Astronomy
Astronomy is the field of science involved with rational intellectual thinking and calculations about the stars and heavenly bodies. This in contrast with the original astrology, or astrosophy based on clairvoyant faculties of earlier cultural ages.
The spiritual scientific framework offers a different view of the cosmos as given contemporary mineral science. The latter only focuses on the element of 'earth' (physical matter) and radiation in a materialistic understanding of light and warmth. The dominant contemporary scientific framework builds strongly on theoretical thought-forms developed with mathematics on the assumption that the cosmos is material and plays in a timespace described by Euclidean geometry. This is an extrapolation which has no underlying justification or foundation, for background, see Top five problems with current science and Spectrum of elements and ethers
Astronomy is a crucial component of Man's worldview and the quest for meaning. See Meaning of life for explanations of 'teleology' (an explantion of purpose) and 'cosmogony' (a model concerning the origin and coming-into-existence of the cosmos and Man). See further Man's most important questions and Meaning of Free Man Creator.
In the mineral scientific worldview Man is but 'a speck in the vast universe', arising from physical laws and coicidences that gave rise to life. In the spiritual scientific worldview Man is the creation of the spiritual hierarchies and the crown of creation, on the way to become Gods.
The following main concepts make up the study of astronomy through observation and study of the celestial objects:
- Our 'solar system' consists, besides Earth, Moon and Sun, of the planets (and their moons), the planetoid belt, comets and asteroids or falling stars. Furthermore, historically especially, special importance was given to conjunctions and eclipses of the sun, moon, and planets.
- The 'world of the stars' is made up of constellations made up of stars as well as galaxies and nebulae. Observations also show the existence of what are called variable stars and temporary stars (supernovae - see stars).
- The advent of radio-astronomy in the 20th century has brought new sets of observations. This includes microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma ray telescopes. The experimental data can however not be separated from the worldview thinking and mathematical models and theories of the astronomers. Examples are background radiation, doppler shift, black holes, quasars, etc. See also Discussion area below.
The above astronomical observations can be grouped into three categories:
- human observer only (since millenia)
- supported with tools such as the astrolable, torquetum.
- observations with a telescope, at first visual (since approx. 1610 with Galileo)
- and later photographical (since 1840s) and with electronic CCD cameras (since 1970s)
- as well as spectroscopy (since say the 1880s)
- radio astronomy and interferometry (since approx. 1930s)
- and later outside of the earth's atmosphere via satellites (since the 1960s) for X-ray, gamma-ray, ultraviolet en infrared.
Mineral science interprets the observational data into a certain materialistic thought framework using a combination of deductive thinking and mathematics.
The spiritual scientific worldview relates these to
- the evolution of the spiritual hierarchies along the Twelve conditions of consciousness
- and their reflection in what we can observe in the macrocosmos, and this in the different Planes or Worlds of Consciousness
- taking into account the spectrum of elements and ethers to map the understanding about what is being measured and observed, and the implications it has, ao for the study of etheric Formative forces and Mathematics of the etheric
Aspects
- the current cosmos as observed from earth is interpreted by contemporary astronomy as existing from mineral physical matter and objects, but this is appearance only and all this belongs to the Earth stage of planetary evolution and will perish with the pralaya transition at the end of the current Earth stage (see Three dimensions of evolution). This includes the stars in the present form. (1915-06-22-GA157)
Inspirational quotes
.. astronomical science .. has a better opportunity than any other of being led back to what is spiritual.. There is a means, through what astronomy has to offer, by which such a return might easily be made ..
1915-06-22-GA157
... the external physical stars, the physical sun, the physical moon we see out there in the universe — that, too, is not the way physicists see it.
Physicists would be most surprised if they managed to get up to the sun, for they would find nothing at all of what they have construed [editor: as thought forms, created by human thinking, but not corresponding to reality] ...
We would not find what the physicists have construed; we'd find nothing at all by way of a physical body. It merely looks like that.
1924-06-01-GA240
we must get away from that abstract mentality which makes us think we are mere worms looking upwards from the Earth, believing only what the astronomers and astrophysicists have to say about the stars.
Illustrations
Schema FMC00.274 sketches a functional view on how we can imagine the work of the first and second spiritual hierarchy in hat we call the cosmos or the world of the stars and planetary systems.
FMC00.076 shows at a conceptual level what happens with the creation of a new solar system.
This is to be mapped to Schema FMC00.048 on Twelve Conditions of Consciousness and what happens at the border of CoC 7 to 9, see sacrifice and the reversal (see FMC00.187 on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension.
Note the below is to be read on a level of spiritual science, the physical mineral solar system perceived with our senses only came into being in the fourth Condition of Life of the current planetary stage Earth, see Schema FMC00.057C on Evolution of Earth.
Lecture coverage and references
Rudolf Steiner in the booklet 'Christmas'
Today when a human being, influenced by an abstract science of astronomy, looks at the starry heavens, these are filled with abstract material spheres. But these celestrial spheres will again become for the human being the bodies of souls and spirits. ...
We will experience the whole cosmos as warm and comforting just as we find the embrace of a friend warm and comforting, though of course we will experience the spirit of the cosmos as more majestic and sublime.
1915-06-22-GA157
Our stars, too — the external physical stars, the physical sun, the physical moon we see out there in the universe — that, too, is not the way physicists see it.
Physicists would be most surprised if they managed to get up to the sun, for they would find nothing at all of what they have construed. They'd be most surprised at what they saw there. What we would find if we ever could travel up there — in accord with the times it would have to be in a balloon that is still to be invented, in an ether balloon — we'd find the unexpected. We would not find what the physicists have construed; we'd find nothing at all by way of a physical body. It merely looks like that.
The sun, moon and stars are part of a whole that arose at some point after Old Moon evolution. After Old Moon evolution it was not only the Old Moon which perished but everything that is part of the visible universe entered into night. And everything there is in the universe today really belongs to the earth [planetary stage of evolution (editor)], so that the end of the earth [editor: pralaya] will not only mean the plant and animal kingdoms perishing with it but everything out there in the cosmos perishing as well. The stars in their present form will perish into night.
And then the Future Jupiter world will emerge. Its atoms will be the Saturn parts of present Man. Its environment will look very different from our earth environment.
1920-10-15-GA324A and 1921-08-26-GA324A
are about Copernicus' third law
1921-01-GA323
is the Third Scientific Course: Astronomy, consisting of 18 lectures
1921-11-06-GA208
It is true that in order to achieve freedom, humanity had to come to believe that a sphere of gases moved through the universe out there, though physicists who would be able to go there would be really surprised, for instead of a sphere of gases they would find an empty space, indeed less than space.
They would discover that the sun out there is not a sphere of luminous gases - which is a nonsense - but in the first place just a reflector, unable to radiate light and at most merely reflecting it.
In the spirit, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and the moon radiate light.
Physically the sun appears to be shining on them, but in reality they radiate light towards the sun, which acts as a reflector.
This is the physical reality.
The ancient Persians were still able to perceive the sun as the source of light for the Earth, but not an actual source but a reflector.
Later it became the reflector of life and the reflector of love. [editor: see also Threefold Sun]
title: 'Creating an astronomy based on the science of the spirit'
1924-06-01-GA240
quote A
When history is studied in this way, when we try to glean from the Mysteries and from secrets of the cosmos what is happening on the Earth, I do not think that the Earth's history loses significance thereby. Prosaic professors may always be insisting that it is much more to the point to depict Goethe as the Man he actually was in life, than to waft him away into a higher sphere! In richer epochs of evolution, when instinctive clairvoyance still survived, men spoke, openly as well, of how life in the heavens is revealed through human acts and human existence. In this respect we must get away from that abstract mentality which makes us think we are mere worms looking upwards from the Earth, believing only what the astronomers and astro-physicists have to say about the stars.
In our civilisation and culture, with all their heavy trials, it is urgently necessary to understand the battle that is being waged between men who strive for the Spirit in order to comprehend spiritual law in the cosmos, and men who have no desire for such knowledge, who limit themselves to the Earth, not only in the sphere of natural science but also in what is called ‘cultural’ or ‘spiritual’ history at the universities where documents alone are studied—for documents too are records only of happenings in the physical, material world. A decision will most certainly have to be taken in the course of Earth-evolution.
Either degeneration of the spiritual life will intensify, and an illness of which I have been speaking for years—even in public lectures—will become more and more widespread. Very little is said about it as yet in medical literature, but it will none the less exist in life—its name is Dementia professoralia (Academic dementia) - or the human being will have to unfold enthusiasm for knowledge of the supersensible. And this will also lead him to realisation of the connection between the cosmos and the life of Man.
quote B
In order to have more precise insight into how karma is formed, we must think of the following.
Stars—what are they, in reality?
Scientists speak of the stars as if they were orbs of burning gas or the like. It is by no means so!
Suppose you were on the planet Venus.
The Earth would then appear to you more or less as Venus appears to you now, and you would describe the Earth as you now describe Venus; you would estimate that on the Earth—which is the theatre of Man's existence—there are so and so many souls.
But wherever a star shines, there are souls!
- There are souls on the Moon: the souls of the great primeval Teachers, intermingled in a sense with the souls of the Angeloi.
- On Mercury there are the souls of the archangeloi, among whom we live when we pass through the sphere of the archangeloi. The God Mercury is an archangelic being.
- On Venus are the archai.
- And upon the Sun are the spirits of the Second Hierarchy [Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes], in whose company Man forms his karma.
.
We must see in the shining stars the outer signs of colonies of spirits in the cosmos. Wherever a star is seen in the heavens, there—in that direction—is a colony of spirits.
Discussion
Note 1 - Various notes
to be developed further
Interpretation of light and matter
In a spiritual scientific view as explained by the various planetary stages of evolution, see Overview of solar system evolution, the gradual unfoldment of the Spectrum of elements and ethers becomes clear. Light arose out during the Old Sun stage. Therefore, the fact that there is no light coming from a source we can perceive due to its impact does not have to be correlated at all to the existance of physical mineral matter as exists on Earth. See again: Top five problems with current science.
Timing and worldview
From the timeline of technology development above, it is apparent that most fundamental building blocks underlying our contemporary view of the universe are based on interpretation of and deductions by thinking and/or mathematics of observational data from the last 150 years.
Illustrative are the best available scientific evidence for the current Big Bang theory:
- 1920s: relativistic Doppler effect and redshift (Hubble's law, Friedmann equations, Lemaitre's expanding universe)
- 1960s: cosmic microwave background radiation
Examples of complex observational data
The following are examples of modern astronomical observations, whereby complex theories are put forth to try and explain the observations within the framework of the astronomical theories of mineral science.
SS433:
wikipedia states:
SS 433 is one of the most exotic star systems observed. It is an eclipsing X-ray binary system, with the primary most likely a black hole, or possibly a neutron star. The spectrum of the secondary companion star suggests that it is a late A-type star. SS 433 is the first discovered microquasar. It is at the centre of the supernova remnant W50.
Note 2 - Ponderings on astronomy
Introduction
In the anthroposopical foundation of spiritual science in the period 1904-1924, Rudolf Steiner expanded on Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theory of evolution based on natural selection (On the Origin of Species, 1859) and also Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) biogenetic law (1866, see also recapitulation theory).
Positioning
Upto the 19th century, the basis for astronomy was based on the observation of the heavenly bodies, their movement and influences. Especially in the millenium before, sensory observation of physical light was the basis for astronomy. In ancient times of atavistic clairvoyance this was different again.
- In the mineral scientific framework, light is considered as a wave-matter physical phenomena.
- In the spiritual scientific framework, light is a higher ether that condenses down into physical light, and the light we human beings see is due to Luciferic beings.
Since the 20th century, astronomy has ventured into the broadened spectrum of what is regarded as electromagnetic radiation, and constructed telescopes in an orbit around the Earth to observe beyond atmospherical diffraction
- from cosmic, gamma and X-rays on the one hand (above ultraviolet or UV)
- and microwaves and radio waves on the other side (below infrared or IR) of the visible spectrum.
.
Some examples of such modern telescopes are (see also wikipedia List of space telescopes)
- Fermi telescope (launched 2008) - 8 keV to 30 MeV / to 300 GeV, so gamma ray
- Chandra X-ray observatory (launched 1999) - 0.12 to12 nm (0.1–10 keV), so X-ray
- Hubble space telescope (launched 1990) - approx 90-2.500nm, expanded window centered on mainly visible light
- James Webb space telescope (launched 2021) - approx 600-28.500 nm, including infrared.
- Spitzer space telescope (2003-2020) - 3.000-160.000 nm, so deep infrared
.
This new source of observational data coincided with a shift in the scientific paradigm to the use of mathematics as the basis for conceptual theories (eg general relativity, quantum mechanics, etc) within a purely materialistic framework of mineral science. Hence radio astronomy and mathematics have become key to cosmological theories.
Foundational elements of 20th century cosmological theories
Big bang
The Big Bang theory was developed on the basis of, and rests on a foundational blocks of:
- cosmic background radiation and cosmic microwave background
- Hubble's law of cosmological redshift
- on the other hand: gamma bursts from the sun, and x-rays from neutron stars
black holes, cyclical universe
black holes - see Penrose cyclical universe Cosmic breath of Brahma
black holes matter disappears, is that not quite normal and to be expected .. as it arises, it also has to disappear into some singularity, which is what is described in the Three dimensions of evolution, at the end of the physical Condition of Form, and what Rudolf Steiner calls the 'seed' that is condensed into the pralaya stage.
Contemporary physics also comes up with theories that reality would not fully disappear into black holes, but that they could be seen as related to the appearance or disappearance of space and time.
scratchpad
listened to a famous professor astrophysics
who talks about telescopes, and with telescopes, we see matter
well, is that so, we see light, forms of radiation that have effect on or sensors
the universe consists of matter, time and space
how does he know so sure?
then goes on how string theorists are making up thoughts that have no relation to reality
'Lost in Math' ( Hossenfelder)
when you make high energy particles bounce into another, of course you can always find new ones because you make new ones
it's like with a set of atoms you can make numerous molecules
but spends an hour doing the same, without noticing
how the matter of the sun tells the planets to move etc
how gravitation works, is due to the properties of space, curvature etc ..
so it seems that space is a convenient word for what was meant in a previous century with ether
admits that most of the universe is dark matter and they have no clue what it is, but without it the formulas don't work (tensor calculus general relativity)
various
the physical matter studied by mineral science is maya due to ahrimanic influences
see also the five problems with science in Schema FMC00.275 on worldview
hence, the interpretative framework of all astronomical observations is vastly different
nebulae and galaxies*see comet statement 'astral hits etheric -> light'
- christ impact first astral then etheric finally visible light (substance)
- old sun light arising, what before? warmth .. and this light is not physical light
now considering: warmth - light - chemical - life
background radiation shows the sphere of warmth, which could map to the Old Saturn stage
gamma bursts from the sun could be the life ether
Related pages
References and further reading
- Elisabeth Vreede: 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science' (2007, letters 1927-30; first in DE in 1954 and first in EN in 1980)
- Joachim Schultz: 'Movement and rhythms of the stars - a guide to naked-eye observation of sun, moon and planets' (1986 in EN, original 'Rhythmen der Sterne' 1963 first in DE, third edition 1985)
- Hermann von Baravalle
- Der Sternenhimmel über und unter uns
- Die Erscheiningen an Sternenhimmel
- Ernst Hagemann: 'Sphärenwirken im Kosmos und auf der Erde'
- Norman Davidson: 'Sky phenomena - a guide to naked-eye observation of the stars' (1993)
- Nick C. Thomas: 'Space and counterspace - A new science of gravity, time and light' (2008)
- Chapter 11: Astronomy and cosmology
