In gathering my thoughts:
(Rudolf Steiner - Occult Science)
The Epochs
1 – Ancient Indian
2 – Persian
3 – Egypto-Chaldean
4 – Graeco-Latin
5 – Today : likened to the 3rd Epoch but evolved
6 – Likened to the 2nd Epoch but evolved
7 – Likened to the 1st Epoch but evolved
Planetary Evolution
Old Saturn : Physical Body : Future Vulcan
Old Sun : Etheric Body : Future Venus
Old Moon : Astral Body : Future Jupiter
Earth : Ego
Jupiter : Spirit-Self Manas
Venus : Life-Spirit Budhi
Vulcan : Spirit-Man Atma
The Hierarchy
The First Hierarchy
Seraphim : Spirits of Love
Cherubim : Spirits of the Cosmic Harmonies
Thrones : Spirits of Will
The Second Hierarchy
Kyriotetes / Dominions : Spirits of Wisdom
Dynamis / Mights or Virtues : Spirits of Movement
Exusiai / Powers : Spirits of Form
The Third Hierarchy
Archai / Principles : Spirits of Personality
Archangels : Fire-Spirits
Angels : Sons of Life or of Twilight
Archai – in Greek means ‘Beginnings’ in German means ‘Urbeginne - First Beginnings, Primal beginnings’. They are the Beings who attained the human stage at the beginning of our evolutionary cycle on Old Saturn. In Rudolf Steiner’s Apocalypse of Saint John, they are described as the eldest of the ‘Elders’ of mankind.
In Genesis the ‘Elohim’ are identified as the hierarchical rank of the Exusiai – Spirits of Form.
(Rudolf Steiner - Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind)
Materialism and Mysticism
Knowledge and Belief
“It is said that the truth lies halfway between two contradictory opinions. Far from it! The problem lies in between, it cannot be beheld; life for ever active, calmly thought’ Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen
During the Old Moon stage, human beings did not have mineral inclusion in their bodies, he was completely etheric, he experienced life in dreamlike activity and felt to be part of it in communion with nature spirits.
As evolution progressed human beings required a mineral body providing the basis for intellectual thinking. The mineral kingdom had the function to transform the pre-earthly (Old Moon stage) form of dreamlike activity into our earthly way of forming ideas on the basis of thought.
The spirits who influenced the thinking in images which human beings had at the time of the Old Moon lost that function in the normal progress of human evolution but are not prepared to accept this with good grace – we refer to them as luciferic spirits.
It is necessary for us to tear ourselves away from our subjective feelings. If we do not do so the luciferic element will enter into our thinking. We shall not be able to attain to the higher worlds and the knowledge to be gained there if we do not train ourselves in rigid adherence to the facts of the external world.
Truthfulness concerning the knowledge to be found in supersensible spheres can only be achieved if we train ourselves as far as possible to adhere closely to the facts in the sense-perceptible world. That is the only way in which human beings can overcome the luciferic element – by learning to base ourselves on the facts.
Thinking here on Earth evolved when human beings absorbed a mineral body. This mineral body is indeed the organ for earthly way of thinking. It does however bring it predominantly into the spheres of the powers we call ahrimanic.
We can of course become aware of the need to base ourselves on the facts, on a real world that will get us out of the habit of being swayed by our subjective emotions. We must not, however, fall prey to the kind of thinking that is nothing but an inner activity arising from the mineral body.
Human beings can develop in two ways. We can use the mineral body we have absorbed into ourselves as the instrument for our thinking, and indeed we have to use it, otherwise we would merely be dreaming. But we can also rise beyond this instrument in our thoughts; we can develop a spiritual point of view, spiritual vision. If we do this we will of course have been thinking with the aid of our mineral organization but we will have used this to reach a further stage of human development, ascending to the world of the spirit as a result.
On the other hand we can stop at the point where as earth beings we let our mineral body do the thinking. That in fact is the danger, it is able to think for itself, though its thinking is subject to the limits of life on earth. We need to raise the experience our mineral body is able to give us into the spheres that lie beyond sensory perception.
Ahrimanic powers want to keep everything connected with earth evolution at the point which has been reached for human beings of having a mineral organization. They want to make human beings perfect, but only as far as their mineral organization is concerned. The luciferic powers want to keep human beings, who now have acquired a mineral organization, the earliest stage that was right for them before they acquired a mineral organization. The luciferic spirits want to get human beings to a point where they finally cast off their mineralized bodies and go through an evolution that has no relevance in earth life and has merely been an episode in earth life. The ahrimanic spirits aim to take firm hold of this earthly, mineral aspect of human beings, isolate it from progressive evolution and let it stand on its own.
There would have been no need for someone living in ancient Egypt during its earliest times to say: The kingdom of the divine is at hand. He would take that to be self evident. At the time when Christ Jesus appeared among men people first had to be told: ‘The Kingdom of the gods cometh not with observation … for, behold, it is within you.’ Luke 17:20-21. Rudolf Steiner was quoting from the Luther Bible, but saying ‘gods’ instead of ‘God’.
Rising beyond the experience our mineral body is able to give us and away from dreamlike thoughts we enter into the spheres that lie beyond sensory perception and here we find mysticism.
The Spirit-Lands (Rudolf Steiner – Occult Science)
Spirit-Land Region One : Solid Land
Whatever assumes physical form upon Earth and is thus made perceptible to physical organs, is seen in its spiritual essence in the first region of Spirit-Land. For example, one may there perceive the power which builds the form of a crystal. Only what there reveals itself is like the antithesis of what appears to the sense in the outer world. The space which is a kind of hollow or vacuum; while all around the hollow space is seen the force building the form of the stone. The characteristic colour which the stone has in the sense-world is experienced in the spiritual world as it’s complementary. Seen therefore from Spirit-Land, a red stone is experienced with a greenish and a green stone with a reddish hue. Other properties too appear as their antithesis. Even as stones, rocks and geological formations constitute the solid land – the continental region – of the world of Nature, so do the entities we have been describing constitute the ‘solid land’ of the spiritual world.
~ After I contemplate the Solid spirit land I find an urge to burst out with creative joy! It is like a warm flame rising within – do you feel it? This must be our spirits feeling acknowledge, and move within us with a gladness, home they say!