The culmination of everything will come with the completion of the Conditions of Consciousness. [1] There are seven Conditions that we can more or less discuss, followed by... But maybe I shouldn't say what comes after the big seven. Let me mull this over. For the moment, I'll end with #7, "Vulcan." We must not impose on Steiner’s scheme linear coherence that is alien to it. But we also must not deny it the odd coherence it does possess. The basic idea is simple enough. There are cycles within cycles, cycles recapitulating previous cycles. Conditions of Consciousness recap previous Conditions of Consciousness, which themselves recap Conditions of Life, which in turn recap... We haul our history along with us, not as mere memory but as a living recurrent present, although the revisited past is reformulated in its present and future renditions as we progress. Thus, there is no straight line from our beginning to our end. But eventually, in a patterned evolution that requires enormous stretches of time while entailing the entire universe, we will get there. We have already been through a few Conditions of Consciousness: Saturn, Sun, and Moon. We are currently in/on Earth, as most of us realize. Steiner and his followers, interestingly, don't realize this — or so I would submit. They live in cloud cuckooland. But our strengths are our weaknesses. I am limited by my rationalist/materialist/brain-o-centric forms of thought — which, according to Steiner, are not real forms of cognition at all. Seddon is limited by his inverse forms of my strengths/weaknesses. Steiner is limited by ... you know. If you want to intuit/imagine/receive the inspiration of Steiner's supersensible visions, I'm the wrong guy to come to. But so is Seddon. And so is Steiner. These are deep waters, dark, yet infused with an inglowing transcendent brilliance (as it were). Only when you attain clairvoyance and consult the Akashic Record(s) will you truly know what's going on. (It is odd that clairvoyants can't agree whether there is one Akashic Record or more than one, but these are deep waters.) Once we finish our Earth Condition of Consciousness, we will move along to a pralaya followed by Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. (Followed by other, secret stages that we cannot discuss.)
The Seven discussable Conditions of Consciousness are:
1. Saturn. 2. Sun. 3. Moon. 4. Earth. x. 5-step pralaya. 5. Jupiter. 6. Venus. 7. Vulcan. (Yup, Star Trek fans: Vulcan. Are you there, Spock? Beam me up, Scottie.) Hence, after the upcoming 5-step pralaya, we will proceed to Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. These planets/stages will, in turn, be what we make them. This will help: "The four Conditions of Life on Jupiter recapitulate Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth ... Only what on Earth lives enclosed by the human skin lives over into Jupiter. In forming our body [sic] we build a temple; in doing so rightly we form Jupiter rightly." [2] Much of this wisdom recapitulates an early Steiner book, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (see below). The teachings therein essentially recapitulate Theosophical teachings. So what goes around comes around. (That five-step pralaya may weigh on your mind. Its projected existence in the future might be taken as suggesting that the Stages of Consciousness are phenomenological, caught in the web of sequential temporality. But don't fall for that. Don’t fall for any of what Steiner/Seddon said or for any of its implications. None of it is real, you know.) ◊◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊
— Roger Rawlings  [R.R., 2010.]  Vulcan is for real, you know. Here is Steiner speaking about the "I", the highest of our three invisible bodies. We get the true "I" from seven planets, which include Vulcan. "[T]he 'I' entered into the human being. Yet this 'I' was, so to speak, only like a small little skin, a little pocket that sank down into the human being. And the true 'I,' which was spread out through the planets from Saturn to Vulcan, radiated into it. The best symbol is: this little pocket like a mirror into which the true 'I' streams from this string of planets." [Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC LESSONS 1904-1909 (Steiner Books, 2007), p. 339. R.R. sketch, 2009, based on b&w image on that page.] The "planets" depicted are, left to right, Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan.   Painting by a Waldorf student.  A good day on our planet, here and now. A drawing by a Waldorf student.  The real world is okay. Really. Indeed, it can be amazingly beautiful. We don't need phantasmagoric alternatives such as Steiner's. [R. R., 2004.]
THE END NOTES [2] Ibid., pp. 114-115.  Life. An impression, nothing more. Most of what Steiner posited is invisible. This is either because he saw profound realities or because he didn't. [R.R., 2010.] (Hush! I'm gonna let you in on a secret. The future history we have just reviewed is incomplete. Steiner actually taught that there are 13 stages of evolution, but Anthroposophists generally speak of only seven. The seven-stone necklace-ish image we've seen ((here's another version:  )) is wrong. Here's how Steiner quietly said things will really be:  Okay? But shh! There are the seven stages that we've seen, running left to right from Saturn to Vulcan. But hanging below stage #4, aka Earth, is the dreaded Eighth Sphere — in essence, Hell. Miscreants who really mess up on Earth will go there, while the good folks (Steiner's followers, mainly) will proceed upward to Venus, Jupiter, and Vulcan. And THEN they will move along to five additional stage so wondrous and strange that even Steiner could not really describe them. Wow! But shh!) [R.R., 2010.] |
