25920
The figure of 25920 comes back in a remarkable way in number of rhythms that we can relate to a form of in and out breathing at different levels in the cosmos. It can be a key to develop a feeling connection with the fact thatthe human being, as a microcosmos, is part of and fully connected with the macrocosmos.
- 1. The platonic year, one unit for the sun. It takes 25920 earth-years for the sun to go through all the zodiac signs. See also zodiac clock.
- 2. The human breathing cycle and process: we take 25920 breaths in an day, as we breathe on average 18 times per minute.
- 3. Etheric breathing process and cycle of one human or Earth day, where Man is sleeping or awake on earth: there are 25920 days in a human life (of 71 years for the patriarchal age of old)
- 4. One human life is like one day-breath for the sun: 25920 is 365 times 71 years
Man lives through three main rhythms: breathing, being asleep/awake, and being incarnate alive or between death and a new birth. These rhythms connect in interesting ways to the natural cosmic rhythms of Earth and the Sun. He is furthermore embedded in this Earth-Sun system with a yearly rhythm and the four seasons.
Through these life-giving breathing processes, Man is directly related with these entities which are also living spiritual beings.
Exploring the patterns above shows that, just as the Earth nurtures Men through a life giving rhythm, there is a Great Being that nurtures all Suns - including our Sun - through a higher level cosmic in and outbreathing.
Entities at different levels of complexity in the cosmos are interdependent and part of one great whole, through a connecting life-giving, an in- and out-breathing. One is part of the other, a substructure with similar characteristics, at a different level of complexity .. so that the one is embedded and an integral part of the other.
The larger system breathes in and out and everything downstream ‘rides on that breath’ which is really a life-giving breath
- The Earth gives life to Man, humanity, and the other nature's kingdoms
- The Sun gives life to Earth and the other planets in the solar system
- The Great Being gives life to our Sun and the other Suns
The 25920 topic is a wonderful contemplation to feel one-self into being part of the cosmos and Cosmic fractal, fully intertwined and interconnected with greater beings to which Man owes life. It is an antidote to the materialistic worldview where Man and Earth are but a meaningless speck in the great mechanic universe. See also Meaning of Free Man Creator.
Inspirational quotes
On mystically being moved
1919-08-22-GA294
If you rise above the illusion that you are a limited being, if you comprehend what you are, as a process, as an interplay in the cosmos, what you are in reality, you can then say: “I myself am a breath of the cosmos.”
1917-02-13-GA175
Now you see that as Microcosms we are actually part of and subject to the same laws, as regards the Universal Beings, as the breath we draw is subject to our own human being. Number and measure govern it.
It is a great and wonderful thing, and in its significance must cut deeply into our very hearts: that number and measure regulate the great cosmos, the Macrocosm, exactly as they regulate us, the Microcosm. This is not merely a figure of speech, it is not merely mystically felt; but the wisdom-filled contemplation of the world teaches us that we, as Microcosms, stand within the Macrocosm.
When we make such simple calculations as these — which can of course be arrived at by the most ordinary scientific methods of reckoning — then, if our hearts are sensitive to the secrets of cosmic existence and not mere blocks of wood, the saying “we are placed in the Universe” will cease to be abstract words, for we shall be fully alive to the fact. A knowledge and a feeling will spring up within us, the fruits of which will be born in the impulses of our will, and our whole being live in unison with the great life, divine cosmic existence.
Illustrations
Overview
Schema FMC00.126 shows the relationship between Man as a breathing living being, closely linked to the Earth as an etheric breathing living being, and both part of the Sun's life-feeding solar system, which is part of the breathing cosmos as a living Great Being.
The Earth gives life to Man and the other kingdoms of nature on the planet, the Great Being gives life to the suns.
Views on the different cycles
Schema FMC00.027 gives an overview of the various rhythms in nature and Man coupled to the number 25920:
- the rhythm of the Human breath (editor: average of 25920 breaths in a day)
- the Rhythm of a day and one earth breath - day and night (editor: 25920 days in an average human life)
- the Rhythm of a year, the four seasons, the great festivals
- the 'Three meetings': Man has three touchpoints with his higher Self ('see Man's higher triad): one is daily (Spirit Self), another yearly (Life Spirit) and the third once in a human life (Spirit Man)
- Man's cycle of reincarnation, of life between birth and death, and between death and re-birth, whereby each life represents one breath of a 'Great Being that breathes us in and out, again in a rhythm determined by the number 25920 - the sun's course around the Zodiac in 25920 years or one platonic year
FMC00.269 summarizes how Man is most aware of the rhythms indicated by the white cells in the table below, and is not consciously aware of life in the darker cells. Man can develop experiential soul awareness of the yearly rhythm of summer and winter, see also Christ Module 17 - The experience of the year
Schema FMC00.288 is a high level representation of
- above: evolution of macrocosmos (solar system) and microcosmos (in this case Man's perspective as one of the spiritual hierarchies in development) - and especially the descent where Man received from the spiritual hierarchies, and the ascent in which Man starts to contribute and create, see Meaning of Free Man Creator. See also Schema FMC00.327 on IAO
- middle: the current situation with the cycle of reincarnation and descent into a human physical body (incarnate life, showing the seven year phases) and the life between death and a new birth, spent in the astral world and spirit world
- below: our life of Earth is characterized by the daily cycle which is essential for understanding how Man 'functions' in terms of I-consciousness, sensory experience and incorporating life experiences between the different bodily principles (physical, etheric, astral bodies and Human 'I').
Notes:
- this is a very early schema of 2013, still to be extended with references for the embedded Schemas, and enriched (eg above with FMC00.055). .
References and BBD illustrations
Schema FMC00.181: provides a reference table with Rudolf Steiner lecture (RSL) references for study of the 25920 topic as a way to feel oneself into Man as microcosm part of the macrocosm. Study of this topic and lectures is a great way to develop a mystical feeling about this, and connect to other cycles of human breath, day and night, cycle of the year, and reincarnation - see also Schema FMC00.126 and Schema FMC00.027.
Note these do not include references to 25920 in the specific context of precession and the platonic year only, a partial topic also mentioned separately (from the very early lectures onwards). For the 25920 topic meant here: Rudolf Steiner started on 28 January 1917 with this elaborated view, and went into it in the GA201 and GA205 cycles. This image was so good or important he mentioned it at least thirty times to varied audiences. Three key lectures are highlighted to start the study. Even though most others are shorter recaps of the key story in the thee main lectures, several lectures do add perspective angles to enrich the whole.
Schema FMC00.126A (and FMC00.126B) illustrate the topic 25920 with the original blackboard drawings (BBD), see also lecture coverage Schema FMC00.181 for references.
Schema FMC00.126B illustrates with original blackboard drawings that Rudolf Steiner mentioned the 25920 topic in (at least thirty) lectures.
Lecture coverage and references
Coverage
Rudolf Steiner first covered this topic in 1917-01-28-GA174, which after his third moon node in Dec 1916 and at the start of a new phase of seven years from early 1917 until end 1923. With closer inspection one can observe a new stream of subject matter being brought from this start in 1917, see eg Rudolf Steiner's Gesamtausgabe (GA) > Rudolf Steiner timeline. Besides the threefold nature of Man, the 25920 is such a topic.
Rudolf Steiner will mention it repeatedly during lectures, about 24 times, and up to a few days before his last address in September 1924. In fact he mentions it in five lectures in the famous GA201 cycle. Note: these are not just mentions of the platonic year of the Sun through the zodiac sign being 25920 years (then there are many more), but all these references are about the fact this number is central to breathing patterns at different levels.
From a close study of all 30 source lectures, here are the most important ones. The following three are key or the central ones:
- 1917-01-28-GA174 gives an extensive full coverage and is the ideal introduction
- 1920-04-16-GA201 is spectacular and adds moon nutation
- 1920-05-14-GA201 is also key, talks about two streams, and the saros cycle elipses of 18 years
The there are complementary statements 'around' the central topic, thereby enriching, in the following:
- 1917-02-13-GA175 also gives an explicit statement on two levels of higher beings
- 1917-12-11-GA179 also talks about etheric breathing, and the human centaur
- 1919-08-22-GA294 adds the 4 minutes
Last, eg 1921-01-06-GA323 gives an example of how the topic is discussed in another context, here in the astronomy course, of the ice age (platonic age) and breath of brahma. The other GA201 lectures of 18 april and 8 and 9 may are also expanding around the two other GA201 mentioned above.
Reference extracts
1917-01-28-GA173C
describes the Cosmic breath of Brahma, the great being representing the Cosmic fractal
short quote
Imagine a spiritual Being, for whom our 71 years are equivalent to one breath of our air; in that case, we would be the breath of that Being. We are placed into the world, as tiny mites when we are born, breathed out by that Being who passes through the platonic year, as if it were one year. This Being who therefore measures its age in platonic years. That Being consequently breathes us out into the universe and when we die, it breathes us in again. We are thus breathed out and we are breathed in again. Hence one human life, and one day of such human life, are, for greater and more encompassing Beings, equivalent to one of the breaths which we ourselves draw in our own life. I mentioned yesterday not to explain it, but by way of illustration - the ancient Indian Yoga system. Man entered deeply into a living inner experience of the breathing process, trying to make it conscious. In doing so there dawned upon him this relation between the rhythm that goes on in man - breathed, as it were, into man in a concentrated and contracted form - and the phenomena of the great Universe. Therefore he spoke of his own in- and out-breathing and of the mighty in- and out-breathing of Brahma, a single breath spanning an entire year, for which 25.920 years are a day - a day of the Great Spirit.
full lecture with structural parsing. Note: the copy/paste copy from the 2013 reference documentation caused the spaces
- [1] You know that the so-called vernal point, that is to say, the point where the sun rises in the spring, cannot always be found at the same place, but that it advances. It advances along that circle which we designate as the Zodiac. We know that this vernal point is designated. — and has always been designated for a long time, ever since humanity is able to think — by indicating that place in the Zodiac which coincides with the vernal point. In the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, until about the 15th century after the Mystery of Golgotha, the sun could be seen rising in the spring in the sign of Aries, but not always at exactly the same place, for the vernal-point, the point where the sun rises, kept on advancing. Throughout the above-mentioned length, of time, it traveled through the sign of Aries. Since that time, the vernal point has advanced to the sign of Pisces.
◦ I must point out expressly that modern astronomy does not make its calculations upon the foundation of these signs, so that the calendars still indicate the vernal point in the sign of Aries, where it does not stand, in reality. Astronomy has maintained the accepted ideas of a former cycle of time and simply divides the whole Zodiac circle into twelve parts, completely ignoring the signs themselves and simply designating every twelfth part of the circle as a Zodiac sign; this subdivision will be maintained even though the vernal point advances. Our own calendar, instead, shows how matters really stand. But this is not so important, just now.
- The essential thing to bear in mind is that the vernal point advances along the whole Zodiac circle, so that the point where the sun rises is always a little further on. The vernal point must travel along the whole Zodiac and it will then return to its point of departure. The time required for this will be about 25,920 years. These 25,920 years are also designated as the so-called PLATONIC YEAR. Thus, the platonic year is a year of great duration. It embraces the time employed by the vernal point, by the point where the sun rises in the spring, to travel through the Zodiac. The time during which the sun's rising point has once more returned to its point of departure consequently embraces 25,920 years.
- The indications vary according to the various calculations, but just now the exact figures do not matter so much; the essential point to be borne in mind is the rhythm which these figures contain. It is possible to imagine that a great world-rhythm is contained in the fact that this movement, resulting from the explanations which I have just now given to you, always returns to its point of departure after 25,920 years.
- Thus we may say: These 25,920 years are most important for the life of the sun, because during that period the sun's life passes through a unity, through a real unity, a complete whole. The next. 25,920 years are a repetition. Thus we obtain a rhythmic repetition of this unity, consisting of 25,920 years.
Summary: The sun passes through a real unity, a complete whole, in 25920 years. The rhythmic repetition of this unity represents a great world-rhythm for the life of the sun. The movement of the vernal point across the zodiac corresponds to this great world rhythm
- [2] After having considered this great world-year, let us now consider something which is quite small and is intimately connected with our life between birth and death, that is to say, with our life, in so far as we are human beings of the physical cosmos. Let us consider this, to begin with. Undoubtedly, a respiration, consisting of one inspiration and of one expiration, is most important for our life within a physical body; our physical life is, after all, based upon the fact that the breath is drawn in and that it is sent out again. If our respiratory process were to be interrupted, we would not be able to live, physically. A respiration is indeed something very significant. Our breath brings us the air, which fills us with life, in the form in which it is able to do so; through our organism, we transform this air, so that it becomes a deathly air, which would kill us if we were to breathe it in again, in the condition in which it is immediately after we have breathed it out.
- On the average, a human being breathes 18 times a minute. This may, of course, vary, for our breathing is different in our youth, and in old age, but if we take an average, we obtain as a normal figure for the respiration, 18 breaths a minute. We thus renew our life rhythmically 18 times a minute. Let us now see how often we do this in one day. In one hour this would be equal to 18 x 60 = 1080. In 24 hours: 1080 x 24 = 25,920, that is to say, 25,920 times.
- You see, the way in which our life takes its course in one day, has a most peculiar rhythm,. If we take one respiration as a unity, as a life-unity, this is very significant for us, since our life is maintained by the rhythmical repetition of the respiration. One day gives us exactly the same number of respiratory rhythms, as the number of years which the sun employs in order to lead back its vernal point to its point of departure. That is to say: if we imagine that one respiration is one year in miniature, we pass through one platonic year in miniature, so that in one day we have a reproduction, a microcosmic reproduction, of one platonic year. This is extremely important, for it shows us that our respiratory process, that is to say, something which takes place within our human being, is subjected to the same rhythm — differing only in time — as the rhythm which, on a large scale, lies at the foundation of the rhythm of the sun's course.
Summary: A human being renews its life through the process of a rhythmical repetition of respiration (consisting of one inspiration and one expiration). This takes place (on average) about 18 times per minute, or 25920 times per day. This respiratory process which takes place in a human being is subjected to the same rhythm (differering only in scale of time), as the rhythm which (on a large scale) lies at the foundaion of the rhythm of the sun's course. If we live one day, we reproduce the platonic world-year with our 25,920 respirations Or: 1 human breath (in/out) ↔ 1 sun-year … x 25920 (=18 breaths/min * 60 min * 24 h) 1 human day (day/night) ↔ 1 platonic year for the sun
- [2B] It is important to place such a fact before our soul. For if we transform into a feeling what these explanations convey, this feeling will be of such a kind that it tells us: We are a reproduction of the macrocosm. It is not just a phrase, not only empty talk, if we say that man is an image of the macrocosm, for this can be proved in detail. This can also make you feel the sound foundation of all the laws which come from spiritual science, because they are all based upon this intimate knowledge of the inner connections, existing in the universe, but it is not always possible to set forth clearly every detail.
- When considering such things, we should, of course, realise, above everything else, that the human being is in part torn out of the whole universe. Seen as a whole, he stands within the rhythm of the universe, but at the same time he is, in a certain way, free; he modifies certain things, so that there is not an EXACT harmony, in every case. But the possibility of human freedom lies in the very fact that a perfect harmony does not always exist. The harmony, however, which exists as a whole, contains the fact that man stands within the whole cosmos.
Summary: It is not just a phrase if we say that man is an image of the macrocosm: we are areproduction of the macrocosm. The human being stands within the whole cosmos and the rhythm of the universe, but he is - in part - (!) 'torn out' of the whole universe. Thisis his free will: he modifies certain things, so that there is not always a perfect or exact harmony (editor: in other words: he becomes a creator)
- The observations which I have made just now, had to be made for a special reason, so that the things which I shall now tell you may not be misunderstood. [3] After having considered the respiration, let us now consider a greater life-element, the next greatest life-element, namely, the alternating conditions of WAKING and SLEEPING. Our respiration may be looked upon as the smallest life-element. But let us now consider the alternating states of sleeping and waking. Indeed, in a certain way, we may consider the alternation of sleeping and waking in analogy with the breathing process.
- You know that I have frequently described how the astral body and the ego are taken up by us when we awake, and how we let them out when we fall asleep; I have frequently described this as a respiration, as a breath which is drawn in and sent out again during the course of one day and of one night.
- We may even contemplate this in a far more materialistic sense. When we breathe, the air goes in and it goes out. The air is therefore drawn in and it is breathed out again, so that this process simply sets forth an oscillation of material substance: in and out, in and out.
- In an entirely similar way, we may see a rhythmical process in the alternating conditions of sleeping and waking.
◦ For when we take up in ourselves our ego and our astral body, upon awakening in the morning, our etheric body is pushed back ... it is pushed back from the head, more into the other members of our organism.
◦ And when we fall asleep once more, and send our astral body and ego out of our body, then we may find, for instance that the etheric body spreads out in our head, in the same way in which it also spreads out in the whole inferior part of our body.
Thus we have an incessant rhythmic process. The etheric body is pushed down — and we wake up; it remains down there while we are awake. When we fall asleep, it is once more pushed up into the head. And so it goes up and down, up and down, in the course of 24 hours, just as our breath goes in and out, in and out. Thus, we have a movement of the etheric, taking place in the course of 24 hours.
Of course, also here irregularities may be found in the human being, for his capacity of freedom, his degree of freedom, are based upon this; but, on the whole, the things which I have explained to you may be taken as valid.
- Now we might say:
◦ Something, therefore, breathes within us, yet it is another kind of breathing, it is something which rises and falls ... it breathes within us in the course of one day, in the same way in which something breathes within us during the 18th part of a minute.
◦ Something breathes within us in the course of one day. Let us now see if that which breathes within us in the course of one day, if the rising and falling of our etheric body, which thus breathes within us, also sets forth something which resembles a circular movement, a return to a point of departure.
- In that case, we would have to investigate what 25,920 days really are. For 25,920 of these breaths, in which the etheric rises and falls, would have to correspond, in their rise and fall, to a reproduction of the platonic year. Just as one day corresponds to 25,920 respirations, so 25,920 days should also correspond to something in human life. How many years are 25, 920 days? Let us see. Let us take the year with an average of 365¼ days, let us make a division and then we shall obtain as a result of the division: 25,920 ÷ 365.25 = about 71 that is to say, about 71 years, which is the average duration of human life. Of course, the human being has his freedom and frequently he may grow much older. But you know that the patriarchal age is indicated as 70 years.
- Thus you have the duration of human life equal to 25,920 days, 25,920 of such great breaths! Once more, we obtain a cycle which reproduces microcosmically in a wonderful way the macrocosmic happenings. Thus we may say: If we live one day, we reproduce the platonic world-year with our 25,920 respirations; if we live 71 years, we again reproduce the platonic year with 25,920 great breaths, with the rising and falling pertaining to our waking up and our falling asleep.
Summary: When we breathe, the air is drawn IN and it is breathed OUT again, this process sets forth an oscillation of material substance: in and out, in and out. When waking and sleeping, an incessant rhytmic process takes place in a similar way. When waking, we take up our ego and astral body, and push down the etheric body from the head into the other members of our organism. It remains down while we are awake. When falling asleep, our ego and astral body are sent out of our body, and the etheric body spreads into our head - in the same way it spreads out in the whole inferior part of our body. In the course of 24h, the etheric body moves up and down, just as our breath goes in and out. This rising and falling of the etheric body, which thus breathes within us, sets forth something which resembles a circular movement, a return to a point of departure. If we live 71 years, we thus reproduce the platonic year with 25,920 great daily breaths of the etheric body rising and falling, pertaining to our waking up and our falling asleep. Or: 1 human day (day/night) <-> 1 etheric breath (in/out) x 25920 (=365,25 days x 71 years) 1 human life <-> 1 etheric platonic year
- We may now pass on from this to something which would lead us too far, if I would explain it in detail to-day; but I shall indicate what may be felt occultly.
- [3B] We are enveloped by the air. The air supplies the possibility for our nearest life-element, which takes place in the rhythm of our respiration. We therefore obtain this rhythm from the air, which exists upon the earth. Who gives us the other rhythm? — The earth itself. For this rhythm is regulated through the fact that the earth turns round its own axis, if we wish to speak in the modern astronomic sense; it turns round its own axis during the change of day and night. Thus we may say: The air breathes within us when our breath goes in and out. Through the movement round its own axis, through the change of day and night, the earth breathes within us and causes us to wake up and to fall asleep, the earth breathes and pulses within. In respect to the earth, the duration of our life may now be considered as one day of a living being, that draws its breath during the course of one day and of one night, not during the 18th part of a minute. For such a Being, 70 years would be equal to one day; in 70 years it would live through one of its days. And the changes of day and night, in the ordinary sense are the respiration of that Being.
Summary: Let's change perspective and turn this around. Let's step away from the perspective of our mundane sense- consciousness, from our I in our physical body, and describe what is happening to us as if we look from the outside-in. The air supplies the possibility for our life, through the process taking place in the rhythm of our respiration. We therefore obtain this rhythm from the air. Thus we may say: The air breathes within us when our breath goes in and out. This rhythm of air exists on the earth, it is given by the earth. It is regulated through the fact that the earth turns round its own axis during the change of day and night. Through this, the earth breathes within us and causes us to wake up and to fall asleep: the earth breathes and pulses within us.
[Great Being]
- You see, this enables us to feel that we are standing within a more encompassing life, which merely has a longer respiration; that is to say, a respiration which takes its course in 24 hours — and a longer day, namely, 70–71 years. We may thus experience ourselves within a living Being, whose pulse and breathing rhythms are much longer than ours. This shows you that it is absolutely justified to speak of the microcosm as an image of the macrocosm, for the reproductiveness can be demonstrated with figures. When we therefore say: The air breathes within us, it uses itself up whilst breathing within us, and the earthly element breathes within us, in so far as we belong to that greater life-Being, we might eventually throw up the question: Perhaps we are not only connected with the air on the earth, and with the whole earth and its rhythms of day and night, but also with the rise of the sun, with its return to the point of departure in the course of one platonic year? Perhaps we are in some way also connected with this?
Summary: A human being is part of, is within a more encompassing life, which has a longer respiration; a respiration which takes its course in 24 hours — and a longer day, namely, 70–71 years. We may thus experience ourselves within a living Being, whose pulse and breathing rhythms are much longer than ours.
[Follows: Parenthesis: Goethe stating the earth breathes in and out (as if it were a great living being)
- These things are of greatest interest. But modern science passes them by, as if they did not exist at all, because such things are not taken into consideration by modern science. In a very tangible way, I have once come across the difference between modern science and that science which must arise one day. Perhaps I have already told you that in the autumn of 1889 I was summoned to collaborate in the Goethe and Schiller Archives at Weimar, for the preparation of Goethe's scientific writings, which I have then brought out for the larger Weimar edition of Goethe's works, the so-called “Sophia Edition.” My task was to study in the documents left by Goethe — everything connected with his anatomical, physiological, zoological, botanical, mineralogical, geological and also meteorological studies. Goethe made extraordinarily numerous observations on the weather, in the course of one year. He made observations on the weather particularly in connection with the heights of the barometer, and it is really surprising to see the great number of charts which Goethe drew up for meteorological purposes. Not many of these charts have been published, some of these have been reproduced in my edition, but very little of this material has been published. Just as fever curves are now registered, so Goethe registered the barometrical heights of one particular place, indeed, of several places, upon charts, by marking the barometrical heights on one particular day. He then observed them a few hours later, again a few hours later, and so forth. He did this for whole months, and thus endeavoured to discover the corresponding curves for various localities.
- Modern science has not yet advanced very far in the handling of barometrical curves. Goethe studied these curves, for he saw in them almost an analogue of the pulse which is registered on fever charts; that is to say, he wished to trace a kind of pulse of the earth, its constant regular pulse, of course.
- What did Goethe really aim at?
◦ He wished to prove that the oscillations of the barometrical heights in the course of one year are not so irregular as ordinary meteorology assumes them to be, but that they contain a certain regularity, which is merely modified by inferior time-conditions.
◦ Goethe wished to prove that the gravitation of the earth represents its respiration, in the course of one year; he wished to indicate the very thing which also comes to expression in the human respiration. That is what he wished to re-discover in the barometrical heights.
· In future, THESE kinds of scientific observations will arise, for the microcosmic and the macrocosmic processes will once more be investigated. Goethe drew up quite a number of charts, in order to study the pulse of the earth, its respiration, the breath of the earth which goes in and out, as he himself designated it.
· Also in this connection you may therefore see that in Goethe we may find an endeavour to work in the direction of a science which will only arise in future. At the same time, we obtain a picture of the enormous diligence applied by Goethe; in order to reach the results which he actually did reach. In Goethe, we never discover mere statements, as is so frequently the case in other people. When others frequently speak of the pulse of the earth, they merely have in mind an image, a metaphor, and this is nothing but an aperçu for them. But when Goethe advances a statement, which he often recapitulates in three or four sentences ... for instance, when he says that the earth breathes in and out ... then he always draws up quite a number of tables and charts upon which he bases his statements, and there is always real experience behind them, whereas the majority of people say: “Real experience! This is but an echo, a fog!” Goethe in particular may show us that it is necessary to have something behind us whenever we advance a statement.
- Also in this way, we may therefore reach the point of recognising that the earth itself breathes just as if it were a great living being.
- [4] Let us now try to see if it is possible to speak of a similar breathing process when we place ourselves within the whole platonic year of the sun. In that case, we would have 25,920 years. Let us now consider these 25,920 years as ONE year and investigate its relationship to one day. If we wish to consider the whole platonic year as one year and if we then wish to discover what would constitute one of its days, we would have to divide it by 365¼, and this would give us one day. If the whole represents one year and if we then divide it by 365¼, we obtain ONE day. Let us see what result we reach when we divide 25,920 years by 365¼. We obtain 71 years, which is the duration of a human life. In other words: the duration of a human life is equal to one day within the whole platonic year. In relation with the length of a human life, a whole platonic year may therefore be considered in such a way that we ourselves, as physical beings that pass through the length of our human life, are breathed out by that which is active within a whole platonic year, and in that case, 71 years, considered as ONE DAY, would correspond to one breath of that Being who passes through the platonic year.
- Within the 18th part of a minute, we are therefore a life-member of the air; within one day, we are a life-member of the earth; within the duration of our life, we may consider ourselves in such a way that at the moment of our birth we are breathed out by that great Being for whom a platonic year is equivalent to one year; we are breathed out and breathed in again in one of its days. If we consider, our physical body, we have within this physical body which passes through its patriarchal age, one breath of that great Being, whose life is so long, that 25,920 years correspond to one year. Our patriarchal age (71 years) is in that case equivalent to one day of that Being. If we therefore think of a Being that lives together with our earth, alternating day and night in the course of 24 hours, this would represent one respiration for our etheric body; the true respiration of our astral body would be equivalent 1/18th part of a minute.
- There you have an analogue for a very ancient statement. Consider the following fact: In ancient times, people imagined something which was designated as the days and nights of Brahma. There you have the analogue.
[Last step]
- Now imagine a spiritual Being, for whom our 71 years are equivalent to one breath of our air; in that case, we would be the breath of that Being. Through the fact that we are placed into the world, as tiny mites when we are born, we are breathed out by that Being who passes through the platonic year, as if it were one year, a Being who therefore measures its age in platonic years. That Being consequently breathes us out into the universe and when we die, it breathes us in again. We are thus breathed out and we are breathed in again.
- Let us now return to the earth. It breathes us in and out in the course of one day. And let us now go to the air, which forms part of the earth. It breathes us in and out in 1/18th of a minute; yet the number 25,920 always constitutes a return to the point of departure. This shows us a regular rhythm; we feel that we are standing within the universe; we learn to know that human life, and one day of human life, are, for greater and more encompassing Beings, equivalent to one of the breaths which we ourselves draw in our own life. And if we take up this knowledge through our feeling; the old saying, according to which we repose in the bosom of the universe, acquires an extraordinary significance.
- Such things undoubtedly lie in the direction of a scientific way of looking at things, and in order to make the right use of these figures, which are known to everybody and which may be found in every encyclopædia, we shall only require a. spiritual-scientific attitude. If these figures are once used in the right way and if their true value is recognised, a connection with spiritual science, with the anthroposophical spiritual science, will be found from out our ordinary science.
- In a similar way, we shall find that everything, indeed everything, is ordered according to the laws of number and measure. The biblical words, that everything in the universe is ordered according to the laws of number and measure, will in that case acquire a deep meaning through human science.
Summary: Within the 18th part of a minute, we are a life-member of the air; within one day, we are a life-member of the earth; within the duration of our life, we may consider ourselves in such a way that at the moment of our birth we are breathed out by that great Being for whom a platonic year is equivalent to one year; we are breathed out and breathed in again in one of its days. We have, within this physical body which passes through its patriarchal age, one breath of that great Being, whose life is so long, that 25,920 years correspond to one year. Imagine a spiritual Being, for whom our 71 years are equivalent to one breath of our air; in that case, we would be the breath of that Being. We are placed into the world, as tiny mites when we are born, breathed out by that Being who passes through the platonic year, as if it were one year. This Being who therefore measures its age in platonic years. That Being consequently breathes us out into the universe and when we die, it breathes us in again. We are thus breathed out and we are breathed in again. Hence one human life, and one day of such human life, are, for greater and more encompassing Beings, equivalent to one of the breaths which we ourselves draw in our own life.
[Cosmic Word]
- [5] Let us proceed. What is connected with our breathing, almost depends upon our breathing? It is our SPEECH. Indeed, from an organic standpoint, speech is connected with our breathing process. Speech does not only come from the same organ, but it is also connected with our breathing; that is to say, with what is contained in the rhythm of 1/18th of a minute. This is how we speak, and our fellow-men beside us speak in the same way. As far as the respiratory rhythm is concerned, the human beings in our environment speak in accordance with the air which is upon the earth and which envelops us.
- We might now deduce from this that also the breathing rhythm which is connected with day and night must be related in a definite way to speech, to a spoken intercourse, but in this case with Beings who belong to the organism of the earth; they belong to the earth's organism in the same way in which the human beings belong to the air — a spoken intercourse with Beings of that particular kind.
- The wisdom which has been transmitted to the human beings of a remote past by higher Beings, has not been transmitted to them in such a way that it was connected with the breathing rhythm of 1/18th of a minute (editor: contemporary spoken language, consisting of sequences of word-labels, made up of string of characters), but it was connected with that breathing rhythm which has one day as its unity. In those ancient times, the human beings could not learn so quickly; they were obliged to wait, until words of such length had been spoken, corresponding to a breath which takes up 24 hours. This is how the ancient wisdom arose, and even to-day this fact lies at the foundation of things and may be recognised in various traditions. The ancient wisdom came from higher Beings, who are connected with the earth in the same way in which we are connected with the air, and these higher Beings approach the human beings. Those who are now working their way up to initiations, may still perceive something of this. For the things which are transmitted by the spiritual world approach us far more slowly than the things which are transmitted to us upon the wings of our ordinary air-processes.
◦ For this reason, it is so important that those who strive after initiation should learn to feel within themselves the great significance of the transition stages of falling asleep and of waking up. When we fall asleep and when we wake up, in these transitions, we may feel more than anywhere else that spiritual Beings are mysteriously conferring with us; only at a later stage this passes over, to a certain extent, into our own control. If we wish to gain access to the world which is the dwelling place of the dead, we shall be following a good path also if we grow conscious of the fact that the dead speak with us most easily during the moments in which we fall asleep and in which we awake. It is more difficult for them to reach us when we fall asleep, for then, as a rule, we immediately pass over into an unconscious state, so that we do not hear what the dead wish to tell us. But when we wake up, and if we have reached the point of bearing in mind clearly the moment of waking up, this moment will be the best one for entering into communication with the dead — particularly the moment of waking up. We must try, however, to gain full control of the moment of waking up. To gain full control of the moment of waking up, means, in other words, that we should endeavour to wake up, without passing over immediately into the light of daytime. You will perhaps be acquainted with the special rule — you may call it a superstitious rule, if you like — according to which we should not look out of the window and into the light if we wish to bear in remembrance a dream, for if we look into the light we would easily forget our dream. This applies in particular to the fine observations which flow out to us from the spiritual world. We should endeavour, as it were, to wake up in the dark, but in a darkness which has been produced consciously, by avoiding to listen to noises and by avoiding to open the eyes. We should endeavour, consciously, yet without going out immediately into the life of daytime, to wake up, and this will best of all enable us to notice the communications which come to us from the spiritual world.
◦ Now you might say: In that case, we would, receive very little in the form of communications during the course of our life. Just imagine how difficult it would be, if during the course of our life we only had the possibility of receiving as many communications as we normally receive in one day! This would suffice, but we cannot make the right use of it, for there is our childhood, etc.
- But the earth participates and (please bear this in mind) takes up these communications within its etheric body, and since these things remain inscribed in the ETHER OF THE EARTH they may be studied there. Other encompassing communications which are transmitted to us by the Beings whose life-element is the platonic year, may be studied in the ETHER OF THE SUN which fills the whole world; they may be studied in the way described in various parts of “KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS” and in other books.
- You may therefore see that a band can be woven, which connects ordinary science and spiritual science. But of course, one who is not acquainted with spiritual science, will hardly be able to make the right use of the knowledge which ordinary science can supply. Those, however, who have a spiritual-scientific mentality, have not the slightest doubt when approaching these things, that the time will come when the ordinary external science and spiritual science will really be completely at one.
- I have told you that I have only explained to you one aspect of these things, namely, their rhythmical course, which is contained in the respiration. Now there are many things which could be demonstrated in figures, thus showing the harmony and correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm. Indeed, it is possible to acquire a deep feeling for this harmonious correspondence.
- This kind of feeling was still transmitted in the Mysteries to the older disciples, up to the fifteenth century. Before that time, they were only able to take up anything in the form of science, when their teachers had tried to make them feel that they were standing in the midst of the universe. This, again, characterizes the materialistic age, that to-day we can acquire knowledge without being in any way prepared for this knowledge as far as our feelings are concerned. In the introduction to the first chapter of “CHRISTIANITY AS A MYSTICAL FACT,” have already drawn attention to this fact by indicating that in the Mysteries, certain feelings were first cultivated, before taking into consideration the acquisition of knowledge.
- Particularly important is the feeling relating to the harmony between microcosm and macrocosm, and if we once more wish to acquire real concepts in regard to things for which mere abstractions exist to-day, it will be important to cultivate that feeling.
1917-02-13-GA175
Now you see that as Microcosms we are actually part of and subject to the same laws, as regards the Universal Beings, as the breath we draw is subject to our own human being. Number and measure govern it.
It is a great and wonderful thing, and in its significance must cut deeply into our very hearts: that number and measure regulate the great cosmos, the Macrocosm, exactly as they regulate us, the Microcosm. This is not merely a figure of speech, it is not merely mystically felt; but the wisdom-filled contemplation of the world teaches us that we, as Microcosms, stand within the Macrocosm.
When we make such simple calculations as these — which can of course be arrived at by the most ordinary scientific methods of reckoning — then, if our hearts are sensitive to the secrets of cosmic existence and not mere blocks of wood, the saying “we are placed in the Universe” will cease to be abstract words, for we shall be fully alive to the fact. A knowledge and a feeling will spring up within us, the fruits of which will be born in the impulses of our will, and our whole being live in unison with the great life, divine cosmic existence.
1919-08-22-GA294
We must say, then:
“We are earthly beings through our breathing-process; through our alternation from waking to sleeping we are moon, earth, and Jupiter beings; and through the interplay of our life's course with the conditions of the cosmic year we are cosmic beings. In the cosmic life, in the whole planetary system, one breath embraces a day of our existence; our seventy-two years of life are one day for that Being whose organs form the planetary system.”
If you rise above the illusion that you are a limited being, if you comprehend what you are, as a process, as an interplay in the cosmos, what you are in reality, you can then say: “I myself am a breath of the cosmos.”
also states the analogy of the Sun's path through the zodiac in one platonic year, with the influences of the zodiac in a full solar system cycle
We live 72 years on an average. Multiply this number by 360, and again you get 25,920. So you can visualize that the “Platonic year,” the sun's revolution round the worlds, which takes 25,920 years, has for its (cosmic) day our human life, so that we, in our human life, can look on the process which takes a year in the whole universe, as one breath, and can understand our human span of life as a (cosmic) day in the great year of the universe, so that again we can reverence the minutest process as a reflection of the great cosmic process. If you look at it more closely, the “Platonic year,” that is the course which is completed in the “Platonic year,” is a reflection of the entire process, which, since the old Saturn-evolution, through sun, moon, and earth-evolution, etc., up to Vulcan, has been taking place.
1920-04-16-GA201
[from copy/paste - still to be cleaned/edited]
[from copy/paste - still to be cleaned/edited]
The fundamental nature and construction of the Universe cannot be conceived in its reality without continual reference to Man. Again and again we must try to find in the Universe outside, what exists in one way or another in Man. We will use these next three lectures for the purpose of obtaining, from just this point of view, a kind of plastically formed picture of the world, which can then lead on to the answer of the question: What is the relation between morality and natural law in Man? When we study Man (I am here only repeating things that have already been spoken and written of from various standpoints) we find him first of all organised into what we may call higher Man and lower Man; and then we have what forms the connection between the two — the rhythmic Man, equalising or balancing the other two parts.
- We have to observe first of all that a complete difference exists in the laws governing the upper and lower parts of man. We can realise this difference when we consider the fact that the ‘upper man’, who is regulated by the head, is in its origin the outcome of entirely different laws, belonging as it does to a different world from the world of the senses.
- That part of us which in our last incarnation was a result of forces of the sense world, namely the limb man, has become what it now is, the head man, through a metamorphosis which takes place between death and a new birth — not in relation, of course, to the outer form, but in regard to the forces of formation. What is now the limb man becomes entirely transformed in its forces — transmuted in its supersensible constitution between death and a new birth, and appears in our new Earth-life incorporated out of the Universe into our constitution.
- On to this is suspended, as it were, the rest of man — formed out of the world of sense. This fact we can find already proved clearly from Embryology, if we would only think rationally about embryonic facts. And thereby we have in our head organisation a system of laws not belonging to this world at all, save only at its origin — that is, in so far as it was present in a previous incarnation. But all that which has caused the transformation of limb man to head man is active in an entirely different world — the world wherein we live, in the interval between death and a new birth. Here, then, another world penetrates the world of the senses. Another world is manifested in the head organism of Man. In a certain sense the external world is brought into correspondence with this other world, in that the head projects the principal sense-organs outwards. The world that is extended in space and that runs its course in time, is perceived by man through his senses; it penetrates into man through his senses, and so it too belongs in a certain sense to the head organism. In relation to our limb man on the other hand, we are in a state of sleep. I have often spoken of this sleep-state of man in relation to his Will nature, in relation to all that exists in the limb man. We do not know how we move our limbs, how the will causes the movement; we only examine the movement afterwards as an outer phenomenon through our senses. We are asleep in our limb organisation, in the same sense as we are asleep in the Universe between going to sleep and awaking.
- So here we have before us an entirely different world. We can say: we have a world which outwardly manifests all that speaks to our senses — all that we perceive through eyes, ears, etc. To this world we belong through that portion of ourselves which we have called the head man. Our connection with the world that lies behind this one is brought about by the limb man, but in it we are unconscious; we sleep into this world, whether we do so in the domain of our Will, or whether we sleep into the Universe between our going to sleep and our waking.
- These two worlds are actually so constituted that the one is turned towards us, and the other away from us, as it were; it lies behind the world of sense although we have our origin in it. Man felt in olden times — and the East still feels it — that a reconciliation between the two is possible. As you know, we in the West search for the reconciliation in a different way; but the Easterns, even today, a line (sketch) still attempt to find it in a relatively conscious way, although their methods are already antiquated for the present humanity. The act of eating is symbolised by a line (sketch), for when we take food, the process following takes place in the sphere of sleep (unconsciously). We are not aware of what is really happening when we eat an egg or a cabbage; it takes place in the unconscious like the happenings of sleep. The cabbage and the egg manifest their exterior to our sense-perception. But the eating really belongs to the completely different world. The reconciliation however, is to be found in our breathing.
- Although the latter is to a certain extent unconscious, it is not so in so great a degree as our eating. In spite of the fact that our breathing is not so conscious as our hearing and seeing, it is more conscious than the process of digestion for example; and while in the East today, the attempt to make the digestive process a conscious one has, as a rule, ceased (this used to be done in olden times), the breathing process is still in a certain sense brought up into consciousness. (The snake raises the process of digestion into consciousness, but the consciousness of the snake is of course not to be compared with human consciousness). There is a certain training of the breathing, where the inhaling and exhaling are regulated in such a way that the process is transformed into a sense-perception. Thus we find respiration inserted, as it were, between conscious sense-perception and the complete unconsciousness of assimilation and transmutation of physical matter. Man in fact dwells in three worlds; the one sensible to his consciousness, the other of which he remains entirely unconscious, and the third (breathing) acting as a connecting link or mediator between the two.
- Now it is a fact that the process of breathing is also a kind of assimilation; at all events, it is a material process, though taking place in a more rarefied manner; it is an intermediate state between actual transmutation of matter assimilation and the process of sense-perception, the completely conscious experience of the external world.
- In the state in which we find ourselves between falling asleep and awaking, we experience in the environment which then surrounds us, events which only enter into our every-day consciousness as dreams. Here man steps across into the world which is marked in our sketch, and the dreams reveal through their very nature how Man steps across. Consider for a moment how nearly related are dreams to the process of respiration — the rhythm of breathing — how often you can trace this rhythm in its after-workings when you dream. Man steps across the border, as it were, of the world of consciousness, when he dips ever so slightly into this other world in which he is when he sleeps or when he dreams. There lies also the world of ‘Imaginations’. In ‘Imaginations’ it is for us a fully conscious world, we have conscious perception in that world, which we merely sip, as it were, in our dreams.
- We shall now have to consider a correspondence that is found to exist, an absolute correspondence, in respect of Number. I have already often drawn your attention to this correspondence between Man and the world in which he evolves.
- [2] ) I have pointed to the fact that Man, in his rhythm of breathing — 18 per minute — manifests something that is in remarkable accord with other processes of the Universe. We make 18 respirations per minute, which gives when calculated for the day, 25,920 respirations.
- [3] And we arrive at the same number when we calculate how many days are contained in a normal life term of 72 years. That also gives about 25,920 days; so that something may be said to exhale our astral body and Ego, on falling asleep and inhale them again upon waking — always in conformity with the same number rhythm.
- [1] - And again, when we consider how the Sun moves — whether apparently or really, does not matter — advancing a little each year in what we call the precession of the equinoxes, when we consider the number of years it takes the Sun to make this journey round the whole Zodiac, once more we get 25,920 years — the Platonic year.
- The fact is, this human life of ours, within the boundaries set by birth and death, is indeed fashioned, down to its most infinitesimal processes — as we have seen in the breathing — in accordance with the laws of the Universe. But in the correspondence we have observed up to now between the Macrocosm and Man the Microcosm, we have made our observations in a realm where the correspondence is obvious and evident
[Regarding the Platonic year as the equivalent of one day]
- [5] - There are however, other very important correspondences. For example, consider the following. I want to lead you through Number to something else I have to bring before you. Take the 18 respirations per minute, making 1,080 per hour and in 24 hours 25,920 respirations; that is, we must multiply: 18 X 60 X 24 in order to arrive at 25,920. Taking this as the cycle of the precession of the equinoxes, and dividing it by 6o and again by 24, we would naturally get 18 years. And what do these 18 years really mean?
- Consider — these 25,920 respirations correspond to a human day of 24 hours; in other words, this 24 hour day is the day of the Microcosm. So 18 respirations may serve as the ‘unit of rhythm’. (editor: one minute is 18 breaths, so rather than talking minute, let’s use 18 respirations)
- And now take the complete circle described by the precession of the equinoxes, and call it, not a Platonic year, but a great Day of the Heavens, a Macrocosmic day. How long would one respiration on this scale have to occupy to correspond with the human respiration? Its duration would have to be 18 years — a respiration made by the Being corresponding to the Macrocosm.
(editor: 25920 years as 1 year = 365 * 72 y (a life of man)
25920 years as 1 day = 24 * 60 * 18 y
Because 24h * 60 min * 18 breaths)
- If we take the statements of modern astronomy — we need not interpret them here, we shall speak of their meaning later — we shall find that it is a matter of indifference whether we assume that the motion of the Sun is apparent, or the motion of the Earth; that does not concern us — but let us now take that which the Astronomer of today calls Nutation of the Earth's Axis.
- You are aware that the Earth's axis lies obliquely upon the Ecliptic, and that the Astronomers speak of an oscillation of the Earth's axis around this point and they call this ‘Nutation’. The axis completes one revolution around this point in just about 18 years (it is really 18 years, 7 months, but we need not consider the fraction, although it is quite possible to calculate this too with exactitude.)
- But with these 18 years something else is intimately connected. For it is not merely on the fact of ‘Nutation’ — this ‘trembling’, this rotation of the Earth's axis in a double cone around the Earth's centre, and the period of 18 years for its completion — it is not only on this fact that we have to fix our minds, but we find that simultaneously with it another process takes place. The Moon appears each year in a different position because, like the Sun, she ascends and descends from the ecliptic, proceeding in a kind of oscillating motion again and again towards the Equator ecliptic. And every 18 years she appears once more in the same position she occupied 18 years before. You see there is a connection between this Nutation and the path of the Moon. Nutation in truth indicates nothing else than the Moon's path. It is the projection of the motion of the Moon. So that we can in actual reality observe the “breathing” of the Macrocosm. We only need notice the path of the Moon in 18 years or, in other words, the Nutation of the Earth's axis. The Earth dances, and she dances in such a manner as to describe a cone, a double cone, in 18 years, and this dancing is a reflection of the macrocosmic breathing. This takes place just as many times in the macrocosmic year as the 18 human respirations during the microcosmic day of 24 hours.
- So we really have one macrocosmic respiration per minute in this Nutation movement. In other words, we look into this breathing of the Macrocosm through this Nutation movement of the Moon, and we have before us what corresponds to respiration in man. And now, what is the purport of all this? The meaning of it is that as we pass from waking to sleep, or only from the wholly conscious to the dream state, we enter another world, and over against the ordinary laws of day, years, etc., and also the Platonic year, we find in this insertion of a Moon rhythm, something that has the same relationship in the Macrocosm, as breathing, the semiconscious process of respiration, has to our full consciousness.
We have therefore not only to consider a world which is spread out before us, but another world which projects into, and permeates our own.
Just as we have before us a second part of the human organism, when observing the breathing process, namely the rhythmic man, as opposed to the perceptive or head man, so we have in what appears as the yearly Moon motion, or rather the 18-year motion of the Moon, the identity between one year and one human respiration; we have this second world interpenetrating our own.
· There can therefore be no question of having only one world in our environment.We have that world that we can follow as the world of the senses; but then we have a world, whose foundations are laid within the laws of another, and which stands in exactly the same relationship to the world of the senses, as our breathing does to our consciousness; and this other world is revealed to us as soon as we interpret in the right way this Moon movement, this Nutation of the Earth's axis.
· These considerations should enable you to realise the impossibility of investigating in a one-sided way the laws manifesting in the world. The modern materialistic thinker is in quest of a single system of natural laws. In this he deludes himself; what he should say is rather as follows. “The world of the senses is certainly a world in which I find myself embedded and to which I belong; it is that world which is explained by natural science in terms of Cause and Effect. But another world interpenetrates this one, and is regulated by different laws. Each world is subject to its own system of laws.” As long as we are of the opinion that one kind of system of laws could suffice for our world, and that all hangs upon the thread of Cause and Effect, so long shall we remain victims of complete illusions.
Only when we can perceive from facts such as the Moon's motion and nutation of the Earth's axis that another world extends into this one — only then are we upon the right path.
· And now, you see, these are the things in which the spiritual and material (so-called) touch each other, or let us say the psychical and material.
He who can faithfully observe what is contained within his own self will find the following. These things must gradually be brought to the attention of humanity.
There are many among you, who have already passed the 18 years and about 7 months period in age. That was an important period. Others will have passed twice that number of years — 37 years and 2 months — again an important time. After that we have a third very momentous period 18 years and seven months later, at the age of 55 years and 9 months. Few can notice as yet, not having been trained to do so, the effects and important changes taking place within the individual soul at these times. The nights passed during these periods are the most important nights in the life of the individual. It is here where the Macrocosm completes its 18 respirations, completes one minute — and Man as it were, opens a window facing quite another world. But as I said, man cannot yet watch for these points in his life. Everyone, however, could try to let his mental eye look back over the years he has passed, and if he is over 55 years old to recognise three such important epochs; others two, and most of you at any rate one! In these epochs events take place, which rush up into this world of ours out of quite a different one. Our world opens at these moments to another world.
If we wish to describe this happening more clearly, we can say that our world is at these times penetrated anew by astral streams; they flow in and out. Of course this really happens every year, but we are here concerned with the 18 years, as they correspond to the 18 respirations per minute. In short, our attention is drawn through the cosmic clock to the breathing of the Macrocosm, in which we are embedded. This correspondence with another world, which is manifested through the motion of the Moon, is exceptionally important.
Because, you see, the world which at these times projects into our own, is the very world into which we pass during our sleep, when the Ego and the astral body leave our physical and etheric bodies. It must not be thought that the world composing our every-day environment is merely permeated in an abstract way by the astral world; rather should we say, it breathes in the astral world, and we can observe the astral in this breathing process through the Moon's motion or nutation. You will realise that we have here come to something of great significance.
If you remember what I said recently, we may put it in the following way. We have, on the one hand, our world as it is generally observed; and we have in addition, the materialistic superstition that, for instance, if we gaze upwards, we see the Sun, a ball of gas, as it is described in books.
· This is nonsense. The Sun is not a ball of gas; but in that place where the Sun is, there is something less than empty space — a sucking, absorbing body, in fact, while all around it is that which exerts pressure. Consequently in that which comes to us from the Sun we have not to do with anything constituting a product of combustion in the Sun; but all that has been transmitted to the Sun from the Universe is rayed back.
· Where the Sun is, is emptier than empty space. This can be said of all parts of the Universe where we find Ether. For this reason it is so difficult for the physicist to speak of Ether, for he thinks that Ether is also matter, though more rarefied than ordinary matter. Materialism is still very busy with this perpetual ‘rarefying’, both the materialism of natural science as well as the materialism of Theosophy. It distinguishes first, dense matter; then etheric matter — more rarefied; then astral matter — still more rarefied; and then there is the ‘mental’ and I do not know what else — always more and more rarefied!
· The only difference (in this theory of rarefying) between the two forms of materialism is that the one recognises more degrees of rarefaction than the other. But in the transition from ponderable matter to Ether we have nothing to do with rarefaction. Anyone who believes that in Ether we have to do merely with a ‘rarefying’ process is like a man who says: ‘I have here a purse full of money; I repeatedly take from it and the money becomes less and less. I take away still more till at last none remains.’ Nothing is left — but yet he can go on! The ‘nothing’ can become less still; for if he gets into debt, his money becomes less than nothing. In the same way not only does matter become empty space, but it becomes negative, less than nothing — emptier than emptiness; it assumes a ‘sucking’ nature. Ether is sucking, absorbing. Matter presses. Ether absorbs.
The Sun is an absorbing, sucking ball, and wherever Ether is present we have this absorbent force.
Here we step over into the other side, the other aspect of three-dimensional space — we pass from pressure to suction.
That which immediately surrounds us in this world, that of which we are constituted as physical man and ether man, is both pressing and sucking or absorbing.
We are a combination of both;· whereas the Sun possesses the power of suction only, being nothing but ether, nothing but suction. It is the undulating wave of pressure and suction, ponderable matter and ether, that forms in its alternation a living organisation.
· And the living organism continually breathes in the astral; the breathing expresses itself through the Moon's motion or nutation.
· And here we begin to divine a second member or principle of the world's construction;
o the one member — pressure and suction, physical and etheric;
o the other, the second — astral. The astral is neither physical nor etheric but is continually inhaled and exhaled; and the nutation demonstrates this process.
- [1] - Now a certain astronomical fact was observed even in the most ancient times. Many thousands of years before the Christian era, the Egyptians knew that after a period of 72 years the fixed stars in their apparent course gain one day on the Sun. It seems to us, does it not, that the fixed stars revolve and the Sun too revolves, but that the latter revolves more slowly, so that after 72 years the stars are appreciably ahead. This is the reason of the movement of the Vernal Point (the Spring Equinoctial point); namely, that the stars go faster. The Spring Equinox moves further and further away, the fixed star has altered its place in relation to the Sun. Briefly, the facts are that if we notice the path of a fixed star and notice the point where the Sun stands over it, we find that at the end of 72 years the star occupies the same position on the 30th December, while the Sun only reaches that point again on the 31st December. The Sun has lost a day. After a lapse of 25,920 years this loss is so great, that the Sun has described a complete revolution and once again is back upon the place we noted. We see therefore that in 72 years the Sun is one day behind the fixed stars.
- [3] - Now these 72 years are approximately the normal life period of Man, and they are composed of 25,920 days. Thus when we multiply 72 years by 360, and consider the human span of life as one day, we have the human life as one day of the Macrocosm. Man is breathed out, as it were, from the Macrocosm; his life is one day in the macrocosmic year.
- So that this revolution, this circle described by the precession of the Equinoxes, indicating the macrocosmic year, as already known to the Egyptians thousands of years ago (for they looked upon this period of 72 years as very important), this apparent revolution of the Vernal point is connected with the life and death of Man in the Universe — with the life and death, that is, of the Macrocosm. And the laws of the life and death of Man are something that we are compelled to follow.
- We have already found how nutation points to another world; as our sense-perception world points to one world, so nutation points to another, the breathing world.
- And now through what present-day astronomy calls ‘precession’, we have something we may again call a transition, a transition this time to a state of deep sleep, a transition to still another, a third world.
- We have thus three worlds, interpenetrating one another, inter-related; but we must not attempt simply to combine these worlds from the point of view of causality. Three worlds, a three-fold world, as Man is a three-fold being;
- one, the world of sense surrounding us, the world we perceive;
- a second world whose presence is indicated by the motions of the Moon;
- and a third which makes itself known to us by the motion of the equinoctial point, or we might say, by the path of the Sun. This third world indeed remains about as unknown to us as the world of our own Will is unknown to our ordinary consciousness.
It is important therefore to search everywhere for correspondences between the human Microcosm and the Macrocosm. And when today the Oriental, if only in a decadent way, seeks to acquire breathing consciousness, as was done in the ancient Oriental wisdom, it is the manifestation of the desire to stray across into this other world which otherwise he could only recognise through what the Moon, so to speak, wills in our world. But in those times when there was still an ancient wisdom coming to man in a different way from that by which we have today to seek wisdom — in those times man also knew how to see this working of inner law in other connections and correspondences.
In the Old Testament the Initiates, who were familiar with these matters, used always a certain image or picture — the picture, namely, of the relation between Moon-light and Sun-light. This we can find also in a certain sense in the Gospels, as I have recently shown you.
We generally speak of the Moon-light being reflected Sunlight. I am speaking now in the sense of physics, and I shall have to show later on that these expressions are really very inaccurate. The Moon-light represented in the Old Testament the Jahve or Jehovah power. This power was conceived as a reflected power, and the Initiates — though not of course the orthodox Rabbis of the Old Testament — knew: The Messiah, the Christ will come, and He will be the direct Sun-light. Jahve is only His advance reflection. Jahve is the Sun-light, but not the direct Sun-light. Of course, here we are speaking not of physical sunlight, but of the spiritual reality.
Christ entered into human evolution, He who had been present previously only in reflection, in an indirect way in the form of Jehovah. And there arose the necessity to think of the Christ, who lived in Jesus, as the result of a different set of laws from those appertaining to ordinary natural science. But if we do not admit this other set of laws, if we believe that the world exists only as the result of cause and effect, then there is no place for That which is the Christ. His place must be prepared for Him by our recognition of three interpenetrating worlds. Then there is created the possibility of being able to say: It may be that in this world of sense everything is related through the law of cause and effect as maintained by natural science, but another world permeates this one, and to this other world belongs everything that has happened in the world that has connection with the Mystery of Golgotha.
In our times, when the desire for an understanding of these matters is becoming more and more manifest, it is important to realise that this understanding must be sought through the recognition of these three interpenetrating worlds, which exist simultaneously and are entirely different one from another. This means that we must seek not for one system of laws only, but for three; and we must seek for them within Man himself.
If you consider well what I have just said, you will see that it will not do to adopt the methods of the Copernican system, and simply draw ellipses intended to show the path of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury and lastly of the Sun. That is not what is wanted at all.
What is wanted is rather to look at the laws that are active in the worlds that are physically perceptible and see how these laws are cut across by an altogether different set of laws; and that especially the present Moon, in her motion, presents something that is in no way causally connected with the rest of the Stellar System, such as would be the case were the Moon a member of that System, like the other planets. The Moon however is to be referred to quite another world, which is, as it were, inserted into ours, and which indicates the breathing process of our Universe, as the Sun indicates the interpenetration of our Universe by the Ether.Before one engages in Astronomy, one must educate oneself in a qualitative sense concerning that which moves in space, concerning the things that are interdependent in space. For one must be quite clear that Sun matter and any other matter — Earth matter for instance — can under no circumstances be brought into a simple relationship; because the matter of the Sun is, in comparison with the matter of the Earth, something absorbing and sucking, while the latter exerts pressure.
The motions which express themselves in nutation are motions proceeding from the astral world, and not from anything that can be found in Newton's principles. It is just this Newtonism that has driven us so far into materialism, because it seizes on the uttermost abstractions. It speaks of a force of gravitation. The Sun, it says, attracts the Earth, or the Earth attracts the Moon; a force of attraction exists between these bodies, like some invisible cable. But if really nothing but this force of attraction existed, there would be no cause for the Moon to revolve round the Earth, or the Earth round the Sun; the Moon would simply fall on to the Earth. This would indeed have happened ages ago, if gravitation alone were acting; or the Earth would have fallen into the Sun. It is therefore quite impossible for us to look to gravitation alone for the means of explaining the imagined or actual motions of celestial bodies. So what do they do? Let us see! Here we have a Planet imbued with a constant desire to fall into the Sun — supposing we were to have the law of gravitation alone. But now we will suppose that this planet has at some time or other been given another force, a tangential force. This impetus acts with such and such a power, and the force of gravitation acts at the same time with such and such a power, so that eventually the planet does not fall into the Sun, but has to move along a line resulting from both forces.
You see that Newton's theory finds it necessary to assume some kind of original impetus, some kind of first push in the case of each planet, of each moving celestial body. There must always be some extra-mundane God somewhere, who gives this impetus, who imparts this tangential force. This is always presupposed; and remember, this assumption was made at a time when we had lost all idea of bringing the material and the spiritual into any kind of connection, when we were incapable of conceiving of anything but a perfectly external ‘push’.
Here we have an instance of the inability of materialism to understand matter. I have repeatedly drawn your attention to this of late. It follows, that therefore materialism is also unable to understand the motions of matter, and is compelled to give quite an anthropomorphic explanation of them, picturing God as a being with wholly human attributes, who simply gives the Moon a push and the Earth a push. The Earth and Moon then ‘attract’ each other — and behold, from these two forces, the push and the attraction, we have their movements in the heavens.
It is from ideas of this kind that the Solar system is constructed today. But to get a real understanding of the Universe it is absolutely necessary to look for the connection between that which lives in Man, and that which lives in the Macrocosm. For Man is an actual Microcosm in the Macrocosm. Of this we will speak further tomorrow.
1920-05-14-GA201
When I speak here of the physical form of man, I must ask you to take the word ‘form’ seriously. The natural philosophers of today do not take the expression ‘human form’ seriously. What do they do? Like Huxley and others, they count the bones of man and of the higher animals, and from the number of these they draw the conclusion that Man is only a more highly evolved stage of the animal. Or they count the muscles and so forth. We have repeatedly had to point out that the essential point is that the line of the animal spine is horizontal, while the human spine is vertical; and although certain animals raise themselves, the position with them is not characteristic, what is characteristic of the animal is the horizontal line of the spine. Upon this depends the whole formation. Thus I ask you to take seriously what I wish to express by the word ‘form’.
[The sun travels slower than the stars]
This form of man; where must we look for its origin, its primary physical origin, in a spiritual way in the Universe? I have already touched on this point in these lectures, I have pointed to the starry heavens which move — whether apparently or actually is immaterial at the moment — round the Earth; the Sun also.
- [1] - Thus the Sun takes the same way; but if we take into consideration what we now know, namely that the Sun shifts its point of departure every Spring, remaining behind a little in relation to the stars, we come to a specially important fact. The change in position of the Vernal Point can be seen in the fact that the constellation in the following year rises earlier than the Sun and sets earlier, showing us that the Sun remains behind. I have pointed out that even the old Egyptians knew that if the circle is divided into 360 degrees, the Sun remains one day behind in 72 years. That is, in 360 times 72 years, or 25,920 years, it remains the whole circle behind, and returns to the star from which it started 25,920 years before.
- [6] - Thus we have the fact that in the Universe the stars travel round, and the Sun goes round — I will not go into the question as to whether this revolution is only apparent or not, the important point under consideration is that the Sun travels more slowly, remaining behind one degree of the cosmic circle in 72 years; and 72 years, as I have already indicated, is the normal maximum duration of a man's life. Man lives 72 years, exactly the period the Sun remains one degree behind the other stars.
[Jehovah vs Sun – Luciferic powers]
We have lost the right feeling for these things. Even as late as in the Hebraic Mysteries, the teacher still impressed very strongly upon his scholars that it is Jehovah who brings it about that the sun lingers behind the stars and, with the force which the Sun thus kept back, He fashioned the human form, which is His earthly image. Thus, mark well, the stars run their course quickly, the Sun more slowly, and so a slight difference arises which, according to these ancient Mysteries, was that which produced the human form. Man is born out of time, he is so born that he owes his existence to the difference in velocity between the cosmic day of the stars and the cosmic day of the Sun.
In modern parlance we should say: If the Sun were not in the Universe as it is, if it were just a star like other stars, having the same velocity as other stars, what would be the consequence? It would be that the Luciferic powers alone would rule. That this is not so, that man is able to withhold himself from the Luciferic powers with the whole of his being, is due to the circumstance that the Sun does not share in the velocity of the stars but lags behind them, not developing the Luciferic velocity but the velocity of Jehovah.
Again, if there were only the Sun velocity and not that of the stars, man would not be able to run on in front of the rest of his development with his mental powers, as he does at present.
[editor: so in fact the stars run ahead, the mental development runs ahead, see below]
Such a condition would not fit well into his whole evolution. In our time this is very striking. If we have studied Spiritual Science seriously, we know that a man of 36, for instance, understands things he could not at 25. Experience is necessary for the comprehension of certain things. This is not admitted today, for a man of 25 feels himself complete. He is only complete as regards mental powers, but not in experience, for experience is gained more slowly than understanding. If this were taken into account, we should not find that the young people of today have already formed their point of view, for they would know that they could not do so before acquiring a certain amount of experience.
Understanding travels with the stars, experience with the Sun.
- Assuming that human life is 72 years (unless events of Nature intervene causing Man to die older or younger), we say that it lasts the time the Sun takes to retrograde one degree. Why is this? The reason lies in a certain fine adjustment in the Cosmos. Our preliminary study obliges me to ask you to follow me for a little while into this domain.
- If we consider a lunar eclipse occurring in a certain year, then there will be a certain date when the eclipse can occur. The lunar eclipse occurs on the same date about every 18 years, and in the same constellation. There is a periodical rhythm in the lunar eclipse, a rhythm of 18 years. That is just a quarter of a cosmic day and just a quarter of a man's life. Man, if I may so express it, endures four such periods of darkness. Why? Because in the Universe everything is in numerical harmony. On the average, Man has in accordance with the rhythmic activity of his heart, not only 72 years of life, but 72 pulse beats, and approximately 18 respirations — again the quarter — in the minute. This numerical accord is expressed in the Universe by the rhythm between the 18 years — the Chaldean Saros period, so-called because the Chaldeans first discovered it — and the Solar period; and it is the same rhythm as is also to be found in man in the inner mobility between his respiration and his pulse-beats. Plato said, not without reason: ‘God geometrises, arithmetises’ ... Thus our 72 years of life, to which is co-ordinated also our heart and pulse activity, goes through the Saros period four times; because in our heart and pulse activity we have our breathing activity, as it were, four times over. Our whole human organism is constructed on the lines of the Universe, but we only see into its significance when we bear in mind another connection.
- As I said in one of the foregoing lectures, we only gauge correctly the movement of the Moon, its revolution round its axis, when we connect its revolution not with the day of the Sun, but with the day of the stars. If we have the solar time in view, we must consider a shorter time, 27.5 days for the revolution of the lunar day. I have told you that the Moon's revolution is not such as quite to accord with that of the Sun, but with the time of the stars. Hence we only understand our lunar movement aright when we do not think of it as belonging to the solar movement, but to that of the stars. In a certain sense therefore, the solar movement is outside the system to which the Moon and stars belong. Thus we are so situated in the Universe that
- on the one hand we are co-ordinated to the stellar-lunar system, and
- on the other to the solar movement.
- Here we see the gradual divergence of the solar and the stellar astronomy. As we have seen, if we have one astronomy only, everything falls into confusion. We can only reach a right understanding if, not limited to one astronomy, we say: On the one hand we have the starry system which, in a certain respect, contains within it the Moon; and on the other, the system to which the Sun belongs. They mutually interpenetrate. They work together. But we are wrong if we apply the same law to the two.
When we realise that we have two quite different astronomies, we shall say: The cosmic happenings in which we are involved have two origins, but we are so placed that these two streams flow together in us. They fuse in us human beings.
What is it then that takes place in us? Suppose that only what is admitted by the natural scientist took place in us — all sorts of things would take place in the human organism, movements of substances and so forth; these would extend over the whole organism, also to the brain and consequently to the senses. What then would the consequence be if the whole transmutation of substances which goes on in the human organism and which is inserted into the Cosmos as I have explained — if this metabolism were to extend to the brain?
We should never be able to have the consciousness that we ourselves think.
Oxygen, iron and other substances, carbon and so forth — of these we should say, in their mutual relations, ‘they think in us’. But as a matter of fact we are not conscious of any such thing. There is no question of its being in our consciousness. What we have as a fact of consciousness is the content of our soul-life. That can exist under no other hypothesis than that the whole of this quite material happening is demolished, is annihilated, and that in us there actually is no conservation of force and substance, but room is made by the annihilation of substance, for the development of the thought life. In fact, Man is the one arena in which an actual annihilation of substance takes place. We shall never realise it so long as we are only conscious of what is outside ourselves.
- [1920-05-14][10] - Now, if we start from the assumption that after 72 years the Sun lags one degree behind in the celestial sphere, that there is this difference of velocity between the movement of the stars and that of the Sun (which difference works in us, converges, as it were, in us); and if we then picture to ourselves how the formation of our head comes from the starry heavens, and how when we, according to a very beautiful saying, first ‘see the light’, we become involved in the Sun's movement,
(editor: interpretation: when a person is born, he/she starts to breathe, so leaves the world of the stars and ‘sees the light’, but the light is caused by Lucifer and the Sun.
- then we must say: There is in us a continual tendency to work with a lesser velocity over against the more rapid velocity of the stars. The action of the stars in us is opposed. What is the effect of this opposition? It is the destruction of what the stars bring about in us materially, its destruction; thus, the destruction of the purely material law comes about through the solar activity. [editor: think Christ event for Sun here .. and the downward descent into matter, the material influence, as the main drive caused by the stars .. or also think Ahrimanic for material, Steiner makes that drawing]
- Hence we may say: In our progress through the world as human beings, if we kept pace, as it were, with the stars, we should accompany them in such a way as to be subject to the material law of the Universe. But this we are not. The solar laws oppose it, they hold us back. There is something within us which holds us back. The resultant of the two activities in us could be exactly calculated, for instance, in the following case. (The calculation cannot be followed up here, first because it would take too long and secondly because you would not be able to follow it). Here, let us say, a certain movement occurs (arrow pointing downwards), i.e. a flow takes place with a certain velocity; and the stream then fuses with another stream — it must be assumed that the other flow is going not in the same but in the opposite direction (arrow upwards). The two streams flow therefore into one another. Or imagine a wind whirling with a certain velocity from above downwards, and another from below upwards, and they whirl into one another. If we take the difference of velocity between the downward and the upward current, relating the latter to the former in such a way that a difference in velocity results bearing the same relationship as the difference in velocity between the stellar time and the solar time, then through the rotation a condensation arises which receives its own distinct form. One whirls downwards, and because the other whirls upwards driving with a greater velocity, the lesser velocity would be that driving downwards, which gives here (see diagram) through the collision, a condensation, a certain figure. This figure, disregarding imperfections, is a silhouette of the human heart.
[Editor: interpretation: that these are etheric streams, and their condensation leads to the organs, see the table below]Thus, through the meeting of the Lucifer stream (editor: Sun) and the Jehovah stream (editor: speed of moon and stars), it is possible to construct exactly the figure of the human heart. It is constructed simply out of the revelations of the Universe. It is absolutely true; the Sun-movement is an expression of a slower movement which meets a quicker movement, and we are so inserted into the two movements that the silhouette of our heart arises; and on to it the rest of the human form is fitted.
Note .. also in the 1912 lectures or somewhere RS describes how the planets are the result of two opposing spiritual influences, that is the same as what we have here, it is a condensation as a result of two etheric streams
We see from this what Mysteries are actually hidden in the Cosmos, for as soon as we admit we have two astronomies, which work together in their results — what is the result? The human heart. The whole outlook of modern natural science is based on the fact that it does not distinguish these two streams from one another. This brings upon it the tragic fate, that the harmonious working is split apart, leaving on the one hand, the events in Nature, as reasoned by Julius Robert Mayer; and on the other hand, the ‘secondary results’, because people are unable to unite cosmically in thought what works together from these two streams. Thus for man's thinking the world falls asunder in two extremes.
Here lies the cosmic aspect of something tremendously significant in regard to the understanding of Man and the Universe.
[Discussion]
- [1920-05-14][10] - Now, if we start from the assumption that after 72 years the Sun lags one degree behind in the celestial sphere, that there is this difference of velocity between the movement of the stars and that of the Sun (which difference works in us, converges, as it were, in us); and if we then picture to ourselves how the formation of our head comes from the starry heavens, and how when we, according to a very beautiful saying, first ‘see the light’, we become involved in the Sun's movement, then we must say: There is in us a continual tendency to work with a lesser velocity over against the more rapid velocity of the stars. The action of the stars in us is opposed. What is the effect of this opposition? It is the destruction of what the stars bring about in us materially, its destruction; thus, the destruction of the purely material law comes about through the solar activity.
- [editor: think Christ event for Sun here .. and the downward descent into matter, the material influence, as the main drive caused by the stars .. or also think Ahrimanic for material, Steiner makes that drawing on 1921-07-03 see below]
Thus, through the meeting of the Lucifer stream and the Jehovah stream, it is possible to construct exactly the figure of the human heart.
Discussion
Note 1 - Embedded rhythms
In 25920 one finds three main but intertwined rhythms of breathing:
- (1) physical human breath,
- (2) sleeping/waking in rhythm of a day, and
- (3) physical/spiritual life, or ‘reincarnation’, consisting of the processes:
- (3b) ‘between death & rebirth’, and of
- (3a) ‘the unfolding physical life’.
The first two (1) and (2) are embedded into the third (3a) and we know them from our physical life on earth.
- (3a) is described in seven year phases, see the Seven year rhythm
- (3b) is described as the journey through the spheres to the midnight hour and the return descent through the spheres to earth.
In the topic Rhythmic pattern between death and new birth, another fundamental rhythm is described and added to the above: a similar rhythmical in/out cycle that takes place during (3b).
This Memory and love theme is described for normal life (3a) in 1918-08-18-GA183, not as much a rhythm as also the connection between Man and the Cosmos, with continuous interactions. Man operates between two boundary zones, which also represent the limits of Man’s knowledge with the current sensory consciousness. (see next day lecture 1918-08-19-GA183)
This describes the ‘operating zone’ of Man’s current mundane waking consciousness, as per the ‘bandpass filter’ concept described in the chapter on WorldView. The change in consciousness and the ‘letting down of the curtain’ (kali yuga, vs atavistic clairvoyance, ..) is described in 1918-08-19-GA183.
So it appears fundamental, working as invisible spiritual influences during (3a) .. but continuing similarly during (3b).
Note 2 - Regarding the Sun's movement through the zodiac
Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the Sun has an apparent movement through the twelve signs of the zodiac in approx 25.920 years. Thus the changing influences of different spiritual hierarchies in the signs of the zodiac cause vast changes for Earth and humanity.
This topic is covered extensively on the topic page Zodiac clock.
However when we contemplate this, it makes a big difference whether we stay in the worldview of mineral science of switch to the spiritual scientific worldview. The topic 25.920 can be a pivotal enabler to make this switch.
The quote below from 1924-06-04-GA236 is a helpful example (see Sun#1924-06-04-GA236 or longer quote Pentecost#1924-06-04-GA236)
Physical science speaks of a movement of the Sun; and it can do so, for within the spatial picture of the cosmos which surrounds us, we perceive by certain phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image of the true Sun-movement — an image cast into space.
If we are speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves in space; for space itself is being radiated out by the Sun. The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself.
And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created space. Outside of space it is a movement in time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the time-evolution of the Sun-Being.
Initiation experience shows how space and time are left behind in the formless archetypal higher spirit world. Hence the Sun is at the interface, as illustrated with Schema FMC00.498. Another way to approach this is intellectually, through the spiritual scientific study of evolution: with the Sun sphere we can link to the planetary stage of evolution of the Old Sun, related to the start of physical space as a result of the etheric emanation. See more on Old Sun and illustration Schema FMC00.293 on Evolution Module 3 - Integrating traditions.
Old draft notes
25920 can be like modern mystical key .. modern because it requires quite a bit of intellectual study to fully grasp its full extend, as exemplified by lectures of spiritual science by Rudolf Steiner or others.
It links to the precession of the equinoxes, and why this appears as an important message for mankind, even in the pyramids.
In our current worldview, Man is seen as an organism on a physical planet, a speck somewhere in a galaxy in a vast universe.
However, it can also be seen different .. as in: microcosmos and macrocosmos are linked and an integral unity
And that integral one cosmos is like a Cosmic fractal made up of spiritual hierarchies that manifest at different levels of complexity, or ‘beings’ .. at the same time.
As part of a living cosmos, we can see the solar system as a Being
We are a reproduction of the macrocosm
This is not merely a figure of speech, it is not merely mystically felt; but the wisdom-filled contemplation of the world teaches us that we, as Microcosms, stand within the Macrocosm. When we make such simple calculations as these — which can of course be arrived at by the most ordinary scientific methods of reckoning — then, if our hearts are sensitive to the secrets of cosmic existence and not mere blocks of wood, the saying “we are placed in the Universe” will cease to be abstract words, for we shall be fully alive to the fact.
Related pages
References and further reading
- on cosmic rhythms, see: Cosmic breathing#References and further reading
