A mystic seal, as per R. Steiner.

This seal “is a reproduction of the ‘Mystery of the Holy Grail.’ It is that astral experience which renders the universal meaning of human evolution ... Out of the three space-dimensions, expressed in the cube, grow first of all the lower human powers, illustrated by the two serpents; these again bring forth out of themselves the purified higher spiritual nature ... The upward growth of these higher powers makes it possible for man to become the recipient, or chalice of purely spiritual cosmic being, expressed in the dove.” — Rudolf Steiner's MYSTIC SEALS AND COLUMNS (Health Research, 1969), p. 4.

[R.R. sketch, 2010, based on the one in the book. A more attractive version of this seal — surpassing my skills as a copyist — can be found on p. 207 of John Fletcher's ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER (Mercury Arts Publications, 1987).]

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Theosophy and Anthroposophy describe humanity evolving from one "planetary condition" to another, in a lengthy, upward movement toward spiritual perfection. Although Steiner said it is misleading, he discussed these stages using the names of planets such as Saturn and Jupiter, and he described our life "on" such planets. Yet he did not mean that planetary conditions are the same as planets. It can be confusing. In general, when you find Steiner discussing a "planet" that is actually a period of time — a phase of evolution — then he means a "planetary condition," in other words a stage of spiritual development. But when you find Steiner discussing a "planet" that is a physical location in the sky, then he means one of the large bodies that constitute the solar system — in other words, a planet.

See "The Planets" and "Matters of Form".

[R.R. impression, 2010.]

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A rough sketch of a rough sketch that Steiner tossed off. (I’ve chosen my own colors.) Ranged along the top are the "planets" or evolutionary stages referred to as "planetary conditions": Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Earth (green, vague), Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. (Yes, Vulcan). At the bottom is a schematic human being: physical body (blue) around the etheric body (orange) around the astral body (red) around a nearly invisible stack: reading, top to bottom, the stack represents sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, and upper trinity (i.e., manas, budhi, and atma). Each part of the human constitution is connected to its equivalent planet. For example,

“The human being was never on Mars, but his intellectual soul is connected esoterically with this planet in such a way that its forces have been taken from there.” — Rudolf Steiner, CORRESPONDENCE AND DOCUMENTS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988), p. 71.

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on the one in the book.]

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This is the original Goetheanum, seen from the south side. [R.R. impression.] Built of wood, the structure was destroyed in a massive fire.

"If you look at the Goetheanum you will see that it has two domes ... [T]his double dome is an expression of the living element. If there had been one dome then in essence our building would have been dead." — Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 154.

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Steiner taught that Jehovah is not evil; but, he said, Jehovah is obsolete. Associated with the Moon and Judaism, Jehovah served a purpose in the past. This image shows the Moon (gray) and three stages of the Earth's evolution: Earth in the Lemurian Epoch, in the Aryan Epoch (the present), and in the Sixth Epoch (the next stage in our future). Two lines of influence extend from Moon to each Earth stage, a spiritual stream and a physical-astral stream. Jehovah provided an impulse for humanity during the Lemurian Epoch; Christ provides the crucial impulse now; the "Father" will provide an impulse in the Sixth Epoch. See Rudolf Steiner, CORRESPONDENCE AND DOCUMENTS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988), p. 85. [R.R. sketch, 2009, based on the b&w sketch in the book.]

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Steiner's reonceived symbol for Scorpio. See, e.g., "Rudolf Steiner Astrology Symbols", http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/image/tid/320. [R.R. copy, 2009.]

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"To grasp the world, look into your inner self. To grasp the human being, look into the world." — Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 54.

[My sketch of Steiner's sketch, 2009.]

T = thinking

F = feeling

W = will

yellow spirals = universal knowledge of the past

blue spirals = universal knowledge of the future

The notion that we can see outward by looking inward is a key belief of romanticism, both the movement that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, and its predecessors reaching far back into the human past. We prize ourselves as we hope God prizes us. We congratulate ourselves by feeding our individual and shared egos. The impulse is understandable. The alternative vision — that we are small and insignificant — is almost unbearable. But there is no true dignity or solace to be found in telling ourselves self-deceiving fables.

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Spiritual influences pass back and forth across the face of the Earth, often advanced by violent means, according to Steiner. [R.R. sketch, 2011, based on the one in BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924, p. 89.]

Steiner taught that celestial combat is frequent, and some of the battles have occurred quite recently. Thus, for instance, in 1879 AD, the Archangel Michael won a war against the demon Ahriman and his legions, in the spirit realm:

“[W]e have to point to a struggle, a real war in that world, which began [around 1840] and came to a certain conclusion for the world of the spirit by the autumn of 1879. To have the right idea about these things, you must visualize a battle which continued for decades in the spiritual worlds, from the 1840s until the autumn of 1879. [paragraph break] This may be called a battle which the spirits who are followers of the spirit belonging to the hierarchy of Archangels whom we may call Michael fought with certain ahrimanic powers [minions of Ahriman]. Please consider this battle to have been in the first place a battle in the spiritual world. Everything I am referring to at the moment relates to this battle fought by Michael and his followers against certain ahrimanic powers.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2008), pp. 136-148.

There are both good gods and evil gods, according to Steiner. The evil spiritual powers are generally identifiable as Lucifer and Ahriman, whom we might more accurately designate as demons. [See "Lucifer" and "Ahriman".] The horrors of violence, warfare, and destruction arise partly from the human soul but also partly from the machinations of the demonic powers. The fate of humanity is bound up with the fate of the gods:

"Our gaze, which must of course be full of understanding for human karma, is now deflected from the destiny of men to the destiny of gods. For when we contemplate the horrors of war, the guilt and ugliness of war in their connection with death-dealing elemental catastrophes, we are watching the battle waged by the good gods against the evil gods — in two directions evil [i.e., Lucifer and Ahriman]. We gaze beyond the life of men into the life of gods, beholding the life of gods as the background of human life. We watch this life of gods — not with dry, theoretical thoughts, but with our hearts, with deep, inner participation; we watch it in its connection with the individual karma of men on earth because we see human destiny inwoven with the destiny of gods." — Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. II (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 251.

Warfare is necessary for the advancement of our karma, Steiner taught. It is a real and present feature of cosmic experience. Bear in mind that when lecturing about the war between Michael and Ahriman, Steiner was discussing something that he said had happened during his own lifetime and during the lives of most of his audience. Moreover, Steiner taught that humans participate in celestial warfare during our interludes spent in the spirit realm, between earthly incarnations. We are combatants:

"[Y]ou must visualize a battle which continued for decades in the spiritual worlds, from the 1840s until the autumn of 1879. This may be called a battle which the spirits who are followers of the spirit belonging to the hierarchy of Archangels whom we may call Michael fought with certain ahrimanic powers [i.e., minions of Ahriman]. Please consider this battle to have been in the first place a battle in the spiritual world. Everything I am referring to at the moment relates to this battle fought by Michael and his followers against certain ahrimanic powers. A good way of strengthening this idea, especially if you want to make it fruitful for your life in the present time, is to have it in your mind's eye that the human souls who were born exactly in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century actually took part in this battle between Michael's followers and the ahrimanic powers when they were in the spiritual world. If you think on this, it will give you a great deal of understanding of the outer and inner destiny experienced by these individuals, and above all of their inner constitution. The battle thus took place in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and came to a conclusion in the autumn of 1879, when Michael and his followers won a victory over certain ahrimanic powers." — Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS, pp. 136-137.

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Lucifer and Ahriman sometimes cooperate in order to foil various beneficent gods. One example: At night our astral bodies fly to the spirit realm and then return the next morning bearing influences that should penetrate our etheric and physical bodies. But the demons prevent the physical body from receiving that the blessings the astral body would otherwise bestow. The image on the left shows how things should be; the one on the right shows demonic interference. The blue area in each image is the physical body; ochre is the etheric body; yellow represents astral influences. [For more on our various bodies, see "Incarnation".]

“The subtle after-effect...of the weaving life we are immersed in during sleep, should penetrate our physical and etheric bodies ... Let me try to draw this, to depict the original intentions of the...divinities guiding human evolution ... What I have drawn here represents the inhalation, as it were, by our etheric and physical bodies at the moment of waking of all the experiences of our astral body ... [But the] luciferic temptation prevented this ... The result is that at the moment of waking, Lucifer passes to Ahriman all that ought to penetrate the physical body.” — Rudolf Steiner, EVIL (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), pp. 116-117.

Thus the demons withhold from the physical body the spiritual influences it should receive from the astral body. Because of this Lucifer-to-Ahriman double whammy, we are denied — while living in the physical world — direct comprehension of the spirit realm. Instead, we are trapped in a realm of Ahrimanic delusion.

"We dwell under Ahriman's dominion in our orientation towards outer knowledge which relates to the external world of the senses." — Ibid., p. 119.

[The drawings are my renditions of the b & w images in the book; Steiner specified the colors.]

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We have four bodies, according to Steiner. The physical body exists within a nimbus of other bodies. Unfortunately for rational consideration, our extra bodies — like almost everything Steiner described — are invisible. Indeed, there is no evidence at all for their existence. But that's Anthroposophy for you — i.e., that's the faith underlying Waldorf education. Faith may be a very good thing — but we need to carefully choose where to bestow our faith.

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on image on p. 60 of FROM LIMESTONE TO LUCIFER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999) — a collection of Steiner's lectures.]

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A south window at the Goetheanum.

"The earth is the abode of skulls ... An ancient Christian theory spoke of the earth as 'terra pestifera', as the carrier of illness, to be transformed ... Man's eye sess the image of the 'edifice'. The architecture of the first Goethanum appears ... In all the Mysteries, temples were considred to be bodies of the gods. The human body is the temple of the spirit." — Georg Hartmann, THE GOETHEANUM GLASS-WINDOWS (Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag am Goetheanum, 1972), p. 64.

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“You look upon the plant and say to yourself: I am a being of which on the earth I see only a reflection. The more I turn my gaze to the stars, the more do I see the true being up there. Nature only reveals itself to me in its wholeness when I look up from the earth to the stars, when I see the earth as one with the cosmos. Then I look back at myself as a human being and say to myself: That in the plant which reaches up to the sky is what here on earth I have in me compressed together. As a human being I bear within myself the physical [world], the soul [world], [and] the spiritual world." — Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 163.

[R.R, sketch, 2009, based on Steiner's. Whether Steiner's illustrations clarify his words is, perhaps, doubtful.]

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"This is altogether a remarkable connection: from the cosmic angle medicine is cosmic poetry. Indeed, many secrets of the world consist in the fact that something that is sick or that leads to sickness at one level is the highest, most perfect, is beautiful at another level." — Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 129.

Sounds sort of nice, but...

[R. R. sketch, 2009, based on Steiner's.]

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Clairvoyance, according to Steiner, is connected to feeling, subjective experience, imagination... These are states that science views askance, but Steiner affirmed them. This led him to make some remarkable statements.

“[W]e need to acquire an inner feeling, an inner response to the natural world ... [T]he earth is solid rock. Materialists believe in this solid rock ... But someone who is hoping to gain higher insight develops some degree of anxiety on coming face to face with this very rock. This anxiety does not appear at all when we are in heated air ... But one can also reach a point where the heated air makes one anxious ... The more you feel at ease in it, the more does the heated air make you anxious ... But if you put up with the heat, if you stay with it, and actually feel comfortable with it, the parts I have drawn rather schematically in the air here [yellow] oddly enough begin to fill up with all kinds of images [upper white blotches] and the world of the spirit literally begins to show itself, the world of the spirit that is always present in the air though people do not feel it because they do not want to put up with the heat ... Once one has got used to seeing all these spirits that are in the air...you will gradually also begin to perceive something where the solid rock is concerned ... [Y]ou yourself slip out of your body far enough so that you'll no longer feel the stones to be an obstacle but enter into the sold ground the way a swimmer does the water." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM MAMMOTHS TO MEDIUMS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), pp. 190-192.

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on Steiner's on p. 191. The white area near the bottom is "solid" rock that one begins to penetrate, as shown in red. The red line crossing through the upper white areas is also penetration by human consciousness.]

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"A universe as conceived by Copernicus could only be a dead Earth! An animated ensouled and spiritualized Earth must be conceived as coming from a different Cosmos, really from quite another Cosmos from that of Copernicus. But of course one can only mention a few features of the Earth's being, as it appears when viewed from the Cosmos." — Rudolf Steiner, "The Relativity of Knowledge, and Spiritual Cosmology", ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LIFE GIFTS (transcript. Rudolf Steiner Archive), GA 181.

[R.R. impression.]

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Our poor brains. They have their uses, according to Steiner — but these uses are distinctly limited. Use of our brains saps our energy, ages us, and hastens our deaths. Fortunately, the ill effects of our brains and nervous systems are offset by our blood, which has occult essence.

Why would someone promoting antiscientific, unenlightened doctrines that have no basis in reality disparage the use of the brain? It's a puzzle.

[R.R. sketch of the brain/nervous system and blood system, 2009, based on the illustration on p. 194 of Rudolf Steiner, FROM LIMESTONE TO LUCIFER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999) — a collection of Steiner's lectures.]

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Mental photographs, as it were: The Goetheanum from the front and side, with a bit of its campus suggested. Based on my visit to the place long ago. [R.R. impressions.]