Matt began the exploration of Steiner's vision of the future evolution of the world and humanity as articulated in Chapter 6 of Occult Science. Steiner's idea that knowledge of the present and future is latent in the past was central to the discussion. Matt highlighted Steiner’s assertion that the Earth contains spiritual facts and deeds accomplished during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, which are now unfolded in the Earth.
I recognize the resistance Matt and Laura felt when reading about the idea of a ‘split’ in mankind between those who will be able to complete human evolution on the next planet Jupiter and those who won’t. It is interesting why some ideas are easier to digest than others. For me it helped to see if I could find and understand the Urphanomen underlying this event, because if we understand the place of this event in the big schema, and where it occurs at other moments/scales, we can maybe connect to it. The first thing that came to my mind was Darwinistic evolution in physical nature. Evolution only works because there is a diverse population in which some survive and some not, due to different levels of adaptation to the environment. Those surviving reproduce, making the next generation better adapted to the environment. So the created diversity can also be seen as a sacrifice of those who are less well adapted, to make the species stronger. Steiner mentioned that this split also occurs on old Saturn, Sun and Moon, leading to minerals, plants and animals on earth. Did you not feel the same resistance when reading this? Another chapter where I feel the same process is happening, is when he talks about sleep and death. He explains that after death, the astral body has to be cleaned from cravings that cannot be fulfilled outside earth. I feel there is also a split between elements of our soul that remain and get integrated in the I, and those that are lost forever. Death itself can be considered such a split as well. The physical body, and soon the etheric, will go their own way. Somehow we feel less shocked when thinking about our own death, than when we think about the ‘death’ of some part of the human race. We got used to the idea of our own death because we see it happening around us. But we don’t see cultures or parts of our own species die. The emotion, the resistance we feel when thinking about dying cultures, we can also use when thinking about our own death. This emotion can be an ultimate stimulans to make the best out of our lives. This is an example of how a principle at one level (the future death of our culture/species) can inspire real life at another level (the way we consider our own life, when realizing what death means). The mentioned resistance also shows that we find it hard to accept that we have to follow the big scheme of things, just like the rest in kosmos. Is this a rebellious cry for freedom that may influence the future, just like the rebellious hierarchies at some moment caused humans to follow a different path, leading to more autonomy, but probably a more difficult path?
With regard to Planetary Anamnesis, it is true that this inexorable plan of evolution over these seven spheres of total human consciousness is an inevitability. Thus, Self-Remembering is something that is already taking place, and found within the convolutions of the human brain.
"In the present epoch of human life a delicate organ is being developed in man. It is not perceptible to anatomists and physiologists, yet it exists as an anatomical structure. This rudimentary organ is situated in the brain, near the organ of speech.
The development of this organ in the convolutions of the brain is not the result of the karma of individual souls but of human evolution as a whole on the earth; and in the future all men will possess it, no matter what the development of the souls incarnating in the bodies may be, and irrespective of the karma connected with these souls.
In a future incarnation this organ will be possessed by human beings who at the present time may be opposed to Anthroposophy as well as by those who are now in sympathy with it. This organ will in future time be the physical means, the physical instrument, for the application of certain powers of the soul; just as, for example, Broca's organ in the third convolution of the brain is the organ of the human faculty of speech.
When this new organ has developed it may either be used rightly by mankind, or it may not. Those people will be able to use it rightly who are now preparing the possibility of having in their next incarnation a true remembrance of the present one. For this physical organ will be the physical means for remembering an earlier incarnation—which in the case of by far the greater majority of people is possible now only through higher development, through Initiation. But a faculty which in the present epoch it would be possible to acquire only through Initiation will later on become the common property of mankind. Our modern knowledge was formerly the special knowledge possessed by the Atlantean Initiates only; everyone can now possess it. In the same way, remembrance of former lives on earth is possible at present only for Initiates but in times to come it will be possible for every human soul.
The Initiate is able to attain certain knowledge without the use of a physical organ, but this knowledge can become the common property of mankind only when a physical organ through which it can be acquired is developed in mankind as a whole in the course of evolution.
The reincarnated souls must, however, be able to use this organ in the right way and only those who in the present incarnation have inscribed occult thoughts and ideas in the Akasha-substance will be capable of this."
In today's world scope, this anamnesis is being cultivated by Michael, and through His emissary, Rudolf Steiner, and known as Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. It even has further extensions seen from 1900 to 1925.
I didn't see a whole lot that was cohesive here with your reference points. Yet, Matt's diagram was very straightforward and plain. Anamnesis, or spirit recolllection, is the "whole ball of wax" in spiritual-evolutionary development. To find out that it is a developing faculty in this day and age, but needs the cultural incentives of spiritual science is very important. Spiritual Science would break through all illusions in order to receive the truth. Steiner wrote 400 volumes in order to make it 'plain as day'. Yet, even that is not enough. Modern academics would 'reinvent the wheel' if it has to in making things clear and coherent. So, we have a clear advantage. Spiritual science has its source in nothing.
With regard to Steiner's writing of the, "irredeemable moon", it would be useful to indicate where he expanded on this subject in his later works. For example, in October 1915, Steiner exposed the existence of the Eighth Sphere, and then in 1921, he predicted the meaning of the Moon's re-entry into Earth evolution in the 8th Millennium, when every hint of the shadowy kind of thinking, which exists today, must be eliminated in order to conquer the spidery web network that is forming today. Here is a further contribution to what Steiner spoke only sparingly in OOS about the Irredeemable moon.
Synopsis: Materialistic science and spiritual science as spiritual-cosmic events between moon's exit and return. The spirit of natural science could give rise to a new kingdom of nature between mineral and plant in the form of shadowy, living spider beings that cover the earth in web-like fashion during the latter's reunification with moon and lunar life. Humanity would thereby be cut off from world's life and spirituality. Cultivation of spiritual science facilitates arrival from other planets of spiritual beings who are striving to come to earth since the end of the nineteenth century; their activity becomes possible only by way of a thinking that grasps living, ensouled elements. Path to this transformation: unification of clear thinking with artistic perception in a science that simultaneously will become art. Goethe's teaching of morphology; his “Hymn to Nature”; Nietzsche's picture of the valley of death.”
I recognize the resistance Matt and Laura felt when reading about the idea of a ‘split’ in mankind between those who will be able to complete human evolution on the next planet Jupiter and those who won’t. It is interesting why some ideas are easier to digest than others. For me it helped to see if I could find and understand the Urphanomen underlying this event, because if we understand the place of this event in the big schema, and where it occurs at other moments/scales, we can maybe connect to it. The first thing that came to my mind was Darwinistic evolution in physical nature. Evolution only works because there is a diverse population in which some survive and some not, due to different levels of adaptation to the environment. Those surviving reproduce, making the next generation better adapted to the environment. So the created diversity can also be seen as a sacrifice of those who are less well adapted, to make the species stronger. Steiner mentioned that this split also occurs on old Saturn, Sun and Moon, leading to minerals, plants and animals on earth. Did you not feel the same resistance when reading this? Another chapter where I feel the same process is happening, is when he talks about sleep and death. He explains that after death, the astral body has to be cleaned from cravings that cannot be fulfilled outside earth. I feel there is also a split between elements of our soul that remain and get integrated in the I, and those that are lost forever. Death itself can be considered such a split as well. The physical body, and soon the etheric, will go their own way. Somehow we feel less shocked when thinking about our own death, than when we think about the ‘death’ of some part of the human race. We got used to the idea of our own death because we see it happening around us. But we don’t see cultures or parts of our own species die. The emotion, the resistance we feel when thinking about dying cultures, we can also use when thinking about our own death. This emotion can be an ultimate stimulans to make the best out of our lives. This is an example of how a principle at one level (the future death of our culture/species) can inspire real life at another level (the way we consider our own life, when realizing what death means). The mentioned resistance also shows that we find it hard to accept that we have to follow the big scheme of things, just like the rest in kosmos. Is this a rebellious cry for freedom that may influence the future, just like the rebellious hierarchies at some moment caused humans to follow a different path, leading to more autonomy, but probably a more difficult path?
With regard to Planetary Anamnesis, it is true that this inexorable plan of evolution over these seven spheres of total human consciousness is an inevitability. Thus, Self-Remembering is something that is already taking place, and found within the convolutions of the human brain.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA152/English/RSP1966/19130501p01.html
"In the present epoch of human life a delicate organ is being developed in man. It is not perceptible to anatomists and physiologists, yet it exists as an anatomical structure. This rudimentary organ is situated in the brain, near the organ of speech.
The development of this organ in the convolutions of the brain is not the result of the karma of individual souls but of human evolution as a whole on the earth; and in the future all men will possess it, no matter what the development of the souls incarnating in the bodies may be, and irrespective of the karma connected with these souls.
In a future incarnation this organ will be possessed by human beings who at the present time may be opposed to Anthroposophy as well as by those who are now in sympathy with it. This organ will in future time be the physical means, the physical instrument, for the application of certain powers of the soul; just as, for example, Broca's organ in the third convolution of the brain is the organ of the human faculty of speech.
When this new organ has developed it may either be used rightly by mankind, or it may not. Those people will be able to use it rightly who are now preparing the possibility of having in their next incarnation a true remembrance of the present one. For this physical organ will be the physical means for remembering an earlier incarnation—which in the case of by far the greater majority of people is possible now only through higher development, through Initiation. But a faculty which in the present epoch it would be possible to acquire only through Initiation will later on become the common property of mankind. Our modern knowledge was formerly the special knowledge possessed by the Atlantean Initiates only; everyone can now possess it. In the same way, remembrance of former lives on earth is possible at present only for Initiates but in times to come it will be possible for every human soul.
The Initiate is able to attain certain knowledge without the use of a physical organ, but this knowledge can become the common property of mankind only when a physical organ through which it can be acquired is developed in mankind as a whole in the course of evolution.
The reincarnated souls must, however, be able to use this organ in the right way and only those who in the present incarnation have inscribed occult thoughts and ideas in the Akasha-substance will be capable of this."
In today's world scope, this anamnesis is being cultivated by Michael, and through His emissary, Rudolf Steiner, and known as Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. It even has further extensions seen from 1900 to 1925.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-143523166
See also
https://anthroposophy.eu/Overview_of_solar_system_evolution
Hi Rick,
I didn't see a whole lot that was cohesive here with your reference points. Yet, Matt's diagram was very straightforward and plain. Anamnesis, or spirit recolllection, is the "whole ball of wax" in spiritual-evolutionary development. To find out that it is a developing faculty in this day and age, but needs the cultural incentives of spiritual science is very important. Spiritual Science would break through all illusions in order to receive the truth. Steiner wrote 400 volumes in order to make it 'plain as day'. Yet, even that is not enough. Modern academics would 'reinvent the wheel' if it has to in making things clear and coherent. So, we have a clear advantage. Spiritual science has its source in nothing.
With regard to Steiner's writing of the, "irredeemable moon", it would be useful to indicate where he expanded on this subject in his later works. For example, in October 1915, Steiner exposed the existence of the Eighth Sphere, and then in 1921, he predicted the meaning of the Moon's re-entry into Earth evolution in the 8th Millennium, when every hint of the shadowy kind of thinking, which exists today, must be eliminated in order to conquer the spidery web network that is forming today. Here is a further contribution to what Steiner spoke only sparingly in OOS about the Irredeemable moon.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA204/English/AP1987/19210513p02.html
Synopsis: Materialistic science and spiritual science as spiritual-cosmic events between moon's exit and return. The spirit of natural science could give rise to a new kingdom of nature between mineral and plant in the form of shadowy, living spider beings that cover the earth in web-like fashion during the latter's reunification with moon and lunar life. Humanity would thereby be cut off from world's life and spirituality. Cultivation of spiritual science facilitates arrival from other planets of spiritual beings who are striving to come to earth since the end of the nineteenth century; their activity becomes possible only by way of a thinking that grasps living, ensouled elements. Path to this transformation: unification of clear thinking with artistic perception in a science that simultaneously will become art. Goethe's teaching of morphology; his “Hymn to Nature”; Nietzsche's picture of the valley of death.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/spiritlogic/p/steiner-on-the-eighth-sphere?r=2kbdzg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://open.substack.com/pub/spiritlogic/p/steiner-on-the-eighth-sphere-964?r=2kbdzg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web