Comets

Comets inject new impulses into the regular course of events within the normal rhythms and influences in the solar system development. They are astral objects that appear to and disappear from our sensory perception as they break through the boundaries of spacetime reality, their visibility arising from the friction caused by the astral body passing through etheric substance.

They are considered erroneously by mineral science as mineral-physical objects following elliptical orbits, along the laws of materialistic physical science.

Comets are alive, only the smallest parts of a comet consists of iron, and this is what we find in meteorites that are desintegrated comets. They fly into and are absorbed and 'eaten' by the Sun, which thus generates warmth.

Aspects

What

• Additional influences coming into the solar and planetary system: not just a body of physical matter in an orbit, as contemporary mineral science believes
  • Just as the movements of the planets circling the sun correspond to the regular events in the evolution of humanity, so the appearance of a comet corresponds to an influence that runs counter to the regular events.
  • Regularity, all that belongs to the common round, is connected with the lunar influence; the entry of an elemental impulse, always incorporating something new, is connected with the influence of the comets. In contrast to this regular course of events, there are things that always bring about a step forward, that are naturally distributed over wider spans of time; these events occur under the influence of the comets.

• How to see it?
  • the relation between our planetary system and the comets can be compared with what is there in the ovum of the female germ-cell, in its relation to the male element, the fertilizing sperm. The planetary system receives something new into itself, namely the effects of a comet .. just like the ovum receives into itself the fertilizing effect of the male cell, the spermatic zoid.

How many?

• “ .. Kepler said: in the great Universe there are as many comets as there are fishes in the ocean. We only see very, very few among them, while all the rest remain invisible either because they are too small or for some other reason.”

Nature of a comet, and orbit

• comets are alive, only the smallest parts of a comet consists of iron, and this is what we find in meteorites that are desintegrated comets. They fly into and are absorbed and eaten by the Sun, which thus generates warmth (1922-09-30-GA347)
• Comets appear visibly as they break through the boundaries of spacetime reality and then disappears again from sight as it dissolves and continues its way outside timespace.
  • comets do not follow elliptical orbits: "comets have very irregular orbits with respect to the regular [planetary] orbits .. the view that comets describe long ellipses is nonsense" (1924-09-15-GA346)
  • The comet comes into being and passes away; that is its very nature. Hence it can sometimes have apparent paths that are not closed at all — parabolic paths or hyperbolic, — for there is nothing moving round such as would have to move in a closed path. All that there is comes into being, and may well do so in a parabolic direction and then vanish and be no more. (1921-01-18-GA323)
  • Mostly all comets are a fleeting thing, it is not there to begin with, it comes into existence at every moment, then behind it melts away and vanishes again. In this way it thrusts forward — for ever coming into being on the one hand, passing away again upon the other.
  • It is not a body in the same sense as a planet is, — not at all. it is a phenomenon of compensation between ponderable and imponderable matter, — a meeting of the two kinds of matter, which do not immediately balance-out. It is a mutual friction of ponderable and imponderable matter that moves on through space, at every moment coming into being at every moment and passing away again.
  • they come in at the one side and disappear at the other, and when they reappear they have formed themselves anew.
  • When  the comet disappears from physical sight, it dissolves, and continues its way through a world not limited to the ordinary three dimensions of space; it no longer exists in the ordinary world. It actually disappears on the one side and appears again on the other.
• a comet it is a phenomenon of compensation between ponderable and imponderable matter, a meeting of the two kinds of matter, which do not immediately balance-out as when light extends in air. This arise in the two interpenetrating planetary spheres of the Earth (from which positive matter is raying out) and the Sun (towards which negative matter is tending), and Then, in the penetration of the one substantiality by the other you have the requisite conditions for such phenomena as comets to arise: a comet is a mutual friction of ponderable and imponderable matter that moves on through space.(1921-01-18-GA323)
• Note in terms of paths as per contemporary astronomy
  • the exception are a few comets which appear to have have long-drawn elliptical orbits (see note above, they do not follow a material ellipical orbits)
  • the paths of the comets frequently coincide with meteoric swarms which also play into the planetary solar system and present a riddle precisely through their association with the comets
• “A comet is an assemblage of Kama, desire-substance, without the corresponding spiritual substance. The comet gets as far only as the astral body. The visibility of comets arises from the powerful friction caused by the astral body passing through etheric substance.”
• link with the highest evil counterforces (Satan in the Book of Revelation):
  • whereas the regular orbits or the planetary spheres are regulated by the regular hierarchies (and archangels), "Satan is lying in wait for comets in the cosmos, and wants to use their orbits to replace cosmos with chaos. "; see quote below from 1924-09-15-GA346:
    • "Satan is a power who is continually lurking around in our cosmos. There is something sinister about this lurking of Satan. One can perceive this at the moments when one sees a comet shooting through our cosmos, with its different orbit. ... Satan lies in wait in order to catch every comet that comes along, and to use its momental inertia so that - when he has collected enough comets - he can throw the planets out of their orbits, and the Earth with them. This situation exists in the universe; Satanic powers are continually lying in wait so that they can transform the entire planetary system. Thereby this planetary system would be taken away from the divine, spiritual powers in whose footsteps men should be walking, and it would be taken into quite different directions of world evolution. ... . the mighty hosts which are led by Satan ... [are] still trying to use every cometary orbit in order to give a different configuration to the entire planetary system. Here one is dealing with an adversary of Christ who not only wants to corrupt individual human beings, and who doesn't just want to corrupt groups of human beings like the beast and the false prophet, but we have to do with Satan and his hosts and with direct attacks upon the Earth's connection with the planetary system. "

Functioning

• Astral 'garbage collector'
  • From men continuously stream out erroneous and evil thoughts which pass into the astral world and continue to exist there,  such that the astral sphere of a planet is filled not only by the normal substances of its psychic being but also by this out-poured substance . Everything of a cometary or meteoric nature is ever striving to collect round itself all the harmful astral products, and remove them out of the planetary system.
  • Process:
    • as a comet approaches, it exercises a power of attraction as a sort of spiritual force centre which attracts harmful astral streams, develops them around itself and thus takes on form.
    • In its journey towards ‘the other side’ it draws this along with it, until it gets beyond the region of the planetary system, when it casts it off into cosmic space.
    • Then the centre of force builds itself again ‘at the other pole’ without needing three-dimensional space, once more takes up the harmful matter and throws it out the other side.
  • Lifecycle
    •  The various comets have here their different tasks, and when a comet has served its purpose it splinters. Thus we find that from a certain point of time onward, some comets appear as two and then splinter. They dissolve when they have completed their tasks.
• Cyanide and astral cleansing:
  • Whereas the moon is a lunar body, which has gone too far in its evolution;  comets have remained at an earlier stage of evolution, and bring with it a renewal of the laws of the earlier Moon (as well as cyanides, as essential on the Old Moon as oxygen and carbon are necessary to us on earth)
  • Comets bring cyanide to the Earth, which via the sky becomes atomized on the earth and via the soil moves into roots and plants. Human beings then eat the competary deposit given to earth by the cosmos, and this cyanide substance is needed for the purification of astral bodies.

Effects

• every comet exerts a particular influence on human evolution: favourable effects from one comet and unfavourable effects from another. … The various comets have here their different tasks.
• A relationship is made with turning points in human history:  “Such things are exceed­ingly powerful realities, great and significant points in the evolution of humanity and of the Earth.”
• Examples: 
  • Biela’s comet: regency of Michael (end 1870s), the rise of the beast (1933) (1924-09-20)
  • Halley’s comet:  intense impulse towards materialism, different way of thinking (1910-03-05-GA118, 1910-03-09-GA116)
• Other
  • Effect on good and bad wine vintage years (19^th century research, Hegel, ..)

Comets and meteor showers

• comets disintegrate into meteorites, which consist of iron (comets themselves do not consist of iron) (1922-09-30-GA347)
• the effect of meteoric iron eg in the August meteor showers (1923-10-15-GA229)

Various other

• Rudolf Steiner's prediction from spiritual science that comets contain cynide, confirmed by physical mineral science (mentioned multiple times o.a. 1910-03-05-GA118, 1924-05-17-GA353, 1924-07-07-GA354, see quotes below)

Lecture coverage and references

1910-03-05-GA118

quote A

The comets appear at great intervals of time. Let us ask: when they appear, is their relation to human evolution as a whole such that they stimulate, as it were, the feminine principle in human nature? There is, for example, Halley's Comet, which now again has a certain actuality. The same could be said of many other comets.

Halley's Comet has a quite definite task, and everything else that it brings with it stands in a particular connection to this task. Halley's Comet — we are speaking here of its spiritual aspect — has the task of impressing on human nature its own special being in such a way that this human nature and essence take a further step in the development of the I when the comet comes near the earth. It is that step which leads the I out to concepts on the physical plane.

To begin with, the comet has its special influence on the two lower members of human nature, on what is masculine and feminine; there it joins company with the workings of the moon. When the comet is not there, the workings of the moon are one-sided; the workings change when the comet is present.

quote B

I would like to mention here parenthetically a noteworthy point, through which our spiritual scientific ways of studying have won a little triumph. Those who were present at the eighteen lectures on cosmogony that I gave in Paris in 1906 (see Note 2) will remember that I spoke then of certain things that were not touched upon in my book, An Outline Of Occult Science (see Note 3) (one cannot always present everything; one must not write one book but endless books if one wishes to develop everything).

In Paris I developed a point bearing more upon the material, chemical aspect of the subject, as it were. I said that the Old Moon evolution—which projects itself in present cometary existence, because the comet has remained at this stage and, as far as present conditions allow, expresses those old relationships in its laws—I said that this Old Moon evolution differs from that of the Earth in that nitrogen and certain nitrogenous compounds—cyanide, prussic acid compounds—were as necessary to the beings on the Old Moon as oxygen is necessary to the beings of our present Earth. Cyanide and similar substances are compounds that are deadly to the life of higher beings, leading to their destruction. Yet compounds of carbon and nitrogen, compounds of prussic acid and the like, played an entirely similar role to that of oxygen on the earth.

These matters were developed at that time in Paris out of the whole scope of spiritual science, and those who inscribed them in their memories will have had to say to themselves that, if this is true, there must be proof of something like compounds of carbon and nitrogen in today's comets.

You may recall (the information was brought to me during the lecture course on St. John and the other three Gospels in Stockholm) that the newspapers have now been saying that the existence of cyanide compounds has actually been proved in the spectrum of the comet.

This is a brilliant confirmation of what spiritual research was able to say earlier, and it has at last been confirmed by physical science.

As proofs of this kind are always being demanded of us, it is quoted here. When such a striking case is available, it is important for anthroposophists to point it out and—without pride—to remind ourselves of this little triumph of spiritual science.

1910-03-09-GA116

One who can investigate these things spiritually is able to indicate quite definitely the different functions of the separate comets, and how each one has to introduce something spiritually new into the world. Thus Halley's comet is one of those which, in its periodic appearances, always introduces something specially new into the life of man. Whereas otherwise things recur in the ordinary way, this comet brings about a new birth in human inner life and culture. I can only characterise what I mean, by referring to the three last appearances of Halley's comet, in the years 1759, 1835, and the one we are now expecting. What are the tasks of these three appearances? Other comets have other tasks. New births in the universe are not always to be greeted with the same joy as the birth of a young citizen into a family. All sorts are born into the universe; those that bring humanity forward as well as those that drive it back.

Now the appearance of Halley's comet, or what it signifies spiritually for the further evolution of humanity, is connected with that which humanity had to absorb out of the Cosmos at the various periods of Kali-Yuga in order that thought should descend more and more into materiality. With every new appearance of this comet a new impulse was born, to drive humanity further away from a spiritual cosmic conception by the I, and to urge it to grasp the world in a more materialistic way.

This does not mean a descent into matter, but rather the driving of that Spiritual substance which the human I should draw from the universe for its spiritual existence, down into the sphere of materialistic conception.

• All those conceptions of the second half of the 18th century, which are called shallow and superficial and which Goethe so ridiculed in his Truth and Poetry and which found their exponent for instance in Holbach's Systeme de la Nature, are understood in their cosmic sense through the appearance of Halley's comet in the year 1759.
• The commonplace materialistical literature of the second third of the 19th century was preceded by the appearance of that comet in 1835. Things that take place microcosmically on the earth are macrocosmically connected with events of the great world. A new impulse towards materialism was again given by the appearance of Halley's comet in 1835. Buchner, Vogt and Moleschott are examples of those who were influenced on the earth by what appeared with Halley's comet, as a mighty sign from the cosmos.
• We are now to be confronted in the near future — for humanity must be tested, must rise out of itself, must feel the resistance to spirituality so that it may unfold all the more forces for its re-ascent — we shall be confronted with the forces which the new appearance of this comet will send forth from the universe, forces which may lead humanity down into a still more arid and dreadful materialism. Something may be born, which even the most arid and driest thoughts of the Buchner school could not have imagined. But this possibility is a necessity, for only if man overcomes the opposing forces can he acquire the strong force able to lead him up again.

1912-04-10-GA136

After this we can also direct our attention to the comets, to cometary life. Now I do not doubt that if the characteristics of the planetary system, which we have just discussed, were heard in external science, this would be regarded as a very special folly; but that does not matter at all: Nevertheless with regard to cometary life things become particularly difficult — because the opportunity of observing cometary life is such that a certain impartiality of occult vision is necessary in order to observe this peculiar life in the planetary system.

It must not for a moment be supposed that in the whole planetary system there is nothing besides that which we have now called corpse, physical body, and etheric body; for of course every part is permeated by the beings of the various Hierarchies. Naturally there are spiritual-psychic forces everywhere and we need only grasp the fact that within the system are the Spirits of the Age, the Archangels and the Luciferic Beings; they all belong to it. We have now discovered in the planetary system the corpse, the physical body and the etheric body. From what we have now heard we can, of course, say that everywhere within the system there is also astral substance, which is organized into beings; for there is astral substance, even in the beings of the higher hierarchies. If we describe man — the microcosm — as he passes before us, we say: Man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc. If we describe a planetary system, we must only add something else to its lowest principle, and we must say: A planetary system consists of its moons (which are its corpse), its planets (which are its physical body), and of everything of which the fixed star is the director (which is its etheric body). The astral body we can find there of itself; we learn to know of it, by the fact that the beings dwell in it. Just as man dwells in his sheaths, so do the beings of the higher hierarchies dwell in the sheath of the corpse, in the physical sheath and in the etheric sheath of the planetary system. We need not at first trouble about the astral body, for we already have that by means of the esoteric-occult vision which is directed inwards. Yet even if you consider human life upon the earth, you will admit that by means of this human life — as you know from elementary Spiritual Science — there arise a number of astral beings, of astral forms, which are actually harmful, hindering to life. From man himself stream forth continually, erroneous, base, evil thoughts; these are, as we know, realities, which pass out into the astral world and continue to exist there; so that the astral sphere of a planet is filled, not only by the normal substances of its psychic being, but also by this out-poured astral substance. If we should only investigate all the harmful forces brought forth by the various Luciferic Spirits, we should find an enormous mass of harmful, astral substances in a planetary system. And in a curious way, the occult vision, which for a time has had the opportunity of observing cometary life, shows us that everything of a cometary or meteoric nature is ever striving to collect round itself all the harmful astral products, and to remove them out of the planetary system. We shall see further in the course of these Lectures how this affects in particular the harmful astral products of humanity; but we see that the noxious Luciferic evils are carried away through the comets out of the planetary system. Before concluding this lecture I should like to give you an idea of how this is done. If I draw a planetary system with its Sun, we can so indicate a comet passing through it, that its track crosses the system.

Physical astronomy says that the comet comes from very, very far away. When the beginning of a thing cannot be traced, it is easy to say that it comes from very, very far away. So physical astronomy also says — the comet comes from very far away and it also returns to a very great distance. Now because certain comets return periodically, physical astronomy cannot think otherwise than that these comets come from far away, pass through our system and again disappear; follow a very long path in cosmic space, and then come back again. Materialistic astronomy cannot imagine anything else. Occult vision shows us, that, however, as a matter of fact, just about when the comet disappears from physical sight, it dissolves, and continues its way through a world not limited to the ordinary three dimensions of space; it no longer exists in the ordinary world. It actually disappears on the one side and appears again on the other. This is a conception of which, naturally, the materialistic astronomy can make no use; it cannot conceive that a comet, when it again reappears, has not been in existence in the meantime. The Anthroposophist should be able to understand something of such things; for he knows, for example, that the succession of physical bodies of the human incarnations, form a complete whole in certain respects, from the force-aspect; and yet they are not connected physically. Thus, in short, with the exception of a few comets which really have long-drawn elliptical orbits, the comets for the most part are so formed that they come in at the one side and disappear at the other, and when they reappear they have formed themselves anew. Why? Because as a comet approaches, it exercises a power of attraction — it is, at first, merely a sort of spiritual force center; this center attracts all the harmful astral streams, develops them round itself and thus takes on form. We shall hear in the next lecture why it has a tail and a nucleus under the influence of this drawing-up of harmful astral matter. It attracts more and more of this around it, as it passes through the planetary system. In its journey towards the other side it draws this along with it, until it gets beyond the region of the planetary system, when it casts it out into cosmic space. Then the center of force builds itself again at the other pole without needing three-dimensional space, once more takes up the harmful matter and throws it out on the other side. Thus we must regard cometary life as something which continually works as a thunder storm in the planetary system, cleansing it. By the passage of a comet through the planetary system an effort is made to discharge from it the injurious matters which have been called forth in the system by the harmful astral radiations of the beings. Thus we have something in the cometary life of which we cannot, as in the physical and etheric bodies, find an analogy in man himself. The physical body of the planetary system is the totality of the planets. The etheric body is that which, raying out from the fixed star, streams through the system; but in physical man it is not the case that he carries his corpse about with him, as the planetary system does. On the other hand, it has an arrangement for getting rid of the evil astral matter by means of its comets.

Now if we study what exists in the comet only as maya, yet which is active within it as force, it is extremely difficult to connect with it what we have learnt in the course of these lectures. I have described to you, for example, how one may ascend to the Thrones, and how this can only be done by studying the human will. If this study is undertaken with occult means, one can raise oneself up to the Thrones. But in the comets there is nothing at all to be found, either of the Spirits of Wisdom or the Thrones. We find in the comets nothing which would be attainable by any other than those occult methods which I mentioned in former lectures. These are such methods as proceed from the fact that we study a man who is not merely a thinking, feeling and willing human being, but one who can give us a special impression. We described how this impression can be obtained by allowing ourselves to be influenced by a man who has behind him decades of rich experience of life; whose wisdom, as an extract of all this experience, makes an impression upon us and does more than can be done by arguments of a logical or more rational sort. The actual power of conviction of the wisdom derived from human experience, is so impressive that, developed by occult vision, the spiritual can actually be seen through it; that first gives our occult vision an idea of the Cherubim. If we further school this occult vision on the direct convincing effect of the unspoken wisdom and strength of such a man, whereby what he has gained through his experience of life is displayed in his eyes, we then gain an understanding of the impression we need for the sphere of the Seraphim. But the impression which we can thus obtain does not yet lead us to the observation of the spiritual behind the comets. All this is of no avail for an occult study of the comets. Only the two methods leading to the Cherubim and Seraphim can give us an elucidation of the comets. The sphere of the comets extends to the sphere of the Cherubim. We must therefore first know what is the nature of the Cherubim and Seraphim, in order to understand the substance and movement of the comets. The evolution of the comets is therefore dependent upon the beings of the higher hierarchies down to the Cherubim; the evolution of the fixed star is dependent on the beings of the higher hierarchies down to the Spirits of Wisdom; the evolution of the planet itself, apart from the human being who dwells upon it, is dependent upon the forces proceeding from the higher hierarchies down to the Spirits of Form; and that which works on the moon is dependent on the forces which proceed from the higher hierarchies down to the Archangels. Thus we have described the life of a planetary system from various sides, and can build further upon this foundation in the subsequent lectures. To be sure, we must specially note that we can never grasp these matters by means of merely mechanical definitions. How often has it been said that every microcosm corresponds to a macrocosm! We may call man a microcosm, a solar system in miniature; but if we wish to point out the correspondence, we must not stop at these abstract assertions, but must proceed so far with the concrete connection that one realizes that such mechanical descriptions have but an approximate value in the world. If we begin by describing the microcosmic man from the physical body upwards, as the being standing immediately before us, we must in the planetary system begin by describing the corpse, and must also find in the physical system the substances of the cometary bodies, which are the external expression for the purifying astral thunder-storms in the planetary system.

1912-04-14-GA136

These Spirits of Will belong to the First Hierarchy (though their offspring are not so far advanced that they can be reckoned with it), these Spirits of Will or their offspring give forth that which becomes the group-ego of the minerals, and which, in fact, works into the planetary system. This also coincides with the fact that simultaneously with the out-pouring of the substance of the Spirits of Will, begins the formation of the planetary system on ancient Saturn which was brought about by the Spirits of Will. They still work in the same way at the present time as when the first embodiment of our earth was built up out of the Universe by these beings.

We can really only see these Spirits of Will when, having become Luciferic, they reveal themselves in a sense in certain phenomena which we find as minerals in the sphere of the earth, and which come, as it were, from cosmic space. The cosmic origin, the super-earthly origin of what we are now considering, is revealed by the fact that when these Spirits of Will thus work in they combine — very, very easily with that which works into the planetary system as the cometary and meteoric beings — as cometary or meteoric life.

We have pointed out what meaning this life has in the planetary system. I should like at least to indicate that in reality a comet is something which comes in from outside, but which makes certain combinations. In as much as the comet travels through the planetary system it combines with the mineral kingdom which also arises through the Spirits of Will. And the result may be that as the comet rushes through the planetary system it attaches mineral substance to itself, which is then attracted by the earth and falls down upon it. This of course is not the comet, but rather does it announce its approach to the earth by a fall of meteors taking place.

These things are absolutely in accord, and if certain things appear to contradict what was represented earlier, we must always understand that these contradictions will solve themselves if everything is taken into consideration and studied. This was only an, example to show that in the planetary system we really have to do with influences working in from the cosmos. These group-souls of the minerals work in the form of rays from without inwards. And since various modes of operation come from the various aspects of space, for space is not homogeneous, these group-souls of the minerals, which belong to the sphere of the Spirits of Will, ray towards us from different sides in the most varied manner. Now through the cooperation of what comes from the planets for the minerals, what comes from the sun, and what streams in from the universe from the various directions arises the possibility that not only have those basic types already mentioned come into existence in the mineral kingdom, but all sorts of other forms, all sorts of differently modified substances of the mineral kingdom have been formed. The kind of substance a mineral exhibits simply depends on the way the forces which come from the planets are again influenced by other forces either streaming astrally to the earth from the sun, or from various directions of cosmic space. The variety and multiplicity of the mineral kingdom can be understood in this way.

1921-01-08-GA323

The planetary orbits can be brought into accord with the force of gravity very nicely, even as to their genesis, but their periods of revolution would then have to be commensurable. Now there is something which cannot be brought into accord with the force of gravitation, and which moreover does not so tidily fit into our planetary system. I mean what reveals itself in the cometary bodies. The comets play a very strange part in the system, and they have recently been leading scientists to some unusual ideas.

...

So for the comets: By spectroscopic investigation and by comparison with the corresponding results for the planets, the idea arose that the phenomena might be explained electromagnetically. Such ideas will at most lead to analogies, which may no doubt have some connection with the reality, but which will certainly not satisfy us if we are looking into it more deeply.

Yet as I said, leaving this aside, there was one thing which emerged quite inevitably when the phenomena of comets were studied in more detail. While for the rest of the planetary system they always speak of gravitational forces, the peculiar position of the comet's tail in relation to the Sun inevitably drove the scientists to speak of forces of repulsion from the Sun — forces, as it were of recoil. The terminology is not the main point; it will of course vary with the prevailing fashion. The point is that science was here obliged to look for something in addition to — and indeed opposite to gravity.

In effect, with the comets something different enters our planetary system, — something which in its nature is in a way opposite to the inner structure of the planetary system as such. Hence it is understandable that for long ages the riddle of the comets gave rise to manifold superstitions. Men had a feeling that in the courses of the planets laws of nature, inherently belonging to our planetary system, find expression, while with the comets something contrary comes in. Here something disparate and diverse makes its way into our planetary system. Thus they inclined to see the planetary phenomena as an embodiment of normal laws of nature, and to regard the cometary apparitions as something contrary to these normal laws. There were times — though not the most ancient times — when comets were associated, as it were, with moral forces flying through the universe, scourges for sinful man.

Today we rightly look on that as superstition. Yet even Hegel could not quite escape associating the comets with something not quite explicable or only half explicable by ordinary means. The 19th century, of course, no longer believed the comets to appear like judges to chastise mankind. Yet in the early 19th century they had statistics purporting to connect them with good and bad vintage years. These too occur somewhat irregularly; their sequence does not seem to follow regular laws of nature. And even Hegel did not quite escape this conclusion. He though it plausible that the appearance or non-appearance of comets should have to do with the good and bad vintage years.

The standpoint of the people of today — at least, of those who share the normal scientific outlook — is that our planetary system has nothing to fear from the comets. Yet the phenomena which they evoke within this planetary system somehow have little inner connection with it. Like cosmic vagrants they seem to come from very distant regions into the near neighborhood of our Sun. Here they call forth certain phenomena, indicating forces of repulsion from the Sun. The phenomena appear, was and wane, and vanish.

[Kepler]

There was a man who still had a certain fund of wisdom where by he contemplated the universe not only with his intellect but with the whole human being. He still had some intuitive perception of the phenomena of the heavens. I refer to Kepler. He was the author of a strange saying about the comets — a saying which gives food for thought to anyone who is at all sensitive to Kepler; way of though and mood of soul. We spoke of his three Laws — a work of genius, when one considers the ideas and the data which were accessible in his time. Kepler arrived at his Laws out of a feeling for the inner harmony of the planetary system. For him it was no mere dry calculation; it was a feeling of harmony. He felt has three planetary Laws as a last quantitative expression of something qualitative — the harmony pervading the whole planetary system. And out of this same feeling he made a statement about the comets, the deep significance of which one feels if one is able to enter into such things at all.

Kepler said:

In the great Universe — even the Universe into which we look by night — there are as many comets as there are fishes in the ocean. We only see very, very few among them, while all the rest remain invisible, either because they are too small or for some other reason.

Even external research has tended to confirm Kepler's saying. The comets seen were recorded even in olden time and it is possible to compare the number. Since the invention of the telescope ever so many more have been seen than before. Also when looking out into the starry heavens under different conditions of illumination — that is to say, making provision for extreme darkness — a larger number of comets are recorded than otherwise. Even empirical research therefore comes near to what Kepler exclaimed, inspired as he was by a deep feeling for nature.

Now if one speaks at all of a connection between the cosmos and what happens on the Earth, it surely is not right to dwell one-sidedly on the relation to our Earth of the other planets of our system and to omit the heavenly bodies which come and go as the comets do. It is especially one-sided since we must now admit that the comets give rise to phenomena indicating the presence of quite other forces — forces opposite in kind to those to which we usually attribute the coherence of our planetary system. The comets do in fact bring something opposite into our system, and if we follow it up we must admit that this too is of great significance. Something in some way opposite in nature to the force which holds it together, comes with the comets into our planetary system.

1921-01-18-GA323

If we now follow up this very contrast, not in the way of speculation but in the actual seeing and contemplating of the phenomena, we shall be led to recognize that what we call a comet, a cometary body, is not a body at all in the same sense that a planet is. (What I am giving her, I give once more as guiding lines which you can verify for yourselves. You need only observe the empirical data. Observe them with the greatest possible precision, but do not cling to the theories with which so many scientists would fetter them — theories that lie like shackles upon the facts, You will convince yourselves: what I am about to say is verifiable. It will be verified increasingly, the more the given facts are put together.)

Truth is that in studying the cometary phenomena we get into difficulties if we conceive the cometary body too in the same way as we are wont to think of a planetary body. The planetary body (I refer again to the same question of principle and method as in an earlier lecture), — the planetary body you may represent as though it were a self-contained body moving on in space. You will not go much against the facts in so conceiving it. Not so a cometary body. Again and again you will find yourself in contradiction to the phenomena if you conceive it after the same pattern as the planetary body. You will never understand the cometary body, in the way it moves — or seems to move — through cosmic space, if you regard it as you are accustomed to regard the planetary body.

See what becomes of it on the other hand it you regard it as I shall now describe. Take all the empirical facts that are available and try to thread them on this line of thought. Imagine that in this direction (Fig. 6) — towards the Sun, as we may say — the comet comes into being at every moment. It is for ever coming into existence in this direction. It pushes towards its cometary nucleus, or what appears as such. Behind, it melts away again. In this way it thrusts forward — for ever coming into being on the one hand, passing away again upon the other. It is not a body in the same sense as a planet is, — not at all. It is perpetually coming into being and passing away again — renewed in front, accruing all the time in this direction; losing the old at its tail. It pushes forward like a mere effulgence, a mere phenomenon of light; but please, I do not say that that is all it is.

And now remember what we were saying a few days ago. There is not merely the Moon up there and the Earth here (Fig. 7), but every planet has a certain sphere, and what we see is only a point at the periphery of the said sphere. The true Moon is the sphere, bounded by the lunar orbit. We, with the Earth, are in the Lunar Sphere. So also, in a certain sense, are we in the Solar Sphere and in the spheres of all the planets. The planets are not merely what is out there, moving in lemniscates, — what is at yonder point or yonder at any given moment. The visible point is only a specialized part of the whole; it is, as I was saying, like the ares of germination in the germinal vesicle of the human embryo.

If you remember this, then you will say to yourselves: Here now I have the Earth and the Sun. In fact, two spheres are interpenetrating, thrusting into each other, — spheres which are really due to materialities of opposite tendency and kind.

• The one comes from the centre of the Sun, towards which negative matter is tending;
• the other from the centre of the Earth, from which positive matter is raying out.

Positive and negative materialities are interpenetrating here. Naturally, the interpenetration will not everywhere be homogeneous. Not even clouds that move through one another would interpenetrate homogeneously. It is essentially inhomogeneous. Imagine how, in this mutual penetration, the different densities will impinge on one another.

Then, in the penetration of the one substantiality by the other you have the requisite conditions for such phenomena as comets to arise. Comets are ever-nascent phenomena, perpetually coming into being, passing away again; and if we draw our ideal picture of a planetary system, say the Copernican picture, with the Sun here and Uranus and Saturn here (Fig. 8), we have not to imagine that the comet is arriving there from some great distance and then making its departure. Out there — outside the system — we need not imagine it to exist at all, It is not there to begin with, but becomes; then, at the perihelion, changes the gesture of its form, which is in fact ever-becoming, ever-nascent. Out there at last it melts away again and is no more

The comet comes into being and passes away; that is its very nature. Hence it can sometimes have apparent paths that are not closed at all — parabolic paths or hyperbolic, — for there is nothing moving round such as would have to move in a closed path. All that there is comes into being, and may well do so in a parabolic direction and then vanish and be no more.

Altogether, we must look upon the comet as a fleeting thing. In relation to Sun and Earth, it is a phenomenon of compensation between ponderable and imponderable matter, — a meeting of the two kinds of matter, which do not immediately balance-out as when light extends in air. For in the latter instance too, there is a meeting of the ponderable and the imponderable; here however they spread continuously, homogeneously as it were, — do not impinge on one another. Take for example air, with light of a certain intensity passing through it. The light spreads homogeneously; but if so be the light does not adapt itself to the air quickly enough, a kind of inner friction will ensue between the ponderable and imponderable matter; only I beg you not to understand this in a mechanical sense but as an inward process (Fig. 9). Follow the comet in its movement. It is a mutual friction of ponderable and imponderable matter that moves on through space. It comes into being at every moment and passes away again.

1922-09-30-GA347

.. every year a certain number of celestial bodies that are like comets fly into the sun. You see, those are the food the sun takes in. Even to this day, when we look up to the sun, we can see that the sun has a healthy appetite; it consumes a large number of comets every year. Just as we eat and thus develop energy, so the sun eats comets, so to speak, and thus develops warmth.

Now when comets have shattered and fallen down to earth, we find their hard iron cores. But these are only the parts of the comet that fall down. We humans also have iron in our blood. If a person were broken to pieces somewhere like a comet, and only the iron of his body fell down, people would probably say, 'There is something up there that lit up for a time and evidently consists of iron.'

Since comets disintegrate into meteorites, which consist of iron, people say that the comets themselves are made of iron. But this is the same nonsense as believing that human beings consist of iron just because they have iron in their blood and a small lump of iron would be all that's left after they disintegrate. So we find meteorites: they are the remains of shattered comets.

But the comets themselves are something quite different; they are alive! The sun, too, is alive, has a stomach, and not only consumes comets but eats exactly like we do.

Our stomachs also contain iron. If you eat spinach, for instance, you do not notice that it contains iron in a certain form. ..

If the comets consisted merely of iron, and then fell into the sun, you would see how quickly all of it would be excreted again. You would then observe an entirely differ­ent process. If what some people say were true and comets consisted only of iron, one would probably have to set up a giant toilet in space! It is of course quite different; only the smallest part of a comet is iron. Yet it is true that the sun consumes them.

1923-10-15-GA229

talks about the August meteoric showers bringing a Michaelic iron impulse

This counter-force is seen in those remarkable products which from time to time fall on to the Earth as products of the cosmos and contain meteoric iron. If you look at a piece of meteoric iron, you have in it a remarkable witness of the iron dispersed in the cosmos. In the shooting stars which come so frequently in August and bring iron into special activity, as it were, in the cosmos, we see revealed this counter-force of Nature acting against the desire-element which by that time is out there in the cosmos. And in this cosmic iron, condensed to meteoric stones, we have the arrows which the cosmos sends out against the animal desire element which, as I have just described, is cosmically manifest.

So we can look with understanding and reverence upon the wisdom-filled guidance of the cosmos. We know, of course, that man needs this animal desire nature, precisely because in overcoming it, and not otherwise, he can develop the forces that first make him fully human. And man could not have this desire nature, this animalising element, if the same animal desire element were not a part also of the cosmos. The sulphur, then, the sulphurous Ahrimanic element is, as it were, one pole out in the cosmos, and the arrows discharged by the Cosmos through space to combat this sulphurous element are concentrated in meteoric iron — in the meteoric projectiles, so to say, of the universe.

Now man is a true microcosm, really a little world. Everything that manifests in the great world outside in gigantic and majestic phenomena such as the phenomena of meteors, manifests also within, in the inward nature of what he is himself as physical being. For this physical being is only an expression, a manifestation, of his spiritual being. And so in a certain way we bear within ourselves, starting from the animal lower nature, the sulphurous element.

We must say to ourselves:

• this sulphurous Ahrimanic element storms through the human organism, stirs up his desire-nature, stirs up his emotions. We feel it within us; we behold it at high summer-time in the cosmic desire-covering above our heads.
• But we also behold how into this over-arching cosmic desire-covering there shoot the iron arrows of the meteoric phenomena, cleansing and clarifying it, acting as an opposite pole to the animal-like desire-nature. For through this shooting in of the meteoric iron arrows from the cosmos, the animal desire-covering of high summer time above us is purified.

And what takes place in majesty and grandeur out there in the great cosmos, goes on continually also in us. We produce tiny iron particles in our blood, in combination with other substances, and while, on the one hand, there pulses through our blood the sulphurising process, there works against it inwardly, meteorically, as the other pole, the iron inside us, bringing about the same process as is effected outside in the cosmos by the meteoric iron. We can then so picture man's relationship to the cosmos that in the flashing meteoric element we find the cosmic counterpart of what within us is a million upon million-fold flashing forth of the meteoric element that sets us free by means of the iron in our blood, cleansing and clarifying us from the sulphurising process which is also active in the blood itself.

Thus we are inwardly a copy of the cosmos. In the cosmos this process is accomplished during the height of summer; man, because he stands within Nature as one emancipated from her in regard to time, has continually midsummer as well as the other seasons in himself, just as he has within him in the continuity of memory his former experiences. Outwardly they have vanished, but inwardly they remain. So is it too with what is present in Man as Microcosm in relation to the Macrocosm. What he thus carries in his physical body, however, he must grasp in soul and spirit, must become able to experience it within himself; Man must learn to experience this meteoric shag of the blood-iron into the blood-sulphur as freedom, or initiative, as the strength of his will. Otherwise it remains an animal or vegetative process in him at the best. What precisely constitutes our becoming [a] human being in soul and spirit is that we grasp the processes which go on in us, such as this iron-sulphur process, with our soul and spirit, that we send the soul and spirit into them as an impulse. Just as when we have made an instrument and know how to handle it properly, we are able to perform something by means of it, so can we turn to the service of our will what works and lives in us as does this process of iron and sulphur, when once we know how to handle it; when, as human beings, we can handle and make use of what goes on as living processes within our body.

1923-10-24-GA351

• about the nature of comets
• comet atmosphere <-> cyan acide <-> willing
• comets and meteors as bringers of potassium cyanide

1924-05-17-GA353

This was something people did not know before. Carbon and nitrogen combine to form cyanide, prussic acid. Carbon and nitrogen would thus have to be found also in comets. I said this in Paris in 1906. But a short time after this I was on a lecture tour in Sweden and all the papers brought the surprising news that spectroscopic analysis had shown comets to contain cyanide. You see, people are always saying that if anthroposophists know something they should say so, so that it may later be confirmed. There have been many such instances. Honestly, I predicted the discovery of cyanide in comets in 1906! It was made soon after. You can see, therefore, that these things are correct, for the truth will be confirmed in due course, if one sets about it in the right way.

1924-07-07-GA354

The comets are to the Earth what the child is to the old Man. And if the Earth once had prussic acid, the comets must now have it, they must have hydrocyanic acid! If with today's body one were to touch a comet, one would instantly die. It is diluted prussic acid that is in them.

I said in Paris in 1906 that this follows from the premises of spiritual science. Those who acknowledge spiritual science accepted my statement even though it astonished them.

Then later, a fairly long time afterward, a comet made its appearance. By that time people had got the necessary instruments and it was then found by ordinary scientific methods that comets do have cyanide, prussic acid, as I had said in Paris in 1906.

1924-09-15-GA346

is in context of the three falls described in the Book of Revelation, and the counterforces and the fall of the adverse power called Satan in this lecture:

Now Michael has a different standpoint than human beings do, and it's no wonder that his opinion about Satan is quite different from that of men. Human beings tend to be rather abstract, and they think that Satan is an evil power. But he is also a great power from the viewpoints which are important for the earth, a great power that has gone astray. And archangel Michael does not have the rank of Satan, who is at the level of a principality or an archai; Michael is only an archangel. Satan is a very terrifying power from Michael's standpoint and not a despicable one, because he thinks that this power who belongs to the archai is higher than he is. Except that Michael holds views which are in line with Earth evolution.

With respect to everything which is connected with the orbits of the planets, Michael decided a long time ago to travel in the orbits which are prescribed by the sun's existence.

Satan is a power who is continually lurking around in our cosmos. There is something sinister about this lurking of Satan. One can perceive this at the moments when one sees a comet shooting through our cosmos, with its different orbit (drawing).

If one draws it according to Copernicus which is not quite correct, although it doesn't make much difference here one has sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars; those are the inner planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune — one can see that such comets have very irregular orbits with respect to these regular orbits. The view that these comets describe long ellipses is nonsense, but we don't have to go into that now. But in any case, the segments of the cometary orbits which lie within our planetary system do not agree with the planetary orbits at all.

And so this Satan lies in wait in order to catch every comet that comes along, and to use its momental inertia so that - when he has collected enough comets - he can throw the planets out of their orbits, and the Earth with them. This situation exists in the universe; Satanic powers are continually lying in wait so that they can transform the entire planetary system. Thereby this planetary system would be taken away from the divine, spiritual powers in whose footsteps men should be walking, and it would be taken into quite different directions of world evolution.

This intention is a terrible mistake from Michael's point of view, but an intention about which Michael would have to say: I couldn't even do it, for it would be impossible for a being who is in the archangel class to do something like that. Only beings who are in the archai class might have enough forces to carry out something along these lines.

Michael — who decided to move in the sun's orbit a long time ago, and who therefore (in the sense of the Ptolemaic system) has become what is known in occultism as an archangel of the rotation of time for the planets and has decided to remain entirely within the orbital periods.

The angels had to decide to remain in these scheduled orbits at some point. In a certain epoch of Atlantean evolution the gods descended into the mystery centers, and one could really perceive that the hosts of archangels which include Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel and so on, resolved to move within the prescribed planetary orbits. So this came about at a certain time.

However, the mighty hosts which are led by Satan have not made this decision up to the present time and they're still trying to use every cometary orbit in order to give a different configuration to the entire planetary system. Here one is dealing with an adversary of Christ who not only wants to corrupt individual human beings, and who doesn't just want to corrupt groups of human beings like the beast and the false prophet, but we have to do with Satan and his hosts and with direct attacks upon the Earth's connection with the planetary system, as it were. This will have to be the third fall. In both of these last two falls we again have the rejoicing of the Luciferic kind of spiritual beings.

...

For one will be able to speak of comets and one can already speak about them today to the effect that Satan is lying in wait for them in the cosmos, and that he wants to use their orbits to replace cosmos with chaos. For if you take what can be gained through anthroposophic understanding into yourself and you can discover it again in the Apocalypse, there is something important about this rediscovery. A kind of 'soul encounter with the Apocalypse' and therewith the Apocalypticer himself is present in this; that is important, — thereby with the Apocalypticer himself. For this will be very important, that the priest who is living into the future should increasingly get the longing to meet the Apocalypticer who looked into the future in this way after the Mystery of Golgotha, — the Apocalypticer at any time, regardless of whether he is living on Earth or not.

1924-09-20-GA346

covers Biela's comet and cyanide in comets

Let's look at Biela's comet of 1872. Fire falls from heaven; the Earth absorbs it, so that someone who can percelve these things spiritually sees that something comes up again and influences Man's astral body in a favorable or unfavorable way. Some comets have a therapeutic effect upon men's nerves, and others which the Earth absorbs unleash wild astral forces in man when, they press upwards again.

...

So this shower of light was there in the 1870s. The comet's activity was much more spiritual in 1872 when it was supposed to came back, than in its previous appearance's; it was almost entirely a spiritual activity. The comet has poured down upon the earth as a shower of luminous meteors ever since, and the earth absorbs them. And Michael approached the earth and began to rule it in a shower of golden light at the end of the seventies.

Here you have events in nature that are really spiritual events, or spiritual events that are strong enough to be nature events. You will only arrive at a real insight into the way that the world is designed if you see that all natural events become spiritual events, and that all spiritual occurrences have the intensity of natural occurrences. Then you will connect moral things with natural things in evolution and you will no longer say that faith should be the only content of religious life and you will be more inclined to make knowledge the content of religious life. That is something you can gain through a more intensive study of the Apocalypse.

Discussion

Note 1 - Specific comets and related meteor storms

1.1 - Biela and the Andromedids

Best known for incredible displays of several thousand meteors per hour on November 27 of 1872 and 1885, today's Andromedids are only weakly represented by displays of less than three meteors per hour around November 9 to 14.

Since the 19th century the Andromedids have faded so substantially that they are no longer generally visible to the naked eye, though some activity is still observable each year in mid-November given suitable detection equipment.

In recent years peak activity had been less than three meteors per hour, with spikes of 30-50 meteors per hour in years as 2008.

From Wikipedia (2014-07)

The Andromedids (AND) meteor shower is associated with the comet 3D/Biela, the showers occurring as Earth passes through old streams left by the comet's tail. The comet was observed to have broken up by 1846; further drift of the pieces by 1852 suggested the moment of breakup was in either 1842 or early 1843 when the comet was near Jupiter. The breakup led to particularly spectacular showers in subsequent cycles (particularly in 1872, 1885).

The first known sighting of the Andromedids was December 6, 1741 over St Petersburg, Russia. Further strong showers were witnessed in 1798, 1825, 1830, 1838 and 1847.

The Andromedids produced spectacular displays of several thousand meteors per hour in 1872 and 1885, as a result of Earth crossing the comet's debris stream.

http://www.space.com/5200-mother-meteor-storms.html

Then again, the next generation may be in for a surprise. The Andromedids have moved on and now pass far from Earth's orbit, but other comets continue to break and create new meteoroid streams. One date to keep in mind is May 31, 2022, when Earth will pass very close to (but perhaps will just miss) debris created during the 1995 breakup of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. And there may be others; we don't know yet what dormant comet nuclei may be out there that could break any time now.

1.2 - Comet Tempel–Tuttle and the Leonids

In the night and early morning of November 12th and 13th, 1833 a meteor storm was seen across the United States with an estimated 50.000 and 150.000 meteors per hour. It was such an impressive event it became known as “The Night the Stars Fell.” See also: The 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm

Later scientific study turned out the link between this meteor storm and Comet Tempel–Tuttle, a periodic comet with an orbital period of 33 years discovered independently in 1865-66 by Tempel and Tuttle

Comet Tempel–Tuttle is the parent body of the Leonid meteor shower in the month of November. Historical analysis retrofitted earlier apparitions in eg 1366 or 1699.

The orbit of Tempel–Tuttle intersects that of Earth nearly exactly, hence streams of material ejected from the comet during perihelion passes do not have to spread out over time to encounter Earth. The comet currently has an Earth-MOID of 0.008 AU (1,200,000 km; 740,000 mi). This coincidence means that streams from the comet at perihelion are still dense when they encounter Earth, resulting in the 33-year cycle of Leonid meteor storms. For example, in November 2009, the Earth passed through meteors left behind mainly from the 1466 and 1533 orbit.

There was also a great Leonid meteor shower in 1966, as thousands of meteors per minute fell during a 15-20 minute period, at an intensity of approx 150.000 meteors per hour.

Great meteor storms

See more on: www.space.com/greatest-meteor-storms-in-history

Note 2 - How many comets - link with Kuiper belt and Oort cloud

From the ESA website:

The fact that comets die in what, astronomically speaking, is a short period of time (around 10 000 years), suggests that there must be a great reservoir of extra comets to restock them. By studying the orbits of comets, astronomers have come to the conclusion that two such reservoirs exist.

• The Kuiper belt, out beyond Pluto, is a flared disc of comets that supplies most of the short-period comets (those that orbit the Sun in less than a century).
• The Oort cloud (named after Jan H. Oort) is much larger and supplies the long-period comets. It encloses the Solar System, with an outer edge that reaches almost a quarter of the way to the nearest star.

By taking the size of the Oort cloud into account, and the number of long-period comets that have been seen, astronomers estimate that a staggering one 'trillion' (12 zeros) comets may be waiting out there!

from Wikipedia:

Comets have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to several millions of years.

• Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune.
• Longer-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper Belt to halfway to the next nearest star. Long-period comets are directed towards the Sun from the Oort cloud by gravitational perturbations caused by passing stars and the galactic tide. Hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung out to interstellar space along hyperbolic trajectories.

Comets are distinguished from asteroids by the presence of an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere surrounding their central nucleus. This atmosphere has parts termed the coma (the central atmosphere immediately surrounding the nucleus) and the tail (a typically linear section consisting of dust or gas blown out from the coma by the Sun's light pressure or outstreaming solar wind plasma). However, extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System. The discovery of main-belt comets and active centaurs has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets.

As of August 2014 there are 5,186 known comets, a number which is steadily increasing. However, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System may number one trillion. Roughly one comet per year is visible to the naked eye, though many of these are faint and unspectacular. Particularly bright examples are called "Great Comets".

Note 3 - More on meteors and meteoritics

• Ernst Chladni (1756-1827) undertook pioneering work in the study of meteorites. In a time when meteorites were thought to be of volcanic origin, Chladni proposed in a book published in 1794 that meteorites have an extraterrestrial origin. This was a controversial statement at the time so the book got ridiculized. Chladni developed records of meteorite sightings and amassed a collection of meteorite samples donated to and now residing in a museum in Berlin.

Related pages

• Astronomy
• Worldview Spiritual Science
• History

References and further reading

• Elisabeth Vreede: 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science' - letters 10 en 11 of Year Two (July and August 1929)
• Georg Blattman: 'Comets: Their appearance and significance' (1985, in DE: 'Das Rätsel der Kometen' 1974)
• Wilhelm Pelikan: 'Der Halley'sche Komet: Vom Geistig-Wesenhaften der Kometen-Natur' (1985)

• Hartmut Ramm: Perseus und die Leoniden: Kometen und Meteore (2002)