Federica wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 11:05 am
AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 5:48 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 10:25 pm
Ashvin,
You have anticipated a question I had, thanks for bringing this up! Indeed one gets the impression that there is something off in MS’ answer, or something missing. I know you advised me to ponder my replies more, and suspend judgment. I assure you I am not judging. I realize I am moving on very fragmentary understanding, so I’m not attached to the thoughts I have written here. But I would like to see if they match. I've read both your and Cleric's replies to Eugene, and Steiner lecture where he speaks of fluid Mars.
Scarsely related, but I believe the amplification Cleric describes, necessary for us to become comfortable with these esoteric facts, is the same thing as the brain excavations, or brain channels, in MS’ lecture. It’s interesting that in one case transformation is removing barriers to the flow of Logos from the most dense layer, the physical brain, while in Cleric it’s not about removing, as much as it is adjusting the coordination of our 4 bodies so that resonance can traverse the real-size Moire pattern of our organization and warm the brain. I am trying to get a sense of how these two understandings may interfere, but I’m not quite there…..
Control question: this position of the Earth as point of balance is only true during the Earth current evolutionary phase? In other words, it will not apply to the future Jupiter state, correct?
Coming to the question of Mars,
this is the Steiner lecture in question, in which he is asked to describe Mars. He says:
I would advance a theory. I am not sure of course. It seems at first that Steiner is speaking of the mineral shadow of Mars (the physical planet) because such is the orientation of the question, and he does not explicitly state otherwise. I feel this is also how Scaligero reads it, based on how he deals with the Mars question in his lecture. And maybe this puts him somewhat in trouble. Following what Cleric says, maybe we shouldn’t imagine the planetary organization of the being-Mars as a mirror of our own organization, or a mirror of the Earth’s, in terms of how the various bodies stand in relation to each other. Maybe the form of the Mars decoherence is such that its mineral shadow is more ‘one-sided’ and insignificant, because the planet is so full of life (as Steiner says). The counterintuitive part for the exoteric mind is that “full of life” means full of etheric life, and consequently with less dead stuff (less of what from a materialistic perspective is precisely considered budding, rich, diverse life, as in the magnificent diversity of life on Earth, for instance). This makes Steiner’s description a bit obscure from standard perspective, but consistent in esoteric terms.
In other words, the whole planet organization of Mars - not physical Mars - is full of life, which could actually reflect in a dry and dead material shell - such as the one we know today through space exploration - because the life force and the soul are such that there is not much left to precipitate into Mars’s physical sphere. Also, what Cleric says, that Mars man lacks a physical body, supports that too, considering that a planet and its plain-right inhabitants share a particular connection. I say 'plain-right' to signify that I don’t forget that we all live ‘on Mars’ in some sense. So the whole Mars complex (planet + beings) seems to be more “introverted” than us on our Earth, so to say, more drawn away from the physical, and I guess Steiner was giving an overall description of the Mars-being, not only of its mineral part. It could be a joint description of the etheric+physical planes, where the major part is the life-etheric part. As a consequence what’s left to perceive by space probes is actually not that much. A solid, but all in all scarcely significant dead precipitation, that conceals from a physical-telescopic eye all the richness of Martian life. In case this makes sense, I wonder if MS missed it. What do you think?
Federica,
I will need to consider your various points more carefully before formulating a response. For now, I just want to make a brief note on how I understand the 'occult sense of Earth'. I think the simplest way to approach this would be to identify Earth in the occult sense as a communal
state of consciousness in which inhabitants become aware of their willing being in relation to other beings (or what is normally understood as the ‘outer world’) at the level of the mineral shadow. As long as we remain at this stage of self-awareness and other-awareness, we are still on Earth or carrying the Earth with us wherever we imagine we are “going”. There is, of course, still some relation between the perceptual constellations we experience and the underlying ideal realities they symbolize, but the relation is not very dependent on spatial distances. The latter only reflect back to us our own limitations of thinking-will. That is the way I think about it right now, at least. Scaligero also addresses this aspect in one of his books.
I am interested to hear what you think.
Nevertheless, we think we can master space by moving from place to place while inevitably always bearing the same limit. Scientific knowledge and mathematical logic reassure us of this, as they both create a new metaphysics out of the impotency to cognize the limit. We consider it quite an accomplishment to overcome given distances with greater speed, namely, by reinforcing the illusion that space is conquerable and that earthly limits can be overcome via machines, which are themselves the typical expression of our subjection to such limits. These limits can be overcome only where they are grasped and cognized. For the only extraterrestrial space toward which we can journey is that which requires the use of a carefully encapsulated missile in which all necessary conditions for our earthly existence are reproduced. And even so, Earth is, in effect, never left behind. This is also the case with the nervous system, whose life can exist only upon the Earth's surface and whose mediation gives rise to the formation of nature's abstract laws. The validity of such laws diminishes as we gradually distance ourselves from Earth. To become distant from Earth is to experience what can be gathered beyond the mediation of this nervous system. But this would effectively be to realize thought's autonomy from intellectualism, to realize an independence from sensory conditions that enables our inner being to explore other worlds and to perceive the life unknown to us on Earth. Earth is still unknown to those who presumably probe the cosmos. The life that gives rise on Earth to the existence of plants, animals, and human beings is a mystery to them. The mystery that they seek “spatially” is merely the life on Earth that arrives from the extraterrestrial cosmos, a cosmos that cannot be reached unless we know how to encounter it in its various earthly forms.
Scaligero, Massimo. The Secrets of Space and Time (pp. 22-23). Lindisfarne Books. Kindle Edition.
Ashvin,
in the wake of some pondering of what Cleric wrote after you posted your thoughts about Earth, I would express my current thoughts as below. They only try to bridge the fragments of my understanding in some tentative way, and are not in any sense stable or complete. Steiner’s Cosmic Memory series are also coming to mind. I haven’t read Occult Science yet, apart from the first couple of chapters.
At an initial general level, I would conceive planet quality, hence Earth quality, in terms of Soul quality. Feeling, rather than Will. Maybe we could say that, in occult sense, the planet world is as ‘far’ as non-locality goes - as much as non-locality means - when it comes to the soul’s preponderant color, or character, in beings of all sorts. In other words, Soul expresses itself at best at planetary level, and we can occultly understand planets in terms of soul qualities. But we don’t want to associate the thought “planetary level” with a picture of the solar system. Rather, we want to think it from the other edge first: we want to think that the key to understanding these soul-(astral) qualities as more or less pronounced feeling nuances of beings, sits somewhere in a non-local spiritual world - that we could initially approximate as “all around us” - and that the physical solar system we know is only the last devolution, the last domino layer, the end projection into the most limited plane, that somewhat one-sidedly reflects the original features of Soul (of course also through ether, that bridges soul and matter). I say 'one-sided reflection' to mean that not all soul complexity would result in distinguishable mineral (physical) features.
Sorry, I know the above is redundant, but I am striving to write intelligibly for others to maybe get what I’m trying to say, and also for myself, when I will later read this again
So, along these lines, I would think that Will is more cohered than Soul. There is I-thinking-will, soul-feeling-will, material-will-will, and I am not sure that Will manifests in its 'full-right residence' specifically in planetary sense. Maybe this is not exactly what you were saying, since you were relating Earth to attaining consicousness of
material will, but I just want to express that Will as Divine principle seems too high for its awareness - even limited to physical - to be the
preponderant character of Earth-ness. Maybe the I, rather than the astral Soul - in physical shadowy terms, the whole universe expanse rather than the solar system - would be a more fitting ‘locus’ of the seat of the Will principle. And the whole ‘over-galactic’ physical space a more fitting picture of it, rather than the planets of the solar system. Will sits one frequency-boudle up, so to say, with respect to Soul and Feeling.
Now coming back to planet nature, and Earth nature. We know that Mars is belligerent soul. I'd venture to say that Mars is also soul who resists intimate universal brotherhood through etheric evasion (I would like to know about Martian reproduction, but I don't want to go there now, otherwise I’d lose my thread). Then Earth, for its part, in terms of soul, appears to me as exuberance, spaciousness, overextension, and even wastefulness. Earth soul quality is provocation. It’s both the middle ground and the edge. It’s both gradient and pick. It’s both a call for provocation and its follow-through.
In no other soul sphere has the energy of Logos (to say it in MS words) been squeezed out so resolutely towards its consummation. With Earth, the Divine principle explores the paradox of pushing life into death, the paradox of entering death with the force of life
on death’s own terms and territories, the paradox of experiencing how far perdition (in the sense of active loss) can be pushed without incurring in eternal dispersion of all meaning. To say it in little stirring terms, the magnificent, mind boggling, unspeakably beautiful blooming of diverse physical Nature that we know (and are) on Earth, can otherwise be seen as a colossal wastefield, as reflection of the deafening and thunderous work in progress of the Divine principle in the process of pumping true richness of life - the life Steiner says that Mars is full of - into the border control of the abyss. As also illustrated in the Earth layers. (Maybe this is similar to what you were pointing to, in terms of becoming conscious of the predominance of the mineral shadow through our willful activity).
Trying to wrap up my thoughts, I could say that, in the Earth sphere, the Logos confronts the Death of all meaning with what we could call Deep Life (etheric life). Flat Life (physical life) is what remains of Deep Life on the battlefield of Death’s inner resistance to it. In other words, physical Earth as we know it is the relic picture of the continual Day After. And we are those beings whose soul inhabits - and is inhabited by - that tremendous friction. For this reason, our soul preponderance as Earthly beings is a quality of exuberant industry, in the sense of 'being industrious'. And we experience this 'industry' in our Earthly soul to the point of excess, to the point of waste. Certainly, as you say, this colossal Earthly friction must come into fully conscious focus within us, and thereby, be bridged.
This is how the Earthly soul quality appears to me at the moment as the most experimental forefront, the outmost moral frontier, of the expression of God’s will.
Federica, thanks for providing these additional interesting details on your viewpoint. I don't really disagree with anything you state, to the extent that I am understanding it properly.
I think it is helpful here to establish a principled foundation in terms of Earth's evolutionary goals, into which then your more subtle details and nuances can be added for higher resolution. As you know, the evolutionary task of Earth is to develop free and loving I-beings. Practically that begins with the development of
objective consciousness into which the Spirit awakens. So I think it is best to characterize the Earth planetary sphere as that where objective consciousness is cultivated, which is of course a quality of the Soul, but not only of feeling. Rather it is a certain harmonic
relation between the activities of will, feeling, and thinking. All the Time-layers of the spirit-soul-body structure are laminated together on the perceptual plane.
Steiner wrote:In one of the preceding descriptions, the great development of humanity through the seven stages of consciousness from Saturn to Vulcan has been compared with the progress through life between birth and death, through infancy, childhood, and so on, to old age. One can extend this comparison further. As among contemporary humanity, men of different ages do not only follow upon one another, but also exist side by side, so it is with the development of the stages of consciousness, The aged man, the mature man or the mature woman, the youth, travel through life side by side. Thus the ancestors of man existed on Saturn not only as beings with the dull Saturn consciousness, but also along with these as beings which had already developed the higher stages of consciousness. When the Saturn development began, there already existed natures with Sun consciousness, others with image consciousness (Moon consciousness) those with a consciousness similar to the present consciousness of man [objective consciousness], then a fourth kind with self-conscious (psychic) image consciousness, a fifth with self-conscious (supra-psychic) object consciousness, and a sixth with creative (spiritual) consciousness.
For the modern consciousness soul, it is even to the point where we delude ourselves into believing all phenomenal manifestations belong to the same field of action, obeying the same ‘laws’. But even basic thoughtful reflection shows that is not the case, for example, we know the plant form obeys ‘life-laws’ in addition to mineral laws, the animal form obeys soul-laws in addition to the life and mineral laws, and the human form also obeys idea-laws in addition. Only the mineral laws are directly reflected in perceptual transformations, though, so we generally ignore the other ones which are supersensible and conclude that all living and ideal phenomena somehow emerge from the mineral level. The main Earthly task is to freely make these higher laws, which are moral in character, more transparent on the perceptual plane. Right now we have mastered the mineral forces because they are most transparent to our "I" (although we have lost their moral character), and later we will also master the life forces of the plant kingdom, soul forces of the animal kingdom, and ideal forces of the human kingdom.
There was a time when all the planetary spheres of our Solar system were merged together within the Sun, but then they gradually separated off so that they could become appropriate arenas of development of various beings and Earth separated to become the point balance for this critical I-development that brings increasing moral transparency to the World. The details are pretty complex and I’m sure further occult research of the primordial ages would reveal even more details, but right now we are only interested in the basic principle at work. Brian Gray speaks about how this reality is embedded in the Goldilocks and 3 bears legend, where the girl finds the porridge, beds, and chairs that are neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, neither too large nor too small, but “just right”. Earth is the arena of development that is “just right” for the I-development after the other spheres are separated off. This diagram may help, as it shows how the Earth sphere links together the regions of thought with the objective perceptual plane through the etheric region, i.e. the gradient of organic biology.
The following quote provides a pretty clear and concise description of why this separation of the spheres happened during the Earth's evolution.
In the previous pages nothing has been said about our Solar System, and of the different planets which compose it, because it was not until the Earth Period was reached that the present differentiation was made. The Earth Period is the acme of diversification, and although we have been speaking of only one class of virgin spirits-- those who, in the strictest and most limited sense, are concerned with the Earth evolution--there are in reality seven "Rays" or streams of life, all pursuing different evolutions, yet all belonging to the original class of virgin spirits to which our humanity belongs. In the previous Periods all of these different sub-classes or Rays found a suitable environment for their evolution on the same planet. But, in the Earth Period, conditions became such that in order to provide for each class the degree of heat and the vibration necessary for its particular phase of evolution, they were segregated on different planets, at varying distances from the Sun--the central source of life. This is the raison d'etre of our System and all other Solar Systems in the Universe.
Before proceeding with the description of evolution of our humanity on the Earth after its separation from the central Sun, it is necessary for the maintenance of sequential order in the description to explain the differentiation which scattered the planets of our System in space. Active manifestation--particularly in the Physical World--depends upon separateness; upon the limitation of life by form. But during the interim between Periods and Revolutions the marked distinction between form and life ceases. This applies not only to man and the lower kingdoms, but to the Worlds and Globes which are the basis of form for the evolving life. Only the seed-atoms and the nuclei or centers of the World-Globes remain--all else is one homogenous substance. There is but one Spirit pervading space. Life and Form, its positive and negative poles, are one.
… To express himself in the dense physical world, it was necessary for man to evolve a suitable dense body. In a world like this he must have a body with limbs, organs, a muscular system by means of which to move about; also a brain to direct and co-ordinate his movements. If the conditions had been different the body would have been modified accordingly.
Heindel , Max. The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception (Illustrated) (p. 244). Kindle Edition.
So the “I” awakens to itself on Earth initially through the reflections of the physical sensory organism, i.e. objective consciousness. The various forces are then all merged together on the perceptual plane, but inwardly they are differentiated into will, feeling, and thinking, sensing. Through higher development, which is a ‘condensing’ of the potential that everyone will unfold over more outspread iterations, we can permeate our objective thinking-sensing consciousness with the life forces (imagination), soul forces (inspiration), and idea forces (intuition). Or we could say we are enlivening the soul body, ensouling the life body, and idealizing the physical body. When we bring these forces into a more harmonious relation inwardly, we are also able to differentiate them on the perceptual plane, i.e. to perceive how the various forces interweave to objectively manifest the perceptual phenomena of experience. Of course, we shouldn’t imagine force-beams that are swirling around and creating objects, but rather we are speaking about how they condense through the nested Time-spectrum to intentionally weave together our individual and collective destinies.
I suspect that this Earth development, when it sufficiently spiritualizes the dense perceptual plane including our physical-etheric bodies, will then allow for the inhabitants of the other spheres to rejoin the human life wave on future planetary incarnations and develop their I-being in freedom and love. Although, since the time of Christ, the evolution is not only happening on Earth but also perhaps within the other spheres, as we see with the case of Buddha inspiring the Mars inhabitants. The Earth sphere is actually an interference of the activity occurring through all the other spheres of the Solar system (originally united), which we travel through after death and bring back their influences to the perceptual plane in new incarnations, so to speak. So we can’t really understand our Earthly development as anything isolated from what is happening on the other spheres as well, since they all belong to a unified karmic organism. We all have our tasks to carry out within this organism. At the end of Solar evolution, all the inhabitants will be integrated and attain their true individualized humanity as Spirits of Freedom and Love.