was to let the created world gradually descend into emancipation from the origin, in order to give it the chance of becoming independent and free. In withdrawing, the hierarchies left behind their garments, so to speak, the achievements of their activities. The emancipation of the created world expressed itself in increasing densification. Thus the foundation for the visible universe of the stars and the Zodiac was laid. The stars in their grandeur are the emancipated essence of the Divine world.

Thus we find in Ancient Saturn, instead of a Zodiac, a world of beings, the hierarchical world itself. The present planet Saturn, with its rings, imitates externally the conditions that prevailed on Ancient Saturn (Fig. 22).

Then at a later stage, after the hierarchies had begun to withdraw, this aura was densified to a certain degree. It was on the way to becoming a Zodiac, but the hierarchies were able to manifest themselves directly through it. Instead of a computable fixed-star world, we should have found a world of revelation, which spontaneously revealed the intentions of the Gods. This universe we may call, according to occult usage, Ancient Sun.

During a phase of evolution, which occultism calls Ancient Moon, the spiritual hierarchies had already emancipated themselves to a high degree from the “external” universe, which appeared then still more densified; but it could still reveal the workings of the Divine world. If one could have entered that universe, one would have realized in the movements of the first indications of an external starry world the intentions and decisions of the Divine world. It was a shadowy reflection of this kind of realization that lived dimly in those ancient peoples, who perceived in the rhythms and movements of the visible stars the manifestation of the will of their deities.

Finally, the spiritual hierarchies almost completely withdrew from the sphere of created being, which was densified to the point of mineral matter. Consequently, a starry universe appeared that was computable and seemed to function like a machine. It is a universe that commemorates, only in its grandeur, the works and deeds of the Divine world in the past. Thus it appears to be a gigantic monument of creation. We are presently also drawn into this vortex of emancipation. Through this we have gained so much inner distance from a universe of all-powerful hierarchical Beings, that we now have the opportunity to seek, in complete freedom and love for the truth, the spiritual background of the cosmos. For the universe of divine working, of revelation, and of absolute divine being is only hidden “behind” the curtain of the apparition of a mechanical cosmos.

We tried to seek the spiritual equivalent of the Zodiac on Ancient Saturn in the dynamic archetype of the human body, especially in the head. In this way we came to a central aspect of Ancient Saturn: the human being as the object of creation standing in the center of that universe (see figure 21). From a peripheral aspect, we should find the hierarchies working from the spiritual heights of the planet. As we have pointed out earlier, we do not imagine the hierarchies fixed to one single constellation. Each one of them comprises the whole Zodiac on the corresponding level (the spiral in figure 23 is intended to indicate these levels). But they concentrate, as it were, their activities in one “house” or spiritual world direction. Just as we perceive the cosmic human being as an image of the totality of the Zodiac, so we must also assign to the hierarchies their respective orbits. Thereby we arrive at the picture of celestial spheres of the hierarchies that are, so to speak, “con-centric” and which were known and realized by all ancient peoples.

The question remains, what existed on Ancient Saturn in the place of the constellations of Virgin, Scales, Scorpion, and Archer? To this we have one possible answer, which we should like to set down with utmost caution. We can see behind these constellations the essence of the highest realm of the divinity, the Trinity, in:

Virgin the Father
Scales the Son
Scorpion (or Eagle) the Holy Spirit

However, this is only a tentative suggestion that would need much more elaboration in order to prevent misunderstandings.

The Archer would stand for the hierarchy of the human race. In connection with the fourth cycle of Ancient Saturn, we have already pointed out its background. It represents humanity in “the womb of the Gods”. We should therefore expect that the constellation of Archer occupied the center of the universe, as the human being in figure 21 stands (as hierarchy) in the center of the spiral. Modern astronomical science has indeed discovered that the galaxy or greater universe, of which our solar system is only a small particle, rotates around a center that lies roughly in the direction of the dense star clouds of Archer (according to independent investigations by astronomers such as Lindblad, Oort and Plaskett). The Archer is in the direction of the central point of that spiral, even in an external sense. Moreover, we know that our whole solar system is moving with great speed toward a point which lies above Archer in the fixed-star constellation of the Lyre next to Hercules (A. M. Harding, Astronomy, NY).

After all these excursions, we can come back to the seventh round of Ancient Saturn, which we connected with the constellations of Fishes and Virgin. Humanity appears at that stage to be as an automaton. Yet we must not forget that humanity was then, in all its imperfection and primitiveness, a perfect and selfless, though lifeless, reflection of the whole spiritual Saturn universe around them. Thereby, they were endowed with a capacity that, even at present, lies dormant and which will be consciously developed only in a very dim future. The Spirits of Will or Thrones created in humanity the germ of the principle of Spirit-Man or, according to eastern terms, Atma. Through the development of this principle, human beings of the far future will not only be able to perceive the facts and beings of the spiritual world or become creative in that world clairvoyantly, but will attain the capacity, when the physical body is no longer needed, to manifest the spirit-cosmos through their own being. For instance, if we were able to develop this capacity at present, we would not only realize the spiritual potentiality of Bull or of any other constellation, but we would be able to employ its cosmic potentiality. This would mean, of course, the attainment of magical faculties on a cosmically grand scale, which we cannot even imagine at present. Such capacities will spring from a harmonious and conscious amalgamation of the polarity that is physiologically indicated, for instance, by the dynamic layout of the human head. The resting pole (perception) is designed to be transformed into a perfect and universal organ of perception, which will in future no longer be bound to a physical brain that only gives a blurred picture of the universe. The moving pole (transformation) still has the deeply dormant quality of transforming that which enters into us from the external world. By higher development we will be enabled one day to create a new cosmos, together with the higher hierarchies. Creation, in a divine sense, lies within the dormant potentiality of this field of forces in the human being.

By the cosmic quality of Fishes, the archetypal duality, or rather the threefoldness, of the human being is unmistakably expressed. The traditional sign for Fishes is ♓︎. We can apply this to our earlier pictures of the Saturn head as in figure 24. The two fishes of that constellation are held together by a faint ribbon of stars. Similarly, the two opposite poles of the human head are held together by an intervening system.

For the constellation of Virgin we use the symbol ♍︎. Here we see more the aspect of that exalted principle of Spirit-Man, which was implanted into humanity to be fully developed in a very dim future. It is a principle that is still deeply hidden behind three mystical veils—behind three future incarnations of the Earth universe similar to the three great stages in the past: Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, and Ancient Moon. After the present Earth universe passes away, there will follow three great future phases evolutions, which spiritual science calls the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan phase. Only on Vulcan will we be able to fully develop the capacities of Spirit-Man. These three mystical veils are indicated by the three strokes of the symbol ♍︎. The added lemniscate curve can be read as a sign of harmonious union of the two opposite poles. Therefore, we may insert in our archetype of the human head, an inverted lemniscate as a sign of union between the pole of resting perception and the pole of active transformation and creation (figures 25 & 26).

The inversion of the lemniscate should emphasize the characteristic inwardness of Virgin. As a germinal potentiality, it had been given to humanity on Ancient Saturn. It is therefore written into the physical frame, for instance as we mentioned earlier, into the metamorphoses of the whole skeleton. During the seventh round on Ancient Saturn, a certain perfection had been achieved as far as was possible under the prevailing conditions. Everything was thereafter dissolved into pure spiritual existence. The planet and the spiritual hierarchies entered one of those phases that spiritual science calls “night of existence”, or, according to an eastern term, a condition of Pralaya.

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We have briefly outlined the evolution of Ancient Saturn, according to the terminology used by Rudolf Steiner in his book An Outline of Esoteric Science. We took the archetypal image of the human body, especially the head organism, as the basis of our considerations. This is one way of portraying it, but we ought to bear in mind that there are other ways of presentation possible. The one we have chosen is the easiest one, which does not presuppose too much scientific knowledge and detail. However, we laid great emphasis on the fact that the conditions on Ancient Saturn cannot be compared with anything of a material nature on our present Earth. The warmth or heat that was ultimately created had been born from the sacrificed Will substance of the Spirits of Will or Thrones. We can not yet speak, therefore, of a spatial universe during that phase of cosmic evolution. Its substance was still too near its spiritual-psychical origin. An observer armed with the present capacities of sense perception would have realized only degrees of warmth, almost like the effusions of an invisible aura of activity.

Consequently, the human being did not exist on Ancient Saturn in spatial form. Corporeality consisted of will substance that had slightly moved away from its divine origin. Thereby it had become something like a potential reflection, namely, warmth or heat. The human form that was imprinted on this warmth was only a potentiality of later becoming.

The will of the Divine world was inherent in the Saturn ancestor of humanity. It existed only as an image as it appears in a mirror. The heat of the planet was the mirror. Yet the realization of the image could be worked out only during long subsequent ages of evolution. Therefore, we cannot yet speak of space in Ancient Saturn, but solely time had come into existence.

After Ancient Saturn evolution had come to a certain perfection, that whole universe withdrew into a condition of cosmic rest or purely spiritual existence. In spiritual science this condition is called “night of existence” or Pralaya, according to an eastern term. Then, in a certain moment, the hierarchies of the Divine world again stepped forth and a new universe was born. This stage is called by spiritual science the Ancient Sun condition.

The Evolution of Ancient Sun

First of all, the achievements of Ancient Saturn had to be recapitulated. According to our previous explanations, we can associate this first cycle of Ancient Sun with the constellation of Fishes. In Fishes we saw the final stage of Ancient Saturn, the cosmic moment when the human image was evolved as a potentiality, as far as it could be developed then. Up to this point the past had to be recapitulated on Ancient Sun, and this was the first “round” or “condition of life” of that universe.

At this stage the development on Ancient Sun took a new turn. Those warmth or heat images of Ancient Saturn, which had again come into existence, were permeated with life. The super-sensuous entity, which is the foundation of life in the physical, is perceived by spiritual perception as a field of forces or an organism of forces. We can also say that the physical images were now permeated with a life or ether body.

We heard that the Spirits of Wisdom, or Kyriotetes, already attempted on Ancient Saturn to infuse life into the sacrificed will substance that had come from the Thrones, but that substance was not in the condition to absorb it then. Now, on Ancient Sun, the Spirits of Wisdom had reached a higher degree of faculty than before, so they were able to perform a sacrifice similar to that of the Thrones. Thereby the ether body was created, which then began to permeate the physical images of humanity.

This second aspect of the first round or cycle of Ancient Sun we can find remembered or imprinted in the present constellation of Virgin. Therefore, we can perceive this first cycle as a development from Fishes to Virgin. We should emphasize once more, however, the fact that we have in mind, etc., cosmic cycles or revolutions in time through the entire Zodiac. Their culminations we should have to seek in the corresponding constellations.

The traditional sign for Virgin is ♍︎, but we have suggested previously that we can read this sign in a modern fashion as Fig. 28 - 29 below. The symbol in figure 29 suggests the birth of a new principle within a mother entity, a fact which we find indeed happening during the first cycle of Ancient Sun. To this we must add the sign of the constellation of Fishes.

The seven rounds of Ancient Sun can be regarded as being represented by the constellations of Virgin, Lion, Crab, Twins, Archer, Scorpion, and Scales. They give more the inner aspect, the viewpoints of what happened then to the creature. Generally speaking, the constellations in the opposite part of the Zodiac present the cosmic side of those events.

In this sense, Fishes is the background of the permeation of the creature with life. The Fishes represent a polarity (Fig. 27). Yet this polarity is different from that of Twins. They symbolize the beginning and the end, and thus they repeat between them what otherwise is spread out in cosmic space and time. They hold the key of all evolution, of the destiny of the world. The Godhead working through them has established everlasting transformation (in earthly terms we could say death) whose external manifestation is life. In Virgin the principles of the beginning and of the end have united. The Son, the future, is resting in the womb of the Mother.

What does it mean to say that a life or ether body had been infused into the physical image of the human being? We can perceive only the manifestation of life in the physical. For instance, we say a plant, an animal, or a human being is alive, but we cannot find, as far as the senses can penetrate the objects, the actual principle that causes growth, etc. This principle is of a super-sensuous character that upsets, as it were, the chemical and physical laws of mineral matter. It forces matter, obviously, into a movement contrary to gravity. It holds back, at least for the lifetime of a living being, the chemical processes resulting in decay, and so on.

Yet we are here only in the realm of the manifestation of life forces. It is not quite correct to say that we see before us, for instance, a living plant. We certainly perceive a particle of it, for in the next minute it has already changed its shape, because the processes of growth are continuously altering the consistency and form. Only if we could see in one instant the total cycle of the plant, from the seed to the next seed, could we really speak of perceiving the living plant. This idea leads us to an interesting aspect of the life forces in nature.

Life cannot manifest itself unless it can take hold of mineral matter. Generally speaking, spirit is inherent in mineral matter. The spirit expresses itself in crystalline matter as a geometrically forming entity. Yet this spirit has descended to the lowest level of incorporation. It has obviously come to the end of a certain activity. This amalgamation of pure matter and spirit in the form of “geometrical intelligence” is taken hold of by the life forces in a living being. Something of a “fallen” quality is needed in order to give higher, super-sensuous forces—life forces in our case—a chance to manifest life.

This is actually what happened on Ancient Sun. A part of that warmth or heat that had come into existence, in the course of the recapitulation of the facts of Ancient Saturn evolution, could not rise to the acquisition of a life body. It was rejected, as it were, and could not partake in the normal course of evolution; it was “left behind”. This gave rise to the foundation of a second kingdom besides that of the human being.

Humanity on Ancient Sun consisted partly of that “backward” heat substance, but something else came into existence through them. A part of the heat or warmth was densified into air or gas. We already find indicated, thereby, a process of descent or Fall of the originally spiritual essence into matter, to which we alluded above. Through this it was possible for a higher principle—the life or ether body—to work within the human being. It had found a basis of action. The ether sacrificed by the Spirits of Wisdom was light, or light ether in the sense of spiritual science. Therefore, we speak of Ancient Sun, because for the first time since the beginning of Ancient Saturn, the new universe appeared shining like a Sun.

We could sum up these events in the following diagram:

We must now imagine the Spirits of Wisdom standing in a central position of that universe. Since Ancient Saturn, their capacities and virtues had developed to such a degree that they were able to stream forth inner light. This light penetrated the sphere of the Sun universe. Other beings, of whom we shall speak later, reflected the light toward the center. Originally it had been given away by the Spirits of Wisdom. It was part of their spiritual essence. Now, after it was separated from them and reflected, it became an external entity. In that moment, space was born. The rays of light suggest the concept of spatial direction, the principle of space.

All this took place mainly during the first cycle of Ancient Sun evolution. A contemplation of these details can help us to search still deeper into the riddle of the life forces. In that light, which was first spiritual being in the Spirits of Wisdom and was transposed, as it were, into external existence, we obviously have the picture of the workings of the cosmic ether forces. We can explain what we mean by the following diagram (Fig. 30). If we consider the orbit of a planet, we are confronted with an invisible entity in the heavens. The visible planet only describes the orbit and occupies, in the course of time, the single points of it. We have taken as an example the orbit of Mercury during one year. Of course, we are aware that the loops, etc., represent only the purely observational aspect from the Earth.

These orbits existed before the visible planets, according to the facts discovered by spiritual science. Much later the planetary bodies were created. They then followed their corresponding orbits, which indicated the spiritual spheres of the planets. In the spheres dwell the hierarchical beings who move the celestial bodies. This was recognized still in Greek times, and modern spiritual science finds it again as a fact.

The orbit of Mercury (Fig. 30) comprises the movement of the visible planet during the course of roughly one year. The loops and the intervening superior conjunctions indicate a breathing activity of the sphere, which is an alternation between contraction and expansion. These various stages of the sphere, marked by the positions of the planet year after year, are imitated, for instance, by yearly cycles of plant existence on the Earth. (Slight changes and aberrations of the rhythms of the planet we need not consider now.) To a certain extent the three yearly rhythms of expansion and contraction of the sphere of Mercury appear reflected in three stages of the plant cycle: 1) germination and growth, 2) flowering and fruition, and 3) the decay of the mother plant and the resting of the seed in the soil. In both cases, in the plant cycle and in the cycles of the planet, we perceive an external manifestation of the inner invisible principle of cosmic ether. It works in the totality of the celestial sphere, of which the individual spheres of the planets are a part. Through the densification of points on the planetary spheres, the visible planets came into existence, including the Earth.

Thus we can come to the conclusion that the celestial sphere, individualized by the spheres of the planets, is the source of the life or ether forces. All manifestation of life is an imitation of the rhythms and events in the sphere. Furthermore, we saw the sphere as the archetype of space coming into existence on Ancient Sun, when the light gift of the Spirits of Wisdom was reflected back from the periphery to the center. This light of the Spirits of Wisdom was creative life that took hold of “Sun matter” and molded it.

All this took place during the first cycle of Ancient Sun. We find it inscribed in the constellation of Virgin, which appears depicted on ancient star maps as a woman holding a sheaf of corn, indicating its association with growth and fruitfulness. In a modern sense, we can interpret Virgin as that great imagination of the “woman in heaven” in Revelation of St. John XII. We hear that she is “clothed with the sun, with the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars”. She is regarded as the soul of the world who bears the whole cosmos, the sphere that is the source of the life forces. “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations”. Through her the life of the cosmos is sacrificed so that new life may come into being. This aspect of the constellation of Virgin represents that great act of the pouring out of life forces upon Ancient Sun pointing to similar future stages of evolution, but on a higher level. According to indications in ancient Egyptian presentations of the constellations of the sky, the Egyptians must have recognized, in or near Virgin, the image of Isis nursing Horus.

From another angle, these lofty mysteries of the constellation of Virgin are vividly corroborated. We previously indicated that Virgin is connected with the region of the intestines, below the diaphragm. This is the region in which food is finally completely dissolved. It appears beyond this part of the organism as a source of energy. This dissolution may seem to be a contradiction to Virgin events in the past. Yet, it is a creation of new life on a higher level, namely, in the realm of human consciousness. The dissolved and etherized substances do not disappear completely; they are elevated to the level of the inherent intelligent capacities in the human being. Through these processes, a new creation is initiated akin to that on Ancient Sun.

During the second great cycle of Ancient Sun, the Dynamis or Spirits of Motion started with their activity again. This powerful hierarchy helped to direct the movements of the planets during a later stage of cosmic evolution. By these movements, they made it possible, within a then already highly divided and emancipated universe, for contacts and exchanges between the individual celestial bodies to take place. Thus they established a compensation for the isolation into which such objects of creation as the planets had been driven. Yet on Ancient Sun, planets did not exist in the present sense, nor was humanity really emancipated and isolated from the divine origin. Still, the Dynamis lived in their mighty spiritual-cosmic impulses of inner or soul movement; but they were still unable to penetrate the human kingdom on Ancient Sun. Their time had not yet come, because the Sun-Beings were unable to develop soul faculties. They created in the Sun human a reflection similar to the impressions of the hierarchical activities on Ancient Saturn.

Those reflections on Ancient Saturn had created the foundations of certain physiological organs. For instance, the impulse of individualization radiating from the Spirits of Form was reflected in the beginnings of bodily symmetry. As soon as an ether body was operating in the human form, as we heard happened on Ancient Sun, those reflections manifested themselves as the first intimations of organic functions. Thus the reflected activity of the Spirits of Motion set the air organism of the human body into rhythmic motion. This body consisted then of a mantle of warmth that enveloped a kind of skeleton of warmth. In the interior of this mantle was embedded the air organism. This physical entity was permeated by an ether body that set the air in regular rhythmic movement, which appeared similar to the circulation of the sap in our present plants. The single ether bodies had their origin in the cosmic ether, represented by the sphere. Into this sphere, the Spirits of Motion extended their activities, and they were thus impressed upon the physical body.

The culmination of this second cycle of Ancient Sun we can find inscribed in the constellation of Lion. Starting from the preceding point of culmination indicated in Virgin, we should have moved through the whole Zodiac, as it were, until we arrived in Lion.

We will now recall what we said about the Mysterium Magnum, the intimate connection between the constellations of the Zodiac and the human body. Lion has a certain relationship to the region above the diaphragm, where the breathing and circulating organism is centered. We call Lion the archetypal region from which this part of the human organism has been created.

A closer study of this sphere of the human body reveals that an intimate relationship exists between the rhythms of breathing and circulation and certain rhythms of the cosmos. We know that the rhythm of breathing is related to the rhythm of the heartbeat according to the ratio of 1 to 4. A human organism has, on an average, 17 inhalations during one minute and about 72 heartbeats. This is a perfect imitation of the great solar rhythm of the Platonic year. 17 breaths in one minute accumulate to 1,080 during one hour and to 25,920 during 24 hours or one day. We know that the vernal point needs 25,920 years in order to move through the 12 constellations of the Zodiac.

The vernal point is the crossing point of the celestial equator and the ecliptic, i.e., the path of the Sun. In Part One, we indicated the circular movement of the polar axis of the Earth caused by the precession. For the same reason, also the crossing points between the equator and the ecliptic shift through the Zodiac. A complete revolution of one of the two points—the vernal point—takes, according to modern calculations, about 25,920 years.

This fact of the Platonic year is well known in occultism, and it was also known by Ancient Indians. They called it a Day of Brahma. Thus an interesting connection exists between this great “day” of the cosmos and the day of a human being; and this rhythm appears to be inherent in our “Lion” organization.

This rhythm of the Platonic year is not only engraved into our rhythmic system. Our whole life stands under the same impression. The ideal average lifetime of a human being was always considered to be 72 years. This time is related to the Platonic year of 25,920 years in the ratio of 1 to 360 56

(25,920 = 72 x 360). Therefore, the lifetime of a human being is likened to one degree of the ecliptic through which the Sun passes in the course of approximately one day. Thus the average life of a human being is likened to one day of a Platonic year. (The difference between 360 and 365 days in one year is due to slight irregularities in the annual movement of the Sun.)

We see that in the human organism, especially in the Lion region, there are imprinted majestic cosmic rhythms. This sphere of Lion in the human body is deeply connected, as we know, with life in general. The heart and the circulation are practically considered to be the vehicle of life, in a certain sense. If we now recall what we said about Lion and the second great cycle of Ancient Sun, we find an interesting corroboration. The ancestor of the human being had been endowed with an ether or life body. Thereby, the Spirits of Motion were enabled to work from the periphery upon the physical organization and bring about those air movements that we mentioned. We can see in them the pre-figurations of the present heart and lung organization, which had already been founded on Ancient Saturn. Therefore, we can truly connect those events on Ancient Sun with the constellation of Lion.

We use the symbol ♌︎ for this constellation, signifying the rhythmic movements in the organization of the Sun Beings. They were reflections or imitations of the cosmic-psychic movements of the Dynamis, who’s activities we can see in the opposite constellation of Waterman. The symbol used for Waterman indicates the impressions of the astrality of the Dynamis on the cosmic ether (Fig. 31).

Until then, the ancestor of the humanity did not yet have a definite and fixed bodily frame. We ought to imagine that they were, rather, in ceaseless movement and continuously changing their bodily form. One might think of something similar to the formations of clouds at present. In this moment, the Spirits of Form or Exusiai again started their influence. We remember that they already contributed to the development on Ancient Saturn. At that time they could only create an external reflection of their true impulses. Even on the Sun, the human being was still far from being capable of receiving their gifts. Only very late—actually during the present Earth evolution—were they able to endow humanity with the ego, which was their great cosmic aim. Until then the Spirits of Form effected various preparatory changes in the human organization, paving the way for the final step. Through their activities, certain physiological and organic foundations were created in the human being.

On Ancient Saturn they had effected the division of the planet into single bodies—the forerunners of our present individual body. Now, on the Sun, they made the physical body last for longer intervals. Through the influence of the Spirits of Form, external form was preserved for a period of time.

This was the third great cycle of Ancient Sun evolution. We can read its culmination in the script of the constellation of Crab. Here we are reminded of another development during Ancient Saturn condition, which we also connected with Crab. It was the fifth round of that condition, during which the first traces of the sense organs were created. We described it as an interaction of beings and forces whose work we recognized in the dynamic influence of Goat and Crab. Furthermore, we indicated that in this interaction the Crab impact tended to create the initial tendency for the later ossification of the skullcap. Now during the Ancient Sun condition, we find this specific Crab tendency again at work (Fig. 32 at right). It is interesting that Crab is connected with the world conception of philosophic materialism, which is the conscious philosophic realization of a certain trend of the creative activities of the spiritual hierarchies. Materialism is one of the many necessary building stones of divine creation. If materialism, as a world conception, claims to be the only correct aspect of existence, it is bound to misconceive the truth.

We are used to the sign ♋︎ for Crab. In this symbol an enclosing faculty is indicated. The floating and continually changing ♌︎ and ♍︎ entities are now temporarily encased in a kind of shell, which guards, as it were, and protects the being.

In the opposite constellation, ♑︎ or , we see the cosmic background of the spiritual forces that enacted the ♋︎ development of the Sun human. The lower part of the symbol already indicates the dynamic tendencies of ♋︎ (Fig. 32). Thus Goat stands for the hardening, even crystallizing impact of the cosmos which we witness especially when the Sun enters this constellation, about the 15th of January. The ice and snow of the wintry season is the external manifestation of these forces.

During the fourth great cycle of the Ancient Sun condition, we see two hierarchies exerting their influences on the ancestors of humanity. The first is the hierarchy of the Archai or Spirits of Personality. We saw them already on Ancient Saturn infusing into the human physical warmth body a reflection or an appearance of independence. Now, on Ancient Sun, the Archai have risen to a higher level of consciousness, which spiritual science calls imaginative perception. Thereby, they were enabled to work upon the ether body and endow it with the appearance of personality and independence. It is only a reflection of majestic cosmic imaginations, which they themselves were now able to develop. This fact is the reason that the present human being has an individual ether body. At the same time, the very exalted hierarchy of the Seraphim, or Spirits of Love, combines their activity with that of the Archai. Thereby, the imaginations of the Archai became very powerful and appeared in the human being as a force that we might call, under present conditions, earthly love. This influence began to change the nature of the human ancestor. The germinal beginnings of the present glandular system, thereby, came into existence. There appeared in humanity, whom we must imagine as something similar to a very subtle plant, the first indication of a reproduction of their own kind. Through this capacity, they were able to segregate part of their body. These segregations then lived as independent creatures beside the mother being.

Besides these developments, also the Archangeloi also started with their activities. They had now entered a stage of their evolution similar to that of the Archai on Ancient Saturn. In other words, they went through the equivalent of the present human stage of selfhood and independence. Human beings had then been developed so far that the Archangeloi were able to achieve through them their own human stage. Already on Ancient Saturn they had helped create the archetypal beginnings of the human sense organs. They continued in this capacity on Ancient Sun, and thereby the sense organs were brought another step nearer to perfection.

Through certain beings who did not follow the normal course of evolution, a connection was established between the kingdom of Sun Beings and the lower kingdom, which we have already mentioned. Those germinal sense organs were used as channels of communication between the two kingdoms. The second kingdom consisted of warmth, which could not be permeated by an ether body. It formed, therefore, a kind of renewed Ancient Saturn and can be regarded as a separate celestial body beside that of the Sun. We see here the first beginnings of a kind of planetary system of divided bodies.

We can read the culmination of this cycle on Ancient Sun in the dynamic properties of the constellation of Twins. With regard to Ancient Saturn, we witnessed there the cosmic impulses of individualization represented by the Exusiai, and of personality worked out by the evolution of the Archai. On Ancient Sun we see this Twin impulse again at work. The Archai then impressed independence on the human ether body. We also see here a refined recapitulation of that gigantic process of archetypal division of the Saturn body into single warmth entities. Now, on Ancient Sun the ancestor of the human being had become capable of reproduction. This is a Twin activity on Ancient Sun, similar to that on Ancient Saturn.

The traditional symbol for Twins is ♊︎. If we recall now the fact that humanity went through its plant stage on Ancient Sun, we might read in this sign of Twins an important step in its development. It was the middle cycle of the Sun condition, and we can imagine that the human being then began to resemble a plant, though under totally different conditions from today.

Until then the human being might be likened to a seed or a bud, still held back by its protective sheath. However, in that moment, forces of the heights and forces in the depths worked upon humanity. We recognize in these forces, the Archai and Seraphim on one hand and the Archangeloi on the other. The bud of the human being germinated and burst forth, orienting itself in space between the two world polarities (Fig. 33). At this time an impulse, a tendency towards multiplication, the first traces of reproduction entered them like a kind of primitive segmentation. We might compare this organism with two leaves or even archetypes of lungs. (The lungs have a certain connection with the Twins sign, ♊︎.)

Thus we should see a preparation for the process of reproduction internally, in the sense of division. This is the Twin aspect. The external cosmic impact is indicated by the symbol for Archer, ♐︎. The being is exposed to a polaric activity of the hierarchical world. This can give us an impression of the ideas that made ancient peoples use the symbol ♊︎, indicating the above and the below and at the same time a sort of horizontal twofoldness. We should not be disturbed by the fact that this Sun plant swims, as it were, in the air. We remember that the archetypal form of the plant is the leaf. (See Man or Matter by E. Lehrs, p. 80.)

Toward the middle of the fifth cycle of the Ancient Sun condition, the Archangeloi had matured so far that they were able to impress the capacity of reproduction still more deeply into the organization of the human being. At the same time, the Angeloi exerted a certain influence upon the human physical body. On Ancient Saturn we saw them helping to establish an archetypal kind of warmth metabolism in cooperation with the exalted Cherubim. Now on Ancient Sun, those two hierarchies worked together again upon the human body. The capacity of taking in substances from the surroundings and transforming them was further developed in the human being. Yet, as we said above, only warmth existed in the second, lower kingdom, which was then the “external’’ world of the human being. This fact, and the trend toward densification of warmth into air, can give us a faint idea of what this metabolism really was. Strange as it may sound, the foundation of reason was thereby created in the human being. Through humanity’s Sun metabolism, the lower warmth organism was permeated by light, the wisdom-light which had come from the Kyriotetes.

We can see this phase of evolution culminating in the constellation of Archer. Thereby, we have moved across from Twins to the opposite part of the Zodiac. It is rather complicated to recognize in Archer that fifth cycle of Ancient Sun, because we meet there a deeply veiled sphere. For instance, we know that Archer was depicted on ancient star maps as a Centaur, half horse, half man. The race of the centaurs played an enormous part in Greek mythology, as we can gather from sculptures on the friezes of Greek temples. There the centaurs are usually represented as the great opponents of the Greeks. What was the meaning of these pictures? They wanted to depict a certain stage of humanity’s development in the past. The horse had come into existence at that time, but humanity had stayed behind on a higher level. The horse sank to the level of material existence; and humanity, freed of these forces, was able to develop intelligence. The Centaur had not yet reached that stage of emancipation. The animal nature was still united with its being, whereas the human being of intelligence, who developed philosophical thought later, had been freed. Humanity was bound to come into a conflict with those Centaur forces that were most powerful, because they still had the untamed animal potentiality. Hence came the myths of the fights between centaurs and Greeks.

The Archer/Centaur is an image of that great struggle of humanity to become human through emancipation from animal inclinations. The fifth round of Ancient Sun represents one of the stepping stones of humanity toward this goal. Therefore, we can associate it with Archer. In another sense, we also see here an image of that subtle relationship between humanity and the lower kingdoms of nature. The rising of humanity to ever higher stages of consciousness caused the creation of beings below them. We are certainly indebted to them, for without their sacrifice we could not have advanced. Sometime in the future we shall have to repay these debts by redeeming these lower kingdoms.

This relationship between humanity and the lower kingdoms, starting on Ancient Sun, is expressed in Archer. It is the picture of humanity rising and aiming at intelligence, while at the same time pushing the horse species away from their own nature and down to the level of the animal kingdom. The traditional symbol for Archer is ♐︎. It indicates a capacity of stretching out between two foci. If we introduce this tendency into our picture of the plant-human of Ancient Sun, we will come to very interesting conclusions.

Something like a stem has now developed from this archetypal Sun plant. It has the inherent quality of Archer ↑↓. This is the result of external cosmic impacts that come from below and above, represented by the sign opposite to ♐︎, which is ♊︎.

Through this combined activity of the forces working behind, as it were, Twins and Archer, another organ was formed, as far as was possible on Ancient Sun. This was the predecessor of the present human spine. We remember that, according to the Mysterium Magnum, the spinal cord, the brain of the middle human being, is connected with ♊︎ (Fig. 34).

The sixth cycle of Ancient Sun can be recognized in the constellation of Scorpion. Yet, here we must take into account the fact that in ancient times this constellation was perceived as an Eagle. The imagination of the Eagle is rather more congenial to that great phase of Ancient Sun.

All of the Ancient Sun evolution is strongly under the impression of the creation of the human ether body. This ether body is the great architect of our earthly physical body, while we dwell on the Earth. It was created, as we saw, from the wisdom-light of the Kyriotetes and, therefore, bears the wisdom-filled intentions of the divinity, resembling a kind of living memory. The ether body impresses these on the physical body, thus keeping the organism in line with the great aspects and aims of divine creation. Therefore, the ether body can also work against the forces of destruction and decay in the physical frame of the human being.

Under present conditions, human beings normally have no consciousness of this working of the ether or life body. It comes to them like the impact of a force of nature, over which they have no control. Humanity’s great mission in the process of cosmic evolution is the conscious acquisition of the inherent potentialities in their total organization. Humanity will one day attain, in the dim future, the conscious handling of their etheric forces, when the ego has acquired the necessary maturity and power.

Thus, in future we will transform our etheric principle into a member of our organization whose faculties we will employ consciously. This new principle is called, by modern spiritual science, the Life Spirit. In eastern esoteric teaching it is known as Buddhi. It exists already as a germinal disposition and was founded by exalted spiritual beings during that sixth cycle of Ancient Sun. When we will have attained the fully conscious capacities of Life Spirit, then we will not only be able to behold the beings of the Divine world with supersensible perception, but we will be creative in the spiritual world (see Rudolf Steiner’s, The Akashic Records).

These facts are recorded, as it were, in the cosmic chronicle, especially in the constellation of Scorpion/Eagle. We are here touching upon the loftiest aspects of cosmic evolution, wherefore we must take into account the ancient vision of the Eagle. This constellation has fallen, so to speak, in a certain moment and becomes Scorpion. We shall speak of this fall in greater detail on a later occasion.

The symbol for Scorpion is ♏︎. In a certain sense we meet here the sign for Archer →, but in the symbol ♏︎ it is hidden, as it were, behind three veils. Deep mysteries are indeed connected with it. They concern the origin of reproductive powers in humans after their fall, and their redemption in the future. We will now introduce this aspect of ♏︎ or into our picture of the Sun plant, which, as readers will have noticed, has a certain relationship to the middle or rhythmic organism of the human being. Let us, therefore, imagine that after the leaves had been contracted into the stem, another expansion took place. The Sun plant received, as it were, from the heights a very precious gift, a kind of premonition of the flower (Fig. 35). This flower we can imagine coming from the highest spheres of the deity. Something of the germ-like Buddhi principle, of which we spoke, may have been reflected into it.

The cosmic side of this Scorpion/Eagle aspect is represented by Bull. This leads us to an interesting idea. As we worked out previously, Bull is connected with the larynx. We may well consider the Scorpion cycle of Ancient Sun as a time when the larynx organism was developed, to a certain degree, with regard to its spiritual potentiality (♉︎ opposite ♏︎). We know through spiritual science that this organ is still far from having exhausted its purpose. Humanity will in the future evolve the power of speech, which at present is feeble to universal creativeness. What spiritual science has to say about the principle of Buddhi (mentioned above), lies in a similar direction. The Spirit-Word of the Godhead created the universe, and something of that creativeness was embedded in humanity during the Scorpion-Bull cycle of Ancient Sun.

During the seventh great cycle of Ancient Sun, the human ancestor had reached the highest degree of perfection that was possible then. They had become plant-like beings, but under the entirely different conditions of the life of that universe. In their external appearance, they already faintly resembled the form of a present human being. Yet, their position was reversed in space. That part that tended to become a head was turned toward the “soil” of the Sun, as the root of our present plant is directed toward the center of the Earth. The opposite pole, which bore the potentiality of becoming arms and legs, was oriented toward the light—similar to the blossom of an earthly plant.

This was a being that occult science calls the “enlivened monad”, which was in a state of perfect balance between the heights and depths of the Ancient Sun planet. On the one hand, through the root part, it had a connection with the second kingdom below it, and was even able to experience the first traces of sympathy and antipathy toward its surroundings. On the other hand, it imitated and demonstrated in its being and growth the facts of the Sun cosmos, which was then totally different from the present. As a plant at present is a reflection of the climatic, atmospheric, and cosmic conditions, so was the human being of Ancient Sun a mirror of the heights above.

This condition of existence, which was achieved during the seventh round, is beautifully expressed in the present picture of the constellation of Scales. The calmness, the balance between above and below, as well as the division between the light and dark parts of the Zodiac, which is inherent in Scales, is a perfect imagination of the Ancient Sun human being.

In Part One, we have already pointed out that, for instance, the ancient Akkadians perceived this constellation as the Holy Altar (Tulku). This imagination is an even more beautiful description of the Ancient Sun ancestors. They still existed in a state of innocence, though they were totally unconscious, that they were as a living altar on which the Divine world performed its great acts of consecration.

The sign for Scales is ♎︎. We suggested earlier an alteration of ⦵, similar to a setting sun. We tried to see in this constellation the central focus of the last cycle of Ancient Sun. Thus we have, indeed, something similar to a gigantic sunset.

During that cycle, Sun Beings had reached the highest possible perfection, manifesting the whole surrounding universe in its plant organization. It responded with its flower-limb organization to the heights above and also had a definite connection with the world below. We can imagine something like indications of roots extending into the lower realm (Fig. 36).

The flower-leaf organization resembled more the limbs of the Sun Beings; whereas, the root organization already showed the very first, faint indication of a head. We might even call it a kind of archetypal brain, as we have indicated above. The stem, as an archetypal spinal cord, connected the head and limbs, the two asymmetric twins. They were then brought into a state of harmonious balance; and thus we may have established, from another angle, the justification to see this last cycle of Ancient Sun under the sign of the constellation of Balance or Scales (also see Ram).

The Evolution of Ancient Moon

The seventh cycle of Ancient Sun closed with one of those intervals of cosmic rest, of which we mentioned at the end of Ancient Saturn evolution. Again, everything existing was dissolved and transported to higher planes of the spiritual world, and the beings of the hierarchies withdrew. After this Pralaya condition, a new cosmic phase of evolution started. This was the Ancient Moon incarnation of the Earth. Similar to Ancient Saturn and Ancient Sun, it evolved during seven great cycles. During the first cycle, the facts of Ancient Saturn were repeated. Again the warmth entity of the Saturn human was being born. We must imagine that now the repetition was taking place with a view of preparing humanity for the events that were intended by the Divine world during Ancient Moon. We may recognize this cycle as being focused again in the constellation of Virgin. This need not surprise us since we imagined the Sun evolution as having started under the aspect of Virgin and ending in Scales. Creation took up the thread where it left off, so to speak. We should again find the previously mentioned viewpoint of a universe of divine beings creating and bearing in its womb the germ of the human being. We tried to express this by converting the traditional ♍︎ sign into .

During the first cycle and leading right into the second, the facts of Ancient Sun were also recapitulated. Again the warmth image of the human being was permeated by an ether or life body. During the second great cycle on Ancient Moon, a new development took its start. Now the Spirits of Motion had become so powerful that they were able to work upon humanity and endow it with new faculties.

Humanity was on the road to emancipation from the Divine world, as we mentioned previously. Ancient Moon evolution marked a further step on this road. We must imagine that a part of the substances and beings who came from the previous conditions could not partake in the normal course of cosmic development. They were left behind, as it were. Human beings, as well as the beings in the kingdoms below them, which had again come into existence, bore those substances in their bodies. They were thus involved in this backwardness. A part of the creation had been rejected by the Divine world; Therefore, it fell into a state of greater densification than existed previously. However, what we try to describe here with a few words comprised gigantic ages of development. Also the spiritual beings who were connected with this backward and, therefore, densified part of the world, lived through inner experiences whose magnitude we can hardly imagine. We may only faintly grasp the experiences of exclusion and resignation that they had to go through (see Rudolf Steiner’s, The Inner Realities of Evolution, Berlin, November 1911).

These circumstances produced conditions on Ancient Moon that made it impossible for the highest spiritual hierarchies to remain within that universe. They separated from the Moon and founded another dwelling place in the cosmos. This new celestial body appeared as a reborn but refined Ancient Sun. Those beings, who had moved to it, were thus enabled to follow their own intentions. From this Sun, they could also prepare to work upon the Moon planet that they had left behind.

In the meantime, the Moon itself had been partly densified into water, but another part was not mature enough to descend to the water condition. It remained in a gaseous form, and there were even parts that had not yet evolved beyond the state of warmth on Ancient Saturn. The human body contained warmth, air, and water. Consequently, below that there existed two kingdoms bearing in their bodily forms the less densified substances of Ancient Moon.

We can find the culmination of this second cycle of Ancient Moon imprinted in the constellation of Scales. The traditional sign that is used is ♍︎. We suggested the alteration, ⦵, something like a sunset, a departure of the Sun. It is exactly this that we described above when we spoke of the foundation of a reborn Ancient Sun by those beings who could not endure the increasing densification on Ancient Moon.

We can find the imprint of the following cycles of Ancient Moon in the constellations following Scales: in Scorpion, Archer, and so on. If we accept this aspect, we detect the interesting fact that, whereas Ancient Sun evolution, starting also in Virgin, first went anti-clockwise through Lion, Crab, etc., Ancient Moon descends, as it were, into the “dark” part of the Zodiac. This is a very important viewpoint, which we shall fully appreciate later on.

In connection with the evolution of Ancient Sun, we always included the opposite constellations into our considerations. We cannot do the same with regard to the stage of cosmic development that we have in mind now. Here we must employ another viewpoint (Fig. 37).

For certain reasons, which we shall explain later, we must include in our consideration the concept of what we may call “corresponding’’ signs. Constellations that are a certain distance from a given point in the Zodiac are related to those constellations which have the same distance on the other side of that position. For instance, the sign of Libra ♎︎ is 60° away from Sagittarius ♐︎. (We chose ♐︎ because this constellation is associated with the central stages of Ancient Moon, as we shall see. Continuing 60° past ♐︎ is Aquarius ♒︎. Therefore, ♒︎ is connected with the ♎︎ cycle of Ancient Moon. That which happens in one part of the Zodiac finds an answer or an echo in the corresponding sign, determined by a certain central point—in our case ♐︎.)

The association of Waterman with the second cycle of Ancient Moon is quite obvious. We mentioned above the fact that during the second greater cycle, a part of the substances of heat and air was densified to water. However to call it water comes only approximately near the reality. This is clearly indicated by the constellation of the heavenly Waterman, which is indeed considered in occultism to be an image of the Ancient Moon Beings or Waterman.

In order to avoid a possible misunderstanding and confusion, we should like to infer the following. So far we have worked out our consideration of the sub-cycles of the three planetary conditions of Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, and Ancient Moon on the basis of the Mysterium Magnum. Everything that has been said can be logically followed up. We are, of course, fully aware that Rudolf Steiner gave indications that seem to differ from these. He associated Lion with the Ancient Saturn human, Scorpion/Eagle with the Ancient Sun human, the Ancient Moon Beings with Waterman, and finally the Earth human with Bull. The two aspects seem to disagree; yet, we maintain that each viewpoint is correct and only taken from a different angle. The indication given by Rudolf Steiner refers to the worldview, as it were, of the Cherubim as represented by the four apocalyptic beasts of Eagle, Lion, Bull, and Man. Here we are taking the view of the planetary universe in relationship to the Zodiac. Therefore, each of the three previous conditions of the Earth is reflected in a whole orbit or planetary entity. One who aspires to a true star wisdom must get used to the idea that one and the same fact can be considered from many standpoints.

We recounted two more facts of that second cycle: the creation of a newborn Ancient Sun by beings of the highest hierarchies, and the working of the Spirits of Motion upon the Moon Beings. We can find both in the script of the Zodiac. We saw the development of the actual Moon as a descent from the constellation of Virgin to Scales, and so on. The departing Sun and its beings took another course. This we can find if we move upward in the Zodiac from Virgin to Lion, etc. Thus we see indeed a “reborn” Ancient Sun; for this movement was the course of Ancient Sun. We can therefore extend the above mentioned law of correspondence to the upper part of the Zodiac (Fig. 38). If we recall the impact that we found written into Lion, resulting from the second cycle of Ancient Sun, we see there the working of the Spirits of Motion described earlier. Yet this hierarchy had attained, in the meantime, a higher degree of power. Those beings were now able to penetrate humanity with their impulses, endowing them with the principle of the soul or astral body.

In order to comprehend this fact, we must recall what we said about the conditions of the Moon planet that had been severed from the Sun. The emancipation was the result of a kind of rejection of the general state of the Moon by those higher hierarchies who went away with the Sun. The rejected planet-nature experienced these developments in a mood of isolation followed by resignation. However, through the interaction of the Spirits of Motion, a certain compensation was brought about.

Through the infusion of the astral body, the Moon Beings were enabled to develop a kind of dream-consciousness of the events and facts in their surroundings. Yet, these dreams cannot be compared with the arbitrary and contorted dreams that we might have as notions of events in our environment or within our organisms. They were truly symbolic, though dim, representations of the external world. Thus human beings had a certain contact with and experience of the facts in the universe around them from which they also had been emancipated in the course of evolution. This was their compensation for their isolation.

The Spirits of Motion established this means of balance also in a very broad cosmic sense. As we saw, a cosmos of individual celestial bodies had come into existence: the Moon planet and the Sun. Later on their number was increased. This is the external aspect of that isolation and emancipation of which we spoke. Now the Spirits of Motion made these planets move in orbits. Thus it was possible that they “met” in cosmic space, as it were, or moved apart. This was the compensation in the universe; for the planets were enabled to have impressions and experiences of what went on in cosmic space and outside of their own spheres of existence. We see that the Spirits of Motion, indeed, made possible external as well as psychical motion. In human beings, this appeared as the capacity of external movement resulting from experiences through the astral body. They had in their being a miniature representation of the capacities with which the Ancient Moon “stars” were endowed. We can thus understand the term used by in occultism for this principle: the astral body.

Yet human beings were far from limb movement in the present sense. They, rather, hovered or jumped in the viscous substance of which the Moon planet was partly composed. Below them existed two more kingdoms: the first one a kind of animal-plant world, whereas, the second kingdom represented a state between the present plant and mineral. The human being was a being halfway between a present animal and human, especially with regard to consciousness. We now see the reflected internal movement (such as plant sap) in the Sun human, resulting from the Dynamis-Lion impact, transformed into soul movement and even external motion in the Moon Beings.

These developments lasted right into the third cycle of Ancient Moon. But now an event occurred that gave evolution a new turn. Beings who had a certain leading connection with that part of the Moon cosmos, which had to witness in isolation and resignation the rejection of its being by the higher Divine world, became “rebellious”. They regarded it as their task to lead the process of emancipation to its final conclusions. Their impulse was to create, as it were, a cosmos entirely cut off from the cosmos of normal evolution. They are usually called luciferic beings.

This Moon rebellion changed the character of the human beings. They now had a soul body, as we said. They were thereby able to have inner sensations, emotions, etc., but now introduced into their inner nature was the impulse to develop a dim sense of independence, of segregation and of divorce from the higher spiritual world. These impulses prepared them to later become egoists. Those beings who initiated this development were later on perceived as the Serpent who brought about the Fall of humanity and the loss of paradise, according to the Book of Genesis.

We find that Moon rebellion recorded in the script of the constellation of Scorpion. In distinction from the Sun evolution, this constellation now appears for the first time as the image of a scorpion with the deadly sting. The luciferic beings, who initiated that cosmic rebellion, gave human beings a clearer consciousness than that which they would have attained had they solely remained under the influence of the Sun spirits. But Lucifer endowed Moon Beings with an urge to independence in the expectation that in the future they might serve the luciferic goals of evolution and not those of the Divine world. The egoism that was produced in humanity was ultimately not meant to elevate them to higher levels of existence; but to achieve through it, the absolutely divorced and self-contained cosmos of Lucifer’s imagination. These impulses, though they can enhance for a time human consciousness, would ultimately lead to the self-destruction of the human race. Therefore, this stage of the Moon cosmos appears in the constellation of Scorpion. Illness and death have their root in those events. They are caused by the egoistical trends, emotions, and passions inspired by Lucifer in the astral body of humans.

We must also include here the aspect of the constellation of Goat, in the sense of the law of corresponding signs described earlier (see Fig. 37). The Goat appears depicted on ancient star maps as an animal whose fore-part represents an ibex, whereas it has a fishtail instead of hind legs. Therefore it is often called Goatfish, and the signs used for it want to give expression to this imagination: We suggested the symbol , whereby we try to indicate the spiral fishtail, which appears on some older representations.

This imagination does not really refer to any of the present animal species. It is a picture that might help to form an impression of, for instance, Ancient Moon Beings as they became during the Scorpion cycle. In the course of the great divorce and rebellion, which we described above, the substances of Ancient Moon became tremendously densified. For instance, the fluid, water-like substances were partly converted into a viscous state. Even horn-like substances appeared in a certain moment. Human beings partook in this development by taking these densified substances into their own bodies. Thus we can imagine that they appeared similar to a water animal, having something similar to a fishtail but also developing a horn-like appendage similar to the horns of an ibex.

If we turn now to the upper part of the Zodiac, we find Crab as the sign corresponding to Scorpion (see Fig. 38). In this upper part we can see the further destiny of the Sun, which had separated from the Moon. The symbol for Crab, ♋︎, indicates the withdrawal of the Sun-beings from the affairs of the Moon, after the Spirits of Motion had endowed humanity, by their sacrifice, with the forces of the astral body. It is the aspect of the spiritual Sun that had disappeared from the inner sight of the Moon beings and which began to shine as an external and spatially segregated body. This Crab-Sun was, thus, a premonition of what then was experienced on the Earth and described by ancient peoples as the “midnight Sun”, the spiritual Sun that is hidden behind the material world. The ancient Egyptians connected it, in a certain sense, with Osiris, who had become lord of the underworld after he had been slain. The dead who traveled to his realm were given images of the Scarabaeus beetle, which was the Egyptian equivalent for the Crab symbol. It has been found in many sarcophagi. Thus Crab-Scarabaeus was indeed recognized by the ancients as an imagination of the spiritual Sun that was hidden by the hardened corporeality of an emancipated universe.

We come now to the fourth cycle of Ancient Moon, which was the central stage of its evolution. The rebellious beings never had a complete hold on the Ancient Moon Beings. Even a part of the human physical organism was removed from their influence. Human beings appeared then as a twofold being. One part of their body was deeply involved in the hardening Moon substances. This was more likened to the head of present human beings. Through it they had a reflection of the whole Ancient Moon cosmos. But another part of their organism was still connected with the influence of those exalted Sun-beings, who worked now upon the Moon from outside. Through this pole of their entity, they felt themselves invigorated by the Sun cosmos. It appeared as a “premonition” of the present chest-limb system. In this part they had a much more dull consciousness compared with that of their head pole.

Without great difficulty, we can recognize in this development an imagination that was later on associated with the constellation of Archer/Centaur. The Centaur is struggling for the attainment of human consciousness. Its head and upper part already has a human appearance, and it is aiming with bow and arrow at a far distant point. All this is an indication of aspiring to higher stages of existence. Yet, with its body it is still fettered to the animal destiny. Therefore, in its lower part is a dreamy consciousness, although the horse body suggests great vitality and harmony with cosmic forces. We realize that this Archer/Centaur is an exact description of the two-fold Moon Beings.

The brighter consciousness, which our Moon ancestors had, was bought in exchange for retarding influences. The luciferic beings had infused into them their impulses of segregation. Through the greater inner distance from the higher Divine world, which was thereby caused, human beings had a brighter consciousness. However, these impulses must lead to destruction; for only a being that remains a member of the whole universe can ultimately exist. Moon Beings experienced this law in their lives. That bright Moon consciousness consumed and dried up the vitality of their physical body. After a certain time of Moon existence, their bodies no longer supported them. They sank into a condition that was an experience between death and the longing for sleep of a present human being. They separated from their physical bodies which had become deficient. Their higher being, consisting of astral and ether body, was carried to the realm of the Sun. There they were taken into the mighty spiritual manifestations of the Sun hierarchies. The glory of the deeds of these Sun-beings and the powers of cosmic harmonies, which were streaming from them into space, rejuvenated them. Yet humans during this Sun existence had a much more dim consciousness than during their time on the Moon. After their sojourn in the Sun sphere, they were led back to the Moon. There they again found the dried out remnant of their last Moon existence, but they were now able to revivify this germ through the rejuvenated higher principles of their being. They experienced it as a state between the waking up and being born of the present human being.

Moon Beings could not perform these transformations out of their own beings. They did not yet have a consciousness of self. A being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi accompanied each one on their journey to the Sun realm and also led them back to a New Moon existence. The Angels rose, thereby, to their human stage, as the Archangeloi went through the stage of their humanhood on Ancient Sun and likewise the Archai on Ancient Saturn. They used the human senses for their own development. These senses had been founded on Ancient Saturn. On Ancient Moon the senses appeared more perfected, but the human being could not yet make use of them. Instead, the Angels experienced their own egohood, as they perceived the external world through the human senses. Through this activity, the first traces of the nervous system were created. The nerves were the extensions of the senses into the internal, physical organization of human beings, and thereby their conscious use of the senses was prepared during Earth evolution.

The Sun aspect of the fourth cycle of Ancient Moon can be found recorded in the constellation of Twins. We remember that according to the Mysterium Magnum, the spinal cord is connected with Twins. The spinal cord is a part of the nervous system that was created on Ancient Moon as an extension of the senses into the body. We met this Twin organ once before. It was on Ancient Sun when it appeared more like the stem of a plant; now on Ancient Moon it is one step nearer to the spinal cord.

The relationship between Moon Beings and the Angeloi is also well depicted in Twins. According to Greek mythology, it was the constellation of the Dioscuri, of Pollux and Castor. Castor was of mortal nature, Pollux was immortal. Once Castor was killed during a battle, and thus the hitherto inseparable twins were separated by destiny. Pollux was so unhappy about this fate that he implored Zeus to let him die too. Zeus was deeply moved by this sign of brotherly love. He gave permission to bring Castor back to life under the condition that Pollux would accompany his brother whenever he had to sojourn in the realm of the shades, according to the laws appertaining to mortals.

This myth refers to conditions during Earth evolution. But behind it and shining through the constellation of Twins, as it were, appears that connection of the Angeloi with Moon Beings, the Angel accompanying the human being to the glory of the Sun harmonies and back to the Moon existence. We are looking here into the vast background of a half dreamy Moon picture-consciousness, which was the source of the immeasurable treasures of mythology and folklore. The connection of the Centaur with the condition of Moon Beings is a similar example. The hierarchies of the Archangeloi, Archai, and Exusiai also worked, of course, during Ancient Moon upon humanity. We cannot now go into details of their activities.

During the following fifth cycle of evolution another change took place. The influence of the Sunbeings on the Moon became increasingly stronger. Finally, the rebellious Moon beings were overcome and forced to conform to the intentions of the higher hierarchies, who had previously left the Moon with the Sun. These events also changed the nature of Moon Beings. The physical body, which had become highly densified under the impact of the Moon rebellion, was now again rarefied and prepared for more etheric forms of existence.

This intensified influence of the Sun-beings upon the Moon and the elimination of the results of the rebellion are recorded in the constellation of Goat. When we spoke previously about the third great cycle of Ancient Moon, we pointed out that this constellation has a certain connection with the Moon rebellion. We saw in it an image of the animal-human, the ancestor of the human race on the Moon. The fishtail indicates their existence in a partly watery element, the horns stand for the highly advanced densification. This Fish-goat image was now exposed to the purifying and retrieving influences of the Sun-beings and, thereby, was that great cosmic Fall redeemed, which we saw in Scorpion. Here again we consider Goat and Scorpion as corresponding signs (see Fig. 37).

We can now ask: Who were those Sun-beings who took this task on? We can find the answer by looking across to the “Sun half” of the Zodiac: Lion, Crab, Twins, Bull, and Ram. From this aspect, Bull is the constellation corresponding to Goat (see Fig. 38). In the description of Ancient Saturn, we located, as it were, in Bull the Dynamis or Spirits of Motion. On Ancient Moon, this hierarchy endowed humanity with the astral body. Then they withdrew with the Sun-beings. They were actually the lowest of the hierarchies who went away from the Moon and took up their dwelling on the Sun.

In the course of the subsequent events on the Moon, it was just the astral body, the gift of the Dynamis, which made the rebellion possible by implanting tendencies of independence, emotion, and longing into it. This was not the original intention of the Dynamis. Now, during the fifth or Goat cycle, they were confronted with the necessity of retrieving the deviation that had been imposed onto their own gift, the human astral body. It was, therefore, a cycle of great cosmic catharsis, of great spiritual battles between the Sun hierarchies and the beings who had led the Moon body into an extreme densification. This planet was split into pieces, whereby its density was reduced. In our present universe, the so-called planetoids—tiny planetary bodies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter—are a kind of cosmic memory of those happenings on Ancient Moon. (We will give more detailed explanations of the planets later in Part Three.)

These events are imprinted in the corresponding relationship between Bull and Goat. This is not an idle playing with the constellations of the Zodiac in order to make them fit the desired purpose. The facts that are written into the Zodiac are still working in the universe and are amalgamating with earthly historical developments. This, however, need not be misunderstood in a fatalistic sense. The interplay between heavenly and earthly events has a much deeper significance than only that of a predominance of cosmic forces over terrestrial affairs.

We observe such a harmony between heavenly and earthly forces at the time of the birth of Jesus. Christianity celebrates the birth of Jesus on 25 December. There are some people nowadays who doubt the “historical character” of this date. However, we have the impression that a very wise tradition has preserved it and that it is correct, and there are many viewpoints which can support this conviction. We cannot enumerate all of them here. From one of the many cosmological viewpoints, we can see a certain justification in the fact that the Sun entered the constellation of Goat on 25 December 2000 years ago. He, who was to become the bodily bearer of the great Sun Spirit, the mighty Redeemer of the sin of the world, was born under the constellation of Goat, which has a corresponding relationship to Bull. The heavens declared him, as it were, to be the vessel of the One who was to bring the new catharsis into the world. They proclaimed it in their memory language of past cosmic events. (This is, of course, only a fraction of the facts connected with the birth of Jesus. Standing alone, it could not contribute toward the historical character of Christ’s birth.)

During the sixth great cycle of Ancient Moon, the process of retrieving and redemption of the previous fall of the Moon was continued. The substances of the Moon had now been so far rarefied that the Sun, in a certain moment, could again be united with the Moon. The powerful hierarchy of the Kyriotetes, or Spirits of Wisdom, worked upon the Moon and completely transformed the conditions on it. Divine wisdom permeated it, and this wisdom was impressed, for instance, onto the ancestors of humanity. They were by no means in a position to experience this wisdom as independent personalities. It worked creatively in the human organization. Because of their influence, now the Spirits of Wisdom together with the Spirits of Motion were able, in the course of the fifth and sixth Moon cycles, to establish the germ of another higher principle, namely, the Spirit Self or Manas. This principle was destined to become in the far future, when human beings will be able to develop it consciously, the organ through which we will attain a direct perception of the beings and facts of the spiritual world.

This creation could only be achieved by the higher hierarchies after the beings and creatures of the Moon planet had been relieved from the fetters of densified matter. They existed now on an etheric level. (It is possible to speak from a spiritual viewpoint of the existence of physical objects on an etheric level.) This also prepared a reunion between Sun and Moon.

This is where we see these events imprinted in the constellation of Waterman. The Ancient Greeks experienced Hebe there, the divine cup bearer of the Olympian Gods, later known Ganymede. The draught which they bore in their cup was not imagined, however, as ordinary water. It was heavenly water, the essence of cosmic life, the creative ether forces of the universe, which streams down to the Earth and awakens the plant world in spring when the Sun enters the sign of Waterman. Even earthly water reveals its kinship to this heavenly water, because we know that without sufficient humidity life would not be possible on the Earth.

Thus we see in Waterman the imprint of that great etherization of Ancient Moon existence. But we witness more in it. The corresponding constellation is that of Scales (Fig. 37). There we had the event recorded of the separation of the refined Ancient Sun from the Moon. As the inner Sun set, as it were, for the Moon population and became an external celestial body under the sign of Scales, so it rose during Waterman cycle on the inner, spiritual horizon of the inhabitants of Ancient Moon. This is the story of Waterman.

The creation of the germ of the Spirit Self of the human being started in the Fish-goat cycle of Ancient Moon and was continued during the Waterman cycle. The Fish-goat cycle was, as we worked out previously, the redemption of the Scorpion impact. We can therefore say that when the Spirit Self of the human being will be fully developed in future, it will appear as the redemption of the Scorpion heritage in the universe and in the human being.

We can perceive, therefore, the eventual development of the higher principles of humanity as an elevation or spiritual recreation of the constellations of Scorpion, Scales, and Virgin.

Spirit Self: redemption of Scorpion, initiated during the ♑︎ and ♒︎ cycles of Ancient Moon,
Life Spirit: elevation of Scales, initiated during the ♏︎ / , and ♎︎ cycles of Ancient Sun,
Spirit-Man: spiritual realization of the Virgin potentiality, initiated during the ♓︎-♍︎ cycle of Ancient Saturn.

The mighty influence of the Spirits of Wisdom on Ancient Moon, which we mentioned above, can be seen in the corresponding connection of Waterman with Ram (Fig. 38). We connected Ram with the domicile, as it were, of the Spirits of Wisdom. They are working from the Sun arc (Fig. 39) of Ancient Moon down onto the Moon body. Their exalted wisdom-life, which we met on Ancient Saturn and which had in the meantime matured tremendously, was now able to transform the whole planet into etheric existence.

Thus we perceive Ancient Moon evolution reflected in the diagram of the Zodiac (Fig. 39).

During the final cycle of Ancient Moon the two celestial bodies, Sun and Moon, appeared as one entity. The Spirits of Wisdom now exercised a powerful influence upon this united planet, thereby pouring wisdom into the entirely etherized kingdoms of mineral-plants, plant-animals, and animal-humans. The whole planet appeared permeated with it and radiant. This is the reason why we on the Earth find wisdom in all the creations of nature. It could not be there had it not been infused into the existing objects sometime in the past.

This last phase of Ancient Moon is called in occult language the “cosmos of wisdom”. It was the result of the seemingly painful developments on that planet. The estrangement of the created world from the higher Divine world, the resignation and all the turmoil following it during the ages of the cosmic rebellion, had borne fruit. Now, when the planet approached the calmness of its final stage, the light of wisdom, matured in strife and catharsis, shone forth from the etherized Moon objects. Thus the planet could enter another night of existence or Pralaya, bearing the seed for a future cosmic evolution through a spiritual condition.

We see this last cycle of Ancient Moon culminating in Fishes. The Ancient Greeks experienced the drama of Aphrodite-Isis in this constellation, the supreme Goddess of the (Ancient) Moon. According to the legend, she and her son, Horus, were persecuted by a terrible giant. The Gods rescued them by changing them into two fishes, which were then transfixed to the heavens. It is a beautiful presentation of the fate of the divine wisdom, which was lowered during the last phase of Ancient Moon into all existing objects of the kingdom of nature. This same wisdom-being reveals itself to our senses if we try with love and devotion to comprehend the nature around us. The beauty of a flower or crystal, the wonderful structure of a leaf or a bone, the miraculous function of the wings of a bird, in fact everything in nature is the very revelation of the divine wisdom, the divine Sophia, the Isis of the ancient mysteries. The Evolution of the Earth

During the seventh great cycle of Ancient Moon, the divine creation had reached a culmination. All that had been achieved during the three preceding conditions of Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, and Ancient Moon had been gathered in that cosmos of wisdom. A universe of wisdom contained the facts and creatures that had come into existence up to that moment. Thus Ancient Moon entered the state of a cosmic night of existence.

After that great night had passed, the beings of the hierarchies again stepped forth and initiated another stage of cosmic evolution. Spiritual science calls it the Earth condition, but it does not only comprise the evolution of the planet Earth. The whole solar system to which we belong came into being during this condition. The Divine world intended to lead creation, which had come to a certain completion in the cosmos of wisdom, a decisive step further.

As in previous stages, there had to be repeated and re-established the previous conditions and achievements. However, we should not imagine that only mere repetitions were enacted. The new creations were directed toward the specific aims of the Earth evolution. We may compare it with somebody taking up in the morning the work which had been left on the preceding evening but approaching it now with new vigor and with new ideas.

Thus the evolution on Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, and Ancient Moon had to be recapitulated. This took place during the first great cycles of the Earth evolution, and only during the fourth cycle was the actual Earth condition developed.

The Earth evolution is an amalgamation of the previous conditions. This fact is the result of a law that we can observe everywhere in history, even in connection with small cycles of time. The fourth stage of any evolution carries three previous steps and leads them on to another three cycles of time in the future. This law was known to ancient humanity and was expressed, for instance, by the seven-branched candlestick in their sanctuaries (Fig 40).

We shall detect, therefore, in the great cycles of the Earth, the most ancient cosmic principles of creation, which we already met on Ancient Saturn. There the spiritual hierarchies were standing, so to speak, at the periphery of the planet and were working ever deeper into that celestial body. Similarly, the great rounds or cycles of the Earth appear to be ruled or guided by a reflection of that spiritual, hierarchical circumference of Ancient Saturn. In the following diagram we give a brief recapitulation of the circle of the hierarchies, as we conceive it (Fig. 41). However, we point out once more that we do not consider the hierarchies to be stationary in this archetypal Zodiac.

During the first cycle of the Earth, the Ancient Saturn condition was recapitulated. Ancient Saturn came into existence through the great sacrifice of the Thrones or Spirits of Will. They gave away their divine will substance. We found this initial deed of the Thrones connected with the constellation of Fishes. For this reason, we can also see there the reflection of the first cycle of the Earth. Similarly to Ancient Saturn, the physical body was then recreated and worked upon by spiritual hierarchies in preparation for the later stages of the Earth.

After this had been achieved, the Sun evolution was repeated in the second cycle of the Earth. During the Sun evolution, humanity had been endowed with an ether body, which was the gift of the Kyriotetes. We saw this hierarchy mainly dwelling in a direction of the universe that later became the constellation of Ram. Now those processes were repeated but with a view to the specific requirements of Earth evolution. We can therefore recognize this phase in Ram.

During the third great cycle of the Earth, the events of Ancient Moon were again evolved, whose main achievement was the permeation of the ancestor of the human being with an astral body, which was the gift of the Spirits of Motion or Dynamis. In the circle of the hierarchies, we saw their main influence coming from the direction of the present constellation of Bull. Therefore, Bull also indicates the culmination of the third cycle of the Earth. The astral body was then again developed, and humanity prepared for the decisive events of the fourth round. This world deed of the Dynamis was thus recapitulated in order that it would be realized by humanity during the middle phase of the Earth and on an entirely new level of consciousness.

On Ancient Saturn our human ancestor had a consciousness of the beings and facts present in the environment, which was similar to the consciousness of our present mineral today. On the Sun this consciousness was raised to the level of experience that our present plant is capable. On the Moon it was so refined that the human being had ascended to a picture consciousness, a dreamlike realization of the environment that spoke in symbolizing pictures. This Moon consciousness can be compared with the range of experience of an animal in our days.

Now, on the Earth, after Ancient Moon evolution had been recapitulated, there came the possibility of raising human consciousness to a still higher level. We may call this stage the objective or object consciousness. Humanity had to learn to realize the external world not only in dreamlike, though genuine, symbolic representations, but also to slowly grow to experience the environment as that world of sharply distinguishable and outlined objects, which we at present realize through our sense impressions. For this reason the great stages of evolution, Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, etc., are also called conditions of consciousness.

In order to achieve this stage of consciousness, the inner capacities of humanity had to be developed much further than on Ancient Moon, on which they already had consciousness through their soul or astral body; but they did not then relate their inner experiences to themselves as individual beings. They did not yet have a consciousness of themselves as a Self. Only during the fourth cycle of the Earth have human beings acquired the capacity to realize themselves as individual beings apart from the rest of the whole universe. Human beings gradually became individuals and developed personalities. The bodily sheaths were transformed into a vessel for the ego.

It is therefore not too difficult to realize the impact of this whole fourth cycle of the Earth in the implications of the constellation of Twins. For previously we considered the cosmic direction of this constellation to be the central focus of the Exusiai or Spirits of Form and of the Archai or Spirits of Personality. The Spirits of Form, especially, endeavored to impress upon human beings their cosmic impulse of individualization during the preceding stages of evolution. Now, during the fourth round of the Earth, they were at last able to infuse into them the realization of their own individuality. They endowed the human being with the ego. The human race is still in the middle of this development.

Tremendous cosmic preparations were necessary in order to achieve the final goal. The beings of the spiritual world worked towards it from two directions. The Spirits of Form prepared the path from the depths of the universe and the Spirits of Personality created the echo of the cosmic events within the creature, especially the human being.

In order to understand these facts, we must for a moment look back to the activities of the Spirits of Form on Ancient Saturn. Already so far back, they radiated their impulses of individualization toward the planetary body. However, they could only achieve a reflection owing to the condition of that planet. Under their impact, the body of Saturn was divided into many single bodies, which were the predecessors of the present human physical body.

These impulses, which we recognized in the constellation of Twins, work again during the Twin cycle of the Earth evolution. A great cosmic cell division, as it were, was initiated, and our present solar system with individual planetary bodies gradually came into existence.

So far, we have only spoken of the great cycles or conditions of life during the preceding cycles of Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, and so on. Each one of these cycles of evolution was unfolded during seven conditions of life that comprise tremendous cycles of time. A more detailed spiritual investigation reveals, however, that these conditions of life consist of smaller sub-cycles. Seven such sub-cycles or conditions of form comprise one greater cycle (Fig. 42). Therefore, the fourth round or great cycle of the Earth consists of seven conditions of form. During the first of these sub-cycles the sphere and planet Saturn were created. The consistency of the universe was then of an extremely subtle nature. The present Jupiter came into being during the second condition of form and Mars in the course of the third sub-cycle. We witness already in these events the dividing cosmic activity expressed by the properties of the Twin constellation.

Then evolution entered the fourth condition of form, and it was only during this sub-cycle that the Sun, the planets Venus and Mercury, and the Moon came into existence. In the beginning the Earth was still united with those celestial bodies. But the densification of the Earth was progressing, and in a certain moment the spiritual beings connected with the Sun were no longer able to endure the hardening of the Earth. They left and founded the Sun as their cosmic dwelling place. Later on the planets Mercury and Venus were detached from the Sun and were chosen as the seats of certain spiritual beings who could not partake in the lofty development of the Sun. Also, the present Moon finally separated from the Earth, so that the Earth could develop undisturbed. The whole solar universe had thus become “objectivated”, in a certain sense. The celestial entities no longer worked within the Earth but began to shine upon it and exert their influences from outside.

These were mighty steps toward the creation of the object world to which we are so used to in the present age. They facilitated the awakening of that object consciousness which humanity was meant to evolve on the Earth. In the course of these events, the manifoldness of the present kingdoms of nature also came into being. At a certain moment the Earth reached its greatest density by mineralization. Matter was infused into all the nature beings of the Earth, including the human being.

We see two impulses at work in these events. The highest degree of division and segregation in all cosmic history had been reached. At the same time the creatures of the Earth planet were sent out, as it were, into the density of mineral matter. Thereby, a degree of objectivity was prepared that facilitated the development of the consciousness of the self, the realization of the ego. We can well perceive that the Spirits of Form or Exusiai must have exerted a decisive influence in order to achieve this stage.

The Spirits of Personality, the other of the Twin hierarchies, also had a tremendous share in these events. On Ancient Saturn they experienced their own humanhood in the heat or warmth of our Saturn ancestors. In a similar, but now much more efficient way, the Archai worked during the fourth cycle of the Earth in the heat or warmth of this planet. In the course of this evolution, some of this heat also came to exist within the human organization. It is especially connected, as we know, with the warmth of the blood stream that is the physiological basis or instrument of the ego. Thus the Spirits of Personality had prepared through immeasurable ages of cosmic evolution a vessel for the ego. We can well realize in their activities an exaltation of those initial Twin/Archer events on Ancient Saturn.

We are still in the middle of this Twin cycle of the Earth, and we can detect its impact in all details of the present world conditions. Everything seems to depend and to rest on contradiction. Light and darkness, life (or becoming) and death, external nature and inner moral world, are only a few aspects of an unimaginable number of opposites. Yet as much as they seem to be apart and contradictory, they are inseparably connected as the very foundation of all existence. Why must this be so?

In present humanity this contradiction reaches a kind of climax. On the one hand we are exposed to powers that are connected with the density of earthly matter. We cannot escape the impact of these forces that we realize as gravity, darkness and ultimately as death. If they were not at work in the universe, we would not have firm ground under our feet, we could not sustain our physical existence.

Spiritual science recognizes these forces as the ahrimanic powers, fully realizing that we need them, to a certain extent. However, in us also lives a yearning for freedom from the weight of the earthly fetters. This is inspired by the luciferic powers in the universe, who are inclined to tear us away from material existence, to seek beauty and rest in a sphere that is divorced from the hard and fast reality of the Earth with its inevitable darkness and misery. Yet we would not have developed the realization of our inner, moral world without the influence of Lucifer.

This is another aspect of the present Twin cycle of Earth evolution; Lucifer and Ahriman, the mighty world Twins, tempting human beings to bring them into servitude. Yet we could not have developed our present object consciousness without their influence. Through darkness, we realize the existence of light; through death, we become aware of life. Gradually the danger arose that we might become completely entangled in the deviating influences of Lucifer and Ahriman. Either we might have lost the Earth and the meaning of its mission, or we might have descended too deeply into material existence and thereby completely divorced ourselves from the existence of the spiritual world. In the moment of the utmost climax, the Divine world sent the Creative Spirit of the universe into that sphere of contradiction in which earthly humanity must live.

The greatest and central event of the whole Earth evolution took place: the incarnation of Christ in an earthly human body. Spiritual science recognizes in Christ the exalted divine equivalent of that power which appears in us as a shadowy reflection when we realize our “I”. We see in Christ that divinity in Whom the totality of the divine hierarchies and of creation realizes itself as “I’. He entered physical existence in the moment of the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan, when St. John the Baptist heard the words spoken, “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” (Rudolf Steiner renders these words as follows: “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I behold Myself, in Whom I am confronted with Myself.)

Through the great sacrifice of Christ in taking on the human form and its fate, the power of the cosmic I AM entered humanity. The first and fundamental event in the life of Christ was the temptation, the confronting and rejecting of Lucifer and Ahriman. This was done for humanity. Since those events in Palestine, every human being can partake in that power of Christ, the cosmic I AM. Thus we can attain a universal consciousness that recognizes the worlds of Lucifer and Ahriman as a means of evolution, not as ultimate purposes in themselves. Through partaking in the supreme cosmic I of Christ, we will realize the spiritual purpose of our evolution in the realm of contradictions. We will recognize the realm of dense matter as the plane in which we must permeate with spirit, but not to shrink back from it nor to be stunned by it.

Thus was infused through the Christ impulse into the Earth evolution the power of the universal, all-comprehending “I”. In this great sacrifice of the deity, to unite with a human body and to suffer human destiny, even the fate of death, Christ appears as the supreme Guide of the hierarchy of the Exusiai (Spirits of Form) or Elohim. On Golgotha He fulfilled their cosmic mission to endow humanity with the cosmic “I”. This cosmic “I” is universal love, for it cannot but take in all existence in the universe with love and grace.

Christ as the supreme Guide of the Elohim and the Master of universal love is certainly connected with the constellation of Twins, the gateway of the Elohim or Spirits of Form. When the incarnation took place, in the moment of the baptism of Jesus by John, the planet Saturn was standing in the constellation of Twins. (Winter 30-31 AD)

We do not suggest that the Christ event was determined by this cosmic happening. Rather, we consider such coincidences between the cosmic script and earthly history as evidences of the working of the divine will and its fulfillment in earthly destiny.

One could argue that the course of Saturn in the sky can be calculated. If, therefore, such cosmic events are supposed to be an expression of the will of the Divine world, then this will must appear computable, which is in contradiction to the supremacy of the Divine world. But here lies a gross deception. Everybody who has an unprejudiced insight into the connection between celestial and earthly events knows that historic occurrences cannot be computed in advance. Many detailed cosmic rhythms must be in harmony in order to indicate the right setting in time for an historic event. And this symphony of cosmic movements and rhythms cannot be pre-calculated with the means of intellectual knowledge only. A capacity for divine mathematics is needed for it, which is far beyond the range of purely brainbound intelligence. Thus the position of Saturn in Twins, in 30-31 AD, is only a minute part of a great number of simultaneous cosmic events that probably happened only once in the existence of the present external universe. The specific totality of the cosmic setting at the time of Christ, which cannot intellectually be computed, must be regarded as an expression of the divine will.

During the Twin cycle of the Earth condition, human object consciousness has been developed to a predominant faculty, which human beings could approach. More and more the external universe, which human beings perceived through their senses, became the sole reality. What was once the body of the divinity, became a totally “objective” reality: the external starry universe. Along this road, humanity learned to look at the Divine world as if it were an external object. In philosophy and theology the concept of the divinity became the subject of discussion. Lucifer, who to a certain extent already had a hold on humanity during Ancient Moon, “opened his eyes” as Genesis says. For during Earth evolution, the events on Ancient Moon were recapitulated and the intentions of Lucifer carried still further. This is described in Genesis as the Fall from Paradise. If this influence of Lucifer had persisted unchecked for too long, his impact would have combined with that of Ahriman. As a result, the human being would have ceased to become a bearer of an individual soul. Humanity would have been converted into a mechanized, anthill organism without the individual freedom of the single members. Human beings would have died a kind of universal death, for a created being cannot exist indefinitely after having emancipated itself from the divine origin.

The impact of Lucifer (the serpent of Paradise), through the premature infusion of the semblance of an ego into the human being, had caused this crisis. It was only a semblance of an ego, expressing itself in narrow selfishness and egoism of the individual being. Sometimes it is called our lower ego.

This crisis was counteracted by the Deed of Christ. Through His sojourn and connection with the Earth, every human being can partake in this cosmic, all-comprehending, all-loving “I”. Through this participation, humanity can redeem its falling away from the divine origin and in time be able to unite self-consciously with all cosmic existence. Such an enlargement of consciousness must ultimately mean the overcoming of death. Therefore, Christianity speaks of Christ’s victory over death for the sake of humanity.

These developments that are the age-long battle for the birth of the free individual human being are connected, as we said above, with Twins. We can ask at this point: Is there any external rhythm in the sky that would indicate such a connection with that constellation? The answer is difficult because we are faced, for instance with regard to the Twin cycle of the Earth evolution, with a period of millions and millions of years. Even modern astronomy has not computed any rhythm of such a length with certainty. However, we may think of the Milky Way, which passes at present through the constellations of Twins and Archer. Astronomical research has not recorded any change of this relationship between the Milky Way and Twins. However, we know that nothing remains static and fixed in the great universe, and we can assume such a change. It is possible to imagine that the Milky Way did not always pass through Twins, and that there exists a minute and slow rhythmic movement of the Milky Way through the Zodiac. A gigantic rhythm of this kind may indicate, to a certain extent, those evolutionary cycles which we have in mind.

At this point, however, we should like to refer to certain imaginations of Celtic mythology. We know, of course, that in mythology the deepest secrets of cosmic and human evolution are hidden. This mythology speaks of mighty generations of Gods. One of them is the mighty Gwydion. It seems to be correct, as is generally assumed, that he is the Celtic equivalent of Mercury. Gwydion has a castle in the sky, Caer Gwydion, which is, as some authors maintain, the Milky Way. Sometimes his sister and wife, Arianrhod, appears to have been associated with the Milky Way, or with the constellation of Cassiopeia, which lies in the Milky Way. Gwydion/Mercury is a typical Twin deity. For instance, he has two sons of opposite characters, the bright, sunny Lieu Llaw Gyffes and the dark Dylan, connected with the watery sphere. They remind us of the twins Castor and Pollux of Greek mythology.

It is therefore not too far-fetched to see in Gwydion the representative of the great Twin cycle of the Earth evolution of which we have been speaking. He is the hero of light and battles against the forces of darkness that dwell in the deep. In his first attempt to overthrow the prince of the underworld, Annwn, he failed and was imprisoned in a fortress built of human bones. This is a vivid description of the fate of all creatures, including the human being, to have to descend to the realm of death and to be fettered to a material body. Ultimately Gwydion conquers the forces of the deep in the famous Battle of the Trees. All the trees of the Earth, the pure and innocent manifestations of life, help to overcome death. (The name of Pryderi, the master of the deep, is by some authors interpreted to mean trouble, care, or thought.)

In later Celtic mythology, King Arthur takes on the attributes of Gwydion. He appears to be inspired by the impulse of Gwydion/Mercury, who can well be regarded as the great leading spirit of that part of the Earth evolution leading forward and upward. We know that occultism distinguishes two main sections of Earth evolution. The first one is called Mars and comprises the descent from spiritual heights to the state of material corporeality. The lowest point is reached when the human being acquires full command of the capacity of thinking. Then the “cosmos of wisdom” is completed. (Pryderi means thought and his father, Pwyll, means “head” of Annwn, the Celtic underworld or lowest Earth world.) The second half of the Earth evolution is called, in occultism, Mercury. Then the cosmos of love is established through Christ, the real Mercury.

The Gwydion/Mercury of ancient Celtic mythology, whom we might regard as a pre-figuration of Christ, is connected, as we said above, with the constellation of Twins and the Milky Way. This cosmological reference seems to point in the direction of the central stage of Earth evolution, the birth of the great cosmic Twin impulse, the healing Deed of Christ; the I AM of the cosmos.

Three more great cycles or rounds follow the fourth or Twin cycle of the Earth. We shall consider them briefly later on. They appear to be connected with the constellations of Crab, Lion, and Virgin. Thus we can find the whole Earth evolution, consisting of seven great cycles, interpreted by the present constellations of the Zodiac from Fishes via Ram, and so on, to Virgin. The opposite half of the Zodiac also has a bearing on the seven stages of the Earth condition. This we will consider before we go further.

The constellations of Fishes, Ram, Bull, Twins, Crab, Lion, and Virgin represent the Earth condition from the cosmic point of view. The constellations of Fishes, Waterman, Goat, Archer, Scorpion (Eagle), Scales, and Virgin represent the seven principles of the human being (Fig. 43).

This becomes evident when we compare the two halves of the Zodiac in the sense of what we previously called the corresponding constellations or signs.

Fishes 1st Round: Recapitulation of Ancient Saturn, when the physical body was created.	Fishes Physical body
Ram 2nd Round: Recapitulation of Ancient Sun, when the ether or life body was created.	Waterman Ether body
Bull 3rd Round: Recapitulation of Ancient Moon, when the human being was endowed with an astral or soul body.	Goat Astral body
Twins 4th Round: The Exusiai (Elohim) or Spirits of Form infuse into human beings the ego.	Archer Ego

The obvious correspondence of the following...

Crab 5th Round	Scorpion-Eagle Spirit Self or Manas
Lion 6th Round	Scales Lift Spirit or Buddhi
Virgin 7th Round	Virgin Spirit-Man or Atma

...does not suggest that humanity, as a whole, will fully develop the faculties of the three higher principles. However, the human being will be able, through the power of the higher ego, to grasp the spiritual potentiality of these principles. (Rudolf Steiner described in a lecture on The Mystic Lamb, 27 January 1908, the same correlation between the principles of the human being and the corresponding constellations. He did not then speak, however, about the connection of the Zodiac with the evolution of the Earth.)

During the middle round of the Earth condition, we can consciously live only in the realm of mineral matter. Certainly life and soul forces are working in us too, but we cannot comprehend them. Neither can we understand how the life forces work in the plant nor how the consciousness forces act in the animal and in us to bring about inner conceptions of external facts. Therefore, this present great cycle is called in occultism the mineral kingdom, because human beings, having attained self-consciousness, can only grasp lifeless mineral substance.

Yet, in a far future time, human beings will be able to penetrate self-consciously the mystery of life. We will then be able to perform what the plant is doing at present unconsciously. This will take place during the fifth great cycle or round of the Earth condition. We will also then have a different body, which will no longer consist of mineral matter. During that stage, we will realize in full consciousness that in order to bring forth life in an object, the whole cosmos must be taken into account and must partake. It will then no longer be possible for any human being on the normal path of evolution to live an existence apart from the rest of the universe. During the present condition a person is inclined, for instance, to feel quite happy in his or her own position in life, whereas other beings in the world may be in utter misery. This will no longer be possible during the fifth round. The plant is an absolutely correct and true reflection of the whole cosmos, of the movements of the planets, etc. Of course, the plant doesn’t have a consciousness of it, but humanity will attain this faculty of cosmic unison in full consciousness. We can see a premonition of this stage of development in the constellation of Crab.

This development has been pre-visualized by the Divine world, but it has been facilitated by the incarnation of Christ. In His supreme dignity as the I AM of the cosmos, Christ brought the life creating forces of the cosmos down to the Earth. Christ said, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life”. When these decisive deeds happened, certain cosmic events took place in the constellation of Crab. For instance, Saturn moved through Crab during the years 31-33 AD. A new cosmic order was then established, radiating from the Earth into the old cosmos, and the seed that was planted, as it were, in Crab will blossom forth and bear fruit during that described future stage.

During the sixth great cycle of the Earth condition, humanity will also be able to grasp the mystery of consciousness. For instance, we cannot know with the means of our present average intellect, how the transition happens from the “photographic” picture on the retina of the eye to a conscious inner image. Likewise, the human being can not comprehend at present how the execution of an idea in an external action is actually carried out.

The present animal has this faculty but in a dreamlike and even lower state of consciousness. Animal forms and habits are, in the light of occult investigation, externalizations of inner, emotional qualities. How this inner world is capable of external manifestation, even of creation, we do not know. Humanity of the sixth great cycle will comprehend these secrets in full self-consciousness. They will also grasp, for instance, that these soul forces originate in the astral world, the world of the Zodiac and the fixed stars. Humanity will then direct its will toward the conscious handling and expression of cosmic astral forces in human physiology and physiognomy.

Occultism calls this stage the animal kingdom and we can read its premonitions in the present constellation of Lion. It will consist of an elevation of the cosmic Lion impact to the level of human selfconsciousness. During the second cycle of Ancient Sun, the cosmic astrality of the hierarchy of the Dynamis worked upon our Sun ancestors and created certain organic functions. This development we realized in the light of Lion. Humanity, having attained the stage of the animal kingdom, will consciously comprehend the foundations of these cosmic forces.

The final great cycle of the Earth condition is called the human kingdom in occult language. Its prevision is spiritually present in the constellation of Virgin. Besides the previously mentioned implications, this constellation also has a certain connection with that great vision contained in the 12th chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. We hear there of the “woman in Heaven” who “brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up onto God, and to His throne.”

This “man-child”, the “Son of Man”, is the innermost kernel, the spiritual fruit of humanity. We of the present age cannot grasp the full implication of our humanity. With regard to all life manifestations, organically and mentally, we consider ourselves to be isolated entities within the universe. Generally speaking, we act under a matter-of-fact course of conviction that, for instance, neither our perceptions nor our ideas have any influence on the environment. Therefore, it is so difficult for us to develop a conscious sense of responsibility with regard to our technological and scientific achievements. Occult investigation finds that even the smallest incident, occurring organically or mentally, in human existence is connected with the whole cosmos and creates far-reaching repercussions. In a spiritual sense, our joys and sorrows, our inner victories and defeats belong to the whole universe. Only during the seventh cycle of the Earth condition will we be able to grasp these facts with the full power of our “I”. Then we will be able to develop faculties that can hardly be comprehended at the present moment of evolution.

The “man-child” of the woman in Heaven, the “Son of Man”, has a definite connection with the highest principle of the human being, the Spirit-Man or Atma.

Thus we find in Virgin the prevision of the seventh cycle of the Earth condition, the stage during which those exalted capacities of spiritual humanhood, described above, will be achieved. And we also connect the principle of Spirit-Man with the same constellation (see Fig. 43). Furthermore, we see on the right side of the Zodiac the upper and lower constellations corresponding to one another.

We have now made an attempt to read in the constellations of the Zodiac, that great chronicle of cosmic evolution as spiritual science presents it. Readers will realize, of course, that the ideas offered on these pages can give only a general outline. Their sole aim is to point out a possible direction of investigation. Many more details and amplifications will be worked out in time.

Primarily, it was not the intention to heap up factual material about the various stages of cosmic evolution. The author considers it more important to find a gateway to contemplative and meditative approaches of the present cosmic facts. He has convinced himself on practical grounds that this is possible and that the indications given here are more than sufficient to lead to the road of exact research in the sense of modern spiritual science.

The presentation in Part Two is intended to facilitate the comprehension of the characteristic qualities of the constellations of the Zodiac. There exists a vast amount of literature on the implications of the divisions of the ecliptic and the Zodiac, which is taken mostly from various ancient astrological traditions. Yet, the study of this literature leaves the question: Is this information, which in time has gone through so many channels, still correct and valid for the present state of humanity? We do not want to minimize the amount of direct experience in this field, but even experimental research cannot exclude the possibility of misunderstanding and lack of total comprehension. Besides this, there is always the great problem looming in the background: Why is it that the signs of the Zodiac should manifest just the assigned characteristics and none other?

Our modern minds are urged not to accept anything on the basis of authority, whether it be of traditional nature or otherwise. This present age, which has brought to birth modern science, wants to go to the root of things on the grounds of comprehensive thinking. Thinking is practically the only authority that a modern human being seems to be able to acknowledge. Even purely experimental evidence cannot fully satisfy us. This appears to be the birthright of this age.

We have attempted in these pages to suggest a method of combining active thinking with external experience. It is this method that we wanted to emphasize, and we are convinced that through it a gateway can be opened to the spiritual understanding of the connection between the cosmos and the human being. It is a way to comprehend more intensively the really valuable and genuine treasures contained in the last remains of a traditional star wisdom of long bygone ages.

An example may demonstrate what we mean. Let us take the interpretation of the sign of Scorpion. It is said that the impact of this sign may manifest itself in a strong personality with the characteristics of intensity and passion. Yet, this intensity may express itself in the realm of both good and evil. On the evil side the outcome may be pride, jealousy, malice, ambition, envy, even hatred; while on the other side perseverance, courage, and practical ability may become evident as the impact of Scorpio. Furthermore, it is said that if the highest manifestation of Scorpio is reached, it may facilitate mystical and occult faculties. Why are these characteristics connected just with Scorpio?

Let us now look at figure 44. There we find Scorpion connected with both the sixth cycle of Ancient Sun and the third cycle of Ancient Moon. These two aspects can provide an explanation. During the third cycle of Ancient Moon, the great cosmic rebellion took place, instigated by the luciferic forces. Human beings achieved then a higher degree of consciousness than had been assigned to them by the beings of normal evolution. The foundation for a strong personality was then laid, both toward the possibility of passionate intensity but also facilitating the later development of being awake in the senses, of having presence of mind, and a strong sense for practical reality. We see here the source of both possibilities, of good and evil. Human beings became exposed to them by their highly independent astral body, which bore the impact of the luciferic temptation. The astral body is the carrier of human emotions, passions, desires, etc., but it also facilitates the inner connection with the object world. Behind all this, which is connected with that phase of Ancient Moon, we notice a very exalted aspect of Scorpion. It is that stage of Ancient Sun during which the principle of Life Spirit or Buddhi was created in a germinal foundation. When human beings will have fully developed this principle, they will be in possession of tremendous occult powers. A faint shadow of these capacities is always manifest in Scorpion, and of this shadow are the above mentioned references speaking.

In Part Three we shall approach the inner nature of the planets and their impact on evolution in a similar sense.