Macroscopic rhythms

To explain terrestrial phenomena such as the ice ages, four cosmic rhythms are considered:

1. precession of the equinoxes (see also Zodiac clock)
2. the movement of the apsides (as described in Elisabeth Vreede's essays of June-July 1930)
3. the change of the eccentricity of Earth's orbit
4. the change of the obliquity of the ecliptic

This topic page covers the relation to the two first and main movements with regards to one another. This is the explanation for the ice ages on Earth, such as the one known as the flood at the end of the Atlantean epoch.

However it is also the essential cosmic background to understand the importance of the year 1250 for the development of humanity, as explained on the topic page Transition between 4th and 14th century.

Aspects

• "A few geologists in the middle of the nineteenth century (a.o. Lyell, see References below) came to the conclusion that one cannot consider geological epochs like the ice age without at the same time bringing the cosmos into consideration." (Vreede, 1930-07)

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.613: illustrates, on the right, the slow movement of the apsides (in approx. 110.000 years) against the movement of the zodiac in approx. 25.920 years (see zodiac clock). This large clock modulates the various zodiacal influences at the point where the Sun is closest and farthest from the Earth, the key explanation underlying the ice ages on Earth.

Illustrations from Elisabeth Vreede's essay from Jun-Jul 1930, elaborating on Rudolf Steiner's key lecture of 1910-12-31-GA126 and other lectures about the year 1250 and the ice ages.

Schema FMC00.613A: is another visualization by Elisabeth Vreede in her essay of 1930 on the movement of the apsides and how this related to the precession of the equinoxes.

Schema FMC00.263 shows the various configurations of the apsides and vernal equinoxes, as mapped to the ages, as described by Elisabeth Vreede (1930) in her essay explaining what is described in 1910-12-31-GA126 - see Macroscopic rhythms.

Lecture coverage and references

Introduction

The key lecture here is 1910-12-31-GA126 ( lecture 5 of the cycle 'Occult History'), supplemented with lectures from the Astronomy Course 1921-01-GA323

References

C.G. Harrison (1855-1936)

see also: The two halves of an evolutionary cycle

links the cycles to the hierarchies, and makes the connection to the precession of the equinoxes and the ice ages.

In the last of his six lectures delivered in 1893, he describes the 'law of cataclysms', that is .. why each epoch cyclically ends in a major discontinuity:

... they occur at the end of every 'root race' because the Principalities (or 'angels of periods') [editor: Spirits of Time, in Steiner's nomenclature] of the succeeding one are then evolving at their minimum rate, having completed one-half of their minor cycle. At such times, the centripetal resistance to the attraction of the Eight Sphere is at its weakest. These periods coincide with the precession of the equinoxes, the last was the end of the glacial epoch in the northern hemisphere, and is preserved in the memory of a universal flood in the traditions of all nations.

Approx. 1890 - Rudolf Steiner

article as contributing editor in Pierer's 'Konversations-Lexikon'

Note: Universal-Lexikon der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit (Pierer)

generally regarded as the first general modern encyclopedia; developed by Heinrich August Pierer (1794-1850) and continued by Julius Löbe after Pierer's death, with more than 220 contributors were involved in producing the second edition, and as many as 300 in later editions.

• 1824-1836: first edition published in 26 volumes
• 1840–1846: second edition in 34 volumes; a total of around 17,000 pages
• 1875–1880: sixth edition in 18 volumes,
• 1888-1893: seventh edition (in 12 volumes) includes translations (only of the terms) in 12 languages for each entry.
• additional volumes: The first six supplementary volumes were published in 1841–1847, followed by a further six supplementary volumes in 1850–1854, a volume of the latest additions in 1855, and three volumes as yearbooks in 1865–1873. In addition, a volume of illustrations containing 2,500 images on 67 lithographic plates was published in 1848.

Note: another such major encyclopedia was Meyers Konversations-Lexikon or Meyers Lexikon (existed from 1839 to 1984)

Article by Rudolf Steiner on the Ice Age

the article's final paragraph: a concise descrip­tion of the cosmic causes of the glacial epochs:

Because of the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, Earth does not always move with the same speed. It moves more quickly when nearer the Sun and more slowly when it is farther away. Therefore the hemisphere that has its winter during the time of perigee has a shorter winter than the other hemisphere.

However, the axis of Earth alters its position with regard to the Sun, and hence that shorter winter will not always take place in the same hemisphere. Earth's axis describes a full revolution in 21,000 years and during this time winter and summer will twice be actually equal—once for the Northern Hemisphere and once for the Southern.

For 10,500 years, however, the Northern—and for the same length of time, the Southern—Hemisphere will have longer winters. But when the winters in a hemisphere are essentially longer than the summers, then the average annual temperature can sink so low that a period of cold is possible. These differences can, however, according to astronomical calculations increase to a maximum of 36 days.

1908-01-27-GA102

. . . and when the Earth was at its middle point the step was also already taken for the forces gradually to reascend. Those forces that are to be understood today as being in ascending evolution we bring together because they belong to the seven constellations—Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra. These are the seven constellations that correspond to the ascending forces. Five constellations correspond somewhat to the descending forces: Scor­pius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. Thus, you see how forces rain down from the zodiac and ascend, and how the ascending corresponds to seven constellations, the descending to five constellations.

1910-12-31-GA126

see: Transition between 4th and 14th century#1910-12-31-GA126 for long extract

In lecture 5 of the cycle 'Occult History', Rudolf Steiner points out how today we have the reverse of the great Atlantean catastrophe

This will naturally not be easy to notice. People of the postAtlantean time, strongly conditioned as they are by what is physical, would be very much affected by a catastrophe in which portions of Earth are destroyed. But they will notice less when the spirits of form have a powerful influence on the human personality, but only a small influence on what takes place externally. This point in time, when what is naturally less noticed by human beings took place, was the year 1250 of the post-Christian Era. That year is an extraordinarily important year historically. It was the starting point for Scholastic philosophy, which today is too little appreciated. ... But if we want fully to understand historical events we must take into consideration that such critical points in evolution always relate to certain positions of the stars. In 1250, the axis of our Earth was so positioned that the so-called little axis of the ecliptic was in a very special position in relation to the axis of Earth.

1921-01-01-GA323

here Rudolf Steiner refers more precisely to the configuration of the heavens, bringing into consideration the precession of the vernal equinox.

We see the vernal equinox in the sign [here, means "constellation"] of Pisces at the time when humanity is spiritually agitated. In the Greco-Roman times it was in the sign of Aries, before that in the sign of Taurus, and so on. We come back approximately to Leo and to Virgo in that age when our region and much of the rest of Europe and also America were covered by glaciers. And when we find the vernal equinox in the sign of Scorpius we shall have a glacial age again in these regions.

1921-01-06-GA323

We therefore have, if we survey in this way the evolution of this part of Europe, in the tenth millennium before the Christian era a sort of glacial period in civilization, and we shall have it again about 10,000 years after that point of time.

long extract (re ice ages)

Now we can surely not deny that there must be some connection between what is going on in the life of mankind and the phenomena in the Heavens beyond the Earth. In the most general sense, we must assume that there is some connection; what it is in detail, we shall discover in due course. Hence we may ask—we want to proceed very carefully, so we need only ask—‘How were these inner experiences which man on Earth was undergoing at that time, connected with the evolution of the Earth-plant altogether?’,—a question which may obviously lead us into realms beyond the earth. Was it perhaps a special moment in the evolution of the Earth a such? Is there anything that we can point to as a more definite criterion of what this moment was in human evolution?

We can indeed point to something of significance in this connection. There was another time which made a deep incision in the name regions of the Earth where in the Middle Ages these events were taking place in the most highly sublimated realm of human life the spiritual life of thought. The medieval time, when this deep moving and stirring of humanity took place, lies in the very midst between two end-points, as it were, in the scale of time. For European regions these ‘end-points’ do not represent the kind of times in which intense activity of human life and culture would be possible at all. In effect, if from this medieval moment, which I will call A (Fig. 1), we go backward and forward an equal length of time into a fairly distant past and future, we come to points of time representing a certain barrenness and death of civilization in the very regions where this deep stirring of human life was going on in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. About 10,000 years forward and 10,000 years back from this moment (A in Figure 1) we reach the maximum development of the Ice Ages in these very regions Ice Ages certainly would not allow of any outstanding development in human life and culture.

Surveying therefore the evolution of these European regions we find an Ice Age—a laying-waste of civilization—10,000 years before the Christian era, and we should find the same again 10,000 years after this time. The deep stirring of human life, of which we have been speaking, happened midway between two such barren epochs.

As I said just now, there is a certain reluctance to pay attention to this period in the development of philosophy—the 13th and 14th centuries;—it is not seen clearly and accurately for what it is. Yet if one has a feeling for the evolution of the life of knowledge in mankind, one is aware that to this day our philosophic history is influenced by the after-effects of what was stirring and rumbling in the life of mankind at that time. It showed itself in other domains of civilization too; it only came to expression most clearly and symptomatically in this phase of development of the life of thought and knowledge.

Now as you know, this phase of development—appearing about the middle of the Middle Ages—was an incisive one in European civilization. I have often spoken of it in anthroposophical lectures. It was an incision. Something was changed in the whole trend of human evolution. It had been beginning long before—in the 8th century B.C. We may describe it as a most intense development of human intellectuality.

Since then, in the life and civilization of mankind, we have been looking especially at the development of Ego-consciousness. All aberrations and all wisdom gained in the general life of humanity since that medieval time are really due to this Ego-development to the ever-growing elaboration of the consciousness of “I” in man. The consciousness of the ancient Greeks and even of the Latins (both the ancient Latins and their descendants, the Latin peoples of today) did not lay so much stress on the Ego. Even in language for the most part, in grammar and syntax, they do not pronounce the “I” so outspokenly, but still include it in the verb. The “I” is not yet so blatantly set forth. Take Aristotle and Plato, and above all the greatest philosopher of antiquity, Heraclitus. Throughout their work the Ego is not yet so prominent. The way in which they take hold of the world-phenomena with the intellectual reasoning principle is as yet rather more selfless. (Please do not over stress this, but in a relative sense the word ‘selfless’ may be used.) There is not yet so sharp a dissociation of the self from the world-phenomena as there tends to be in the new age—the Age of Consciousness in which we are now living.

Going still farther back—beyond the 8th century B.C.—we come into the Egyptian and Chaldean Age as I have called it (you will find the details in my “Occult Science”). Once again, the condition of the human soul was different. During this age—which like the others, lasted for over 2,000 years—man was not yet relating external phenomena to one-another by intellectual reasoning at all. He apprehended the world—the Heavens too—rather in feeling and direct sensation. It is mistaken and fruitless to approach what is still extent of the Astronomy of Egypt and Chalden with present-day intellectual judgments—the kind of judgment which we ourselves have inherited from the Graeco-Latin Age. We must achieve a certain metamorphoses or soul so as to enter into the quite different soul-condition then prevailing, where man took hold of the world in simple feeling and sensation (where the concept was not yet separated from the sensation).

Even in the realm of actual sensations or sense-impressions—as can be shown historically and philologically—they attached no great importance to the precise description of the blue and violet shades of color, whereas (they had a very keen sensation of the red and yellow regions of the spectrum. Indeed the sensation of the dark colors can be seen to have arisen simultaneously with the capacity for intellectual concepts.

The Egypto-Chaldean Age—from 747 B.C. about 2160 years into the past,—takes us to the beginning of the third millennium BC. Still earlier, say in the fourth or fifth millennium BC, we come into an age when man's whole outlook and mode of perception were so different from ours today that it is hard for us, without recourse to spiritual-scientific methods, to transplant ourselves at all into the way in which the man of that time was the world around him. It was not only a feeling and sensing,—it was a living with the outer happenings, being right in them. Man felt himself a part and member of all Nature around him, much as my arm, if it were conscious, would feel itself a member of my body.

Here therefore was an altogether different trend and quality in man's relation to the world. And if we go still farther back, we find this union of man with the surround world even more enhanced. In those very early times, civilizations were only able to develop where special geographical conditions made it possible. I mean the time described in my Occult Science as the Ancient Indian civilization—much earlier than the culture of the Vedas, which was but a later echo of it. The Ancient Indian epoch comes very near to the time when glacial conditions prevailed in our regions of the Earth. A culture like the Ancient Indian could only develop when such climatic conditions, more or less, as we enjoy in the Temperate zone today, extended to what is now the Equator. You can deduce it simply from the relative advance or retreat of the ice; tropical conditions did not come about in India until a must later time, when in more northerly regions the ice had receded.

We see therefore how the inner evolution of mankind undergoes modifications hand in hand with changing terrestrial conditions—changing conditions, that is to say, on the Earth's surface. Only those who take a very short-term view of mankind's evolution upon Earth will imagine that the scientific ideas we entertain today have any absolute validity—that we have now at last got through to the scientific truth, so to speak. To anyone who looks more deeply into these regions of the Earth which are today enjoying certain forms of cultural and spiritual life will at some future time inevitably be laid waste again; they will be desolate once more. From the past length of time you may reckon out how long ahead it will be till a new glacial age overtakes our present civilization. Moreover assuming that we can find some connection between the celestial phenomena and these facts of earthly evolution—the successive Ice-ages and the mid-point between them—this will lead on to a further insight. That which take place on Earth in the most highly sublimated realms of cultural life—in the life of thought and knowledge—will be related now not only to these changing conditions on the Earth itself, but to conditions in the outer Cosmos. Purely empirical reflection shows that man is what he is by virtue of conditions on the planet Earth and in the Universe beyond.

Once more then taking the facts empirically as is usual in Science, only with a somewhat wider range, our vision is extended until we recognize such a relationship as we have just been describing. Now in a sense, even in present time we can perceive how the quality and trend of human spiritual life is brought about by the relation between the Earth and the celestial bodies. In an earlier lecture it was pointed out how different the spiritual configuration of mankind tends to be in Equatorial and in Polar regions. Investigating this more closely, the different relation of the Earth to the Sun proves to be the determining factor. It makes man in the Polar regions less free of his bodily nature. Man in the Polar regions is less able to lift himself out of the bodily organism,—to pain free use and manipulation of his life of soul (As to the different mutual relations of Earth and Sun, there will be more in it than that, as we shall find in due course; but to begin with we can take our start from the conventional notions.)

We need only picture to ourselves how differently the men of Polar regions are taken hold of by something which in ourselves keeps more in the background. We of the Temperate zone have the quick alternation of day and night. Think how long this alternation becomes as you approach the Polar zone. It is as though the day were to lengthen out into a year. I told you of what works in the little child, deep in the bodily nature from year to year, from birth to the change of teeth, and of how the independent working of the life of soul, given up as it is to the quicker rhythm of the day, gradually frees and detaches itself from this more bodily working. This is not possible to the same extent in Polar regions. It is the yearly rhythm which will there tend to make itself felt. The emphasis is more on the bodily side. The human being will not wrest himself free to the same extent from what works within the body.

Think now of the scanty relics that have been preserved from the civilization of very early times,—that have survived the Ice Age. Then you will see that there were times in which a kind of ‘Polarization’ (giving the word its proper meaning in this context) extended right across the present Temperate zone, so that conditions were prevailing here not unlike those in the present Polar regions. You can use this comparison for what was working in the Ice Age; you can truly say: What is now pressed back towards the North Pole, extended then over a considerable part of the Earth. (Please keep this free of present-day explanations and ideas, for otherwise the pure phenomenon will be obscured. Take only the pure phenomenon as such.)

Conditions on the Earth today are such that we have the three types; the human beings of the Tropical, the Temperate and the Polar zones respectively. Of course they influence each other, so that in outer reality the phenomenon does not appear quite so purely. Nevertheless, what you here have in a spatial form—you find it again in time as you go backward. Going back in time, we come to a ‘North Pole’, as it were, in time—in the history of civilization. Going forward, we come to a Pole again. Remembering that the Polar influence on man is connected with the mutual relations between Earth and Sun. We must conceive that the change which has taken place since the Ice Age—the de-polarization, so to speak—is connected with a changed relation between Earth and Sun. Something must have happened as regards the mutual relation between Earth and Sun. What was it then? The facts themselves suggest the question. What is the source of this in the celestial spaces?

Consider it more nearly. Of course these things will be different in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, but the facts remain. We shall at most have to extend our picture, adapting it to the real facts. We can only take our start from the empirically given data. What is revealed then, if we approach the phenomena without preconceived ideas? The Earth and the events on Earth appear as an expression of cosmic happenings—cosmic happenings which manifest themselves in certain rhythms. Something that showed itself about the tenth millennium before the origin of Christianity, will show itself again about the eleventh millennium after. What is in between, will also in a sense be repeated. What we here have between the two Ice Ages, will undoubtedly have been there before—in former cycles. It is a rhythm; our attention is drawn to a rhythmic process.

And now look out into the celestial phenomena. To emphasize one fact especially, which I have often pointed to in my lectures, you have the following. (I will only characterize it roughly.) You know that the vernal point—where the Sun rises in spring-time gradually moves through the Ecliptic. Today the vernal point is in the constellation of Pisces; before, it was in Aries; still earlier in Tauraus,—that was the time of the cult of the Bull among the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Still earlier, it was in the constellation of Gemini, and then in Cancer; in Leo. This already brings us very nearly to the last Ice Age. Thinking it through to a conclusion, we know that the vernal point goes all the way round the Ecliptic, and that the time it takes is called the Platonic Year—the great Cosmic Year, lasting approximately 25,920 years.

A whole number of processes are comprised in these 25,920 years, involving among other things this rhythmic alternation on the Earth; Ice Age., intermediate period, Ice Age, intermediate period, and so on. At the time we spoke of, when there was that deep stirring of the spiritual life in mankind, the vernal point was entering the sign of Pisces. In the Graeco-Latin Age it had been in the sign of Aries, previous to that in Taurus, and so on. We get back to Leo or Virgo, more or less, during the time when glacial conditions prevailed over the greater part of Europe and in America too. Looking into the future, there will be another Ice Age in these regions when the vernal point reaches the sign of Scorpio. This rhythm is contained within what takes its course in 25,920 years. Although admittedly of vast extent, it is a true rhythm none the less.

1930 - Elisabeth Vreede: The movement of the apsides (June-July 1930)

published as Letters 10 and 11 of Year 3, re-published in book 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science'

movement of the apsides

[from Part 1 June 1930]

[introduction]

In addition to the movements already known to us, such as the daily and yearly revolutions and those of the precession and the nutation (all described in the letters of the first year), there is still the so-called move­ment of the apsides. This is connected with the great cosmic rhythm revealed in the geological epochs known as the glacial ages, and also in the ages of human history.

Dr. Steiner has referred to this move­ment in several places in his lectures - always in connection with the precessional movement but without using its astronomical name. If we study this movement we will gain knowledge that is extraordinarily significant for the evolution of the Earth and humanity. Thus we will not hesitate to explain the phenomenon in a somewhat mathematical and astronomical way.

One can present the movement of the apsides equally well in a geocentric way, according to the Ptolemaic theory, as heliocentri­cally— according to Copernicus. In both cases one has of course only a mathematically abstract rendering of an active cosmic force.

• The Ptole­maic system adapts itself quite well to the rendering of this movement, although Ptolemy himself did not know of it. The discovery escaped him in some way, for the time that lay between him and his predecessor Hipparchus was long enough for him to have discovered the movement of the apsides.
• It was first found about 900 A.D. by an Arabian astronomer named Al-battani or Albategnius.

Ptolemy knew, as Hipparchus before him, that the four seasons are of unequal length. The time that the Sun takes to go from the vernal equinox past the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox is longer than that from the autumnal equinox past the winter solstice back to  the vernal equinox. This is, of course, a matter of astronomi­cal measurements. The four cardinal points correspond to the lowest and highest posi­tions of the Sun in the zodiac (the beginning of winter and of summer) and the points of inter­section with the equator that lie in between (the beginning of spring and of autumn).

This fact, noted in early times, did not allow the Greek astronomers to make the center of the Sun's orbit, which for them was Earth, coincide with the center of the universe. In other words, they had to place Earth eccentrically in the circle of the ecliptic (the zodiac).

Figure 81 illustrates the position at the time of Ptolemy (taken from Manitius's translation of Ptolemy). E is Earth. M would be the central point of the path of the Sun, of the center of the universe according to the ancients. The eccentricity—the distance from E to M—is exagger­ated for the sake of clarity. The Sun goes around in the smaller circle, and the larger circle represents the zodiac. Now the Sun takes longer from point a (vernal equinox) past b (summer solstice) to c (autumnal equinox) than for the second half of the year (from c past d to a), for the arcs abc and cda differ in length.

[Line of the apsides]

It is evident in such a diagram that there is a point at which the Sun and Earth are nearest to each other, namely in P on the zodiac corresponding to p on the ecliptic. (Both points, as seen from Earth, are in the heavens one and the same. Six months later, the two celestial bodies are farthest from each other—[the Sun] at point A. The former point is called perigee (point closest to Earth), the latter apogee (point farthest from Earth), and the line PA that connects the two is the line of the apsides.

P and A are naturally two precise, specific points in the zodiac just as the vernal equinox and the Moon's nodes have actual positions there as well.

• Ptolemy says, on the authority of Hipparchus, that in terms of the signs of the zodiac the apogee was in Gemini at 5° 30' and the perigee opposite to it at 5° 30' in Sagittarius. Hipparchus had indeed calculated these positions correctly. At the time of Ptolemy, nearly 300 years after Hipparchus, the apsidal line had moved nearly five degrees, which, however, Ptolemy did not notice.
• Al-battani found the apogee in twenty-two degrees of Gemini and concluded from this that the line of the apsides moves.
• Copernicus, using what Hipparchus and Al-battani had found, discovered the difference between the length of the first half of the year and the second half of the year (calculated from the beginning of spring). He calculated from this that the apogee had moved 10°41' in 1.580 so-called "Egyptian" years, that is, about one degree in 148 years. According to modern observations, the period of time is twice as long.

In terms of the Copernican system, things are the same as in the Ptolemaic, except that Earth and Sun have changed places. Also, instead of a perigee or an apogee one now speaks of a perihelion or aphelion [conventionally, the points at which the Earth is closest to and farthest from Sun]. We will hereafter for the sake of a consistent terminology speak mostly in terms of perigee, the point closest to Earth—in other words, Ptolemaically.

The line of the apsides first gains spe­cial importance in the system of Kepler. It appears as the major axis of the ellipse on which Kepler makes Earth revolve around the Sun and within which the Sun is one of the two foci—that is, has an eccentric  position.

Figure 82 once again represents the ellipse as too strongly eccentric, as deviating too much from the circle. One sees plainly the point where the Sun is closest to Earth (E1), where it is farthest away (E,). The line E1 E, forms the major axis—called here the line of apsides, and at right angles to this is the minor axis of the ellipse. The major axis, and at the same time of course the minor axis, rotates in space with respect to the zodiac in a period that, according to modern obser­vations, is about 110.000 years.

To represent this more concretely let us be clear about the fact that

• there is in the year a certain day on which the Sun and Earth are near­est to each other. The Sun stands then on the ecliptic at a certain point of the zodiac—the point at which it is normally found on that day of the year. This day is now one of the first days of January and the point lies therefore in the constellation of Sagittarius.
• Almost six months later the reverse is true. Earth and Sun are as far as possible from each other.

One need not take this conception of near and far very literally. According to the purely spatial concept of modern astronomy, it is a matter of about 3 million miles difference in apogee and perigee. But one can quite imagine that the relative nearness of Earth and Sun cor­responds to a stronger cosmic activity, and that the greater separation between Earth and Sun corresponds to a more estranged condition of the two celestial bodies.

The perigee is also established quite externally (the ancients knew of the existence of the perigee from the difference [in day length] from the shortest to the longest or the longest to the shortest day). But apart from that, the perigee can be established from the observable fact that the Sun's disk appears larger in winter when it is closer to Earth than in summer when it is at the point of greatest separation. This difference is of course not noticeable with the naked eye and is measurable only with the help of good instruments. It has nothing to do with the apparent increase of size of the disk of the Sun at sunset and such things. We want to truly grasp the idea that the intensity of the relationship between Earth and the Sun, insofar as it is dependent on this movement, is continually changing in the course of the year and is at a maximum in January and a minimum in July.

One can thus indicate two points, one in Sagittarius and one in Gem­ini, at which what has been described takes place.

Yet the movement of the apsides teaches us that these points gradually change their posi­tion ... just as the cardinal points of spring, summer, autumn, and winter shift on account of the precession.

However, the apsides move far more slowly and in the opposite direction, that is, with the signs of the zodiac.

The whole ellipse of figure 82, which one must think of as surrounded by the zodiac at an indefinite distance, revolves with reference to the zodiac (figure 83). Thus the axes AP and KL gradually point to other points in the heavens, and the approach of Earth and Sun takes place under a star of the zodiac lying farther on.

At the same time, however, the cross formed by the four cardinal points winter, spring, summer, and autumn also revolves as does the precession, against the direction of the zodiacal constellations and in the course of 25.920 years. In the drawing the position is given for our time, of course rather roughly.

fig 83

[cardinal points of the year will coincide with cross of the axes or line of the apsides]

Another important fact is to be seen from this. With this movement toward each other of the cross of the ellipse-axes and of the "cross of the year," the single points P, A, K, L and W, Sp, S, F will meet with each other alternately. That is to say, again and again there will be a time when the cardinal points of the year will coincide with cross of the axes or the line of the apsides.

For example the vernal equinox can coincide with the perigee (Sp on P).

The autumnal equinox and the summer and winter solstices can do the same. The opposite cardinal point will then coincide with the apogee.

Let us suppose such a meeting of the vernal equinox and the perigee to have taken place at some time historically. Then an easily worked-out calculation will give us the period of time until such a meeting will occur again. One need only remember the well-known school exercise of the two hands of a clock following each other and from time to time covering each other, except that here the "hands" move toward each other. One hand takes 110.000 years, the other almost 26.000 years, moving almost four times as fast. The meeting comes about when the "large hand" (the one that goes faster) has completed almost four-fifths of a revolution. One thus arrives at a period of 21.000 years.

[note: in another way it may be expressed mathematically thus: The apogee or the per­igee- that means, therefore, the line of the apsides - moves 1°42.6' in 100 years. This movement is given by 0°19' of the actual apsides revolution and 1°23.6' which comes from the precession, together 1°42.6'. The siderial revolution of the apsides is therefore 110,000 years and its tropical revolution 20.900 years.]

If now after the vernal equinox the autumnal equinox coincides with the perigee, the so-called equinoctial line coincides again with the line of the apsides. This takes place in half of the total period, something over 10.000 years. Here we have the glacial epoch cited by Rudolf Steiner corroborated by the results of scientific research.

And if we bear in mind the four conjunctions that are possible from each one of the cardinal points with the perigee, we then come to a period of 5.260 years. In just this period of time important cosmic conditions always arise, conditions that must be expressed in important earthly events.

[Reference to 1910-12-31-GA126]

We refer to the lecture cycle Occult History, where in the fifth lecture Rudolf Steiner mentions these things. Rudolf Steiner speaks there of the hierarchies that have specially revealed themselves to humankind in the various cultural periods. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch it was the Spirits of Form. They did not work directly into the inner nature of the human being, but through the kingdoms of nature. Human beings received their influence at that time indirectly, through the senses, so that they came to direct their attention entirely to the external world. These Spirits of Form had also been active before the Atlantean catas­trophe. But at this time human beings did not direct their attention to what met them externally. They were diverted from the outer world. And that came from the configuration of the cosmos ...

[see quote from Transition between 4th and 14th century#1910-12-31-GA126]

In the explanations preceding this quote we elaborated - explaining in astronomical terms - everything that Rudolf Steiner says here. One sees then with what exactness Rudolf Steiner presents these cosmic facts despite his somewhat flexible manner of expression. He says that the suc­cessive periods

" ... were governed, were marked out by what modern astronomy calls the precession of the equinoxes. But in between these great divisions of time there always lay smaller ones . . . so that certain years are points of junction, deep incisions, in which important things take place."

These divisions, these points of junction, are the result of the meet­ing together of the two axial crosses, the two pairs of clock hands that move toward each other and meet every 5.200 years. There remains to be explained what was said about the particular position of the axis of Earth at that time. Earth's axis stood at right angles to the minor axis of Earth's orbit (or ecliptic). At that time this coincided with the line joining the vernal equinox and the autumnal equinox, in other words, with the celestial equator.

fig 85

At each of the four meetings that take place about every 5000 years, Earth's axis is always at right angles to the major axis (the apsides, coinciding with the line of the solstices) or to the minor axis (coinciding with the line of the equinoxes). If one is familiar with geometrical representation one can see from figure 85 that the cone that Earth's axis describes in 25.920 years is placed in the center of the ellipse, as are also the lines of the equinoxes and solstices.

Figure 86 gives the situation for the present day, and no such excep­tional circumstances exist. The axis of the Earth and of the equator is, however, as always at right angles to the solstice line and to the equi­noctial line.

Figure 86

One can calculate that the configuration described that led to the Atlantean catastrophe first occurred 9,200 years before our era, and that it had its reflection in another configuration that took place 10.000 years later. Then the perigee no longer took place during the summer solstice, but during the winter solstice. That brought about the impor­tant set of celestial circumstances of 1250 A.D., of which Rudolf Steiner speaks in the same lecture. In the cycle "The Relationship of the Diverse Branches of Natural Science to Astronomy" ("Astronomy Course"), he further compares the two points of time—in the Atlantean and in the fourth post-Atlantean epochs—with a point of time coming just as long after, about 11.000 A.D. Then the conditions for a glacial epoch will be present again.

Next time we will consider those moments in history, so important for the history of culture and of the world, that have here revealed themselves.

[from Part 2 July 1930]

.. we [now] come to quite concrete points of time in which critical events in human evolution took place.

• Such a turning point lay in the tenth pre-Christian millennium, in the time of Atlantis. The perigee, the time of the greatest proximity of Earth and Sun, coincided with the summer solstice, and therefore the apogee coincided with the winter solstice. [Note: the expressions: summer solstice, vernal equinox, etc are em­ployed here for the Northern Hemisphere and would be exactly the opposite for the Southern Hemisphere. They are also to be understood geocentrically, as celestial phenomena seen from Earth.]
• A sort of counterpart of this took place during the Middle Ages, about 1250, when the perigee was reached at the time of the winter solstice, at Christmas time.

In these dry mathematical statements is symbolically expressed the entire difference between these two points of time.

Most of the con­tinent of Atlantis lay in the Northern Hemisphere, and during that time the point of the greatest proximity of the Earth and Sun was at midsummer (for the Northern Hemisphere). Summer is the time when Earth breathes out her soul into the cosmos and is lovingly held by the cosmic forces coming toward her. What occurs in the summer is like an embrace between Earth and heaven. Now let us imagine that this situa­tion is extraordinarily enhanced by the Sun at that period being nearer Earth in summer than at any other time of the year. Thus this union of the soul of Earth and the soul of the Sun is especially intensive. But at the same time the apogee is at the winter solstice. This means that the winter represents, in its nature, an extreme, just as the summer does. The moment of the greatest distance of the Earth from the Sun occurs just when Earth is more withdrawn into itself than at any other time during the year. The "farthest cosmos." which is active in the winter in the formation of frost and snow, finds an Earth whose connection with the Sun is reduced to a minimum. This farthest cosmos of the starry world, of the zodiac, can penetrate Earth powerfully. So in those regions that stretch toward the north there must be powerful glacial activities. Because of the coincidence of the apogee with the winter solstice, and because of the equal division of the orbit of Earth around the Sun in respect to the year, conditions prevailed then that are similar to those at the North Pole today. There the year consists of one day and one night, each six months long, and cold and winter dominate.

The strong force of the Sun, evoked by the perigee at the summer solstice, must fight against the formation of ice from the south. And if the powerful frigidity of the northern regions abates, the melting power of the summer has an effect over time and the result will be inundations and catastrophes. This explains the Atlantean catastrophe in the seventh and eighth pre-Christian millennia.

This is just a summary description of what, considered macrocosmically, led to the Atlantean catastrophe, which appears in the karma of humanity as the Flood. In the tenth and ninth millennia B.c. glaciers cov­ered much of Europe, extending far into the tropical regions of today. No culture could evolve. There was, as Rudolf Steiner called it, a deso­lation, a death of civilization. Humankind lived in the same conditions that prevail today in the polar regions. Because of the peculiar division of the year into a day and a night of six months each, human beings are affected by the cosmos in such a way that they become apathetic, and develop no particular cultural life. The influence of the changing seasons of the year works within the human organism—as is the case with a child in its first seven years. This influence, if not moderated by the daily short-term changes, can tear the soul element out of the opera­tion of the organization.

So in the ninth millennium the position of Earth's axis divided the year over wide areas into winter and summer in a way resembling the present division of day and night at the North Pole. As those condi­tions began to change, the increasing force of the Sun could only lead to catastrophic inundations.

...

After nearly 21.000 years, at the end of the twelfth millennium A.D., the glacial age will be recapitulated. The perigee will again lie in the summer solstice and again Earth's axis will be vertical to the minor axis of the orbit. Naturally other terrestrial and cosmic conditions will not have just remained the same. The wheel of the world will keep on rolling.

But we will refer to the point in time that Rudolf Steiner (in his "Astronomy Course") described as being at the other end of the revolu­tion of the apsides. [reference to 1921-01-06-GA323]

[1250]

And it was explained how the point in the middle (point A in Figure 87) corresponds to the year 1250 of the Christian era.

This was a time of much inner agitation in the cul­tural life of humanity. The glacial epoch had to bring desolation to the organism of the Earth and was followed by the external agitation of the catastrophe of the Flood.

What is crucial here is the development of medieval scholasticism, that unique conceptual system that in its metamorphosis has deeply influ­enced the entire further development of consciousness and of science. With the question of realism versus nominalism, and with the search for a proof of God, scholasticism deeply stirred humanity in terms of its relation to the spiritual world. The spiritual world was entirely closed to the human soul about 1250. At the time of the Atlantean catastrophe, though, it revealed itself in the visible effects of the Flood.

In 'The Spiri­tual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity' [GA015, see Transition between 4th and 14th century#1911-06-GA015] Rudolf Steiner explains in detail how even human souls who had already reached high stages of development, if they were incarnated around 1250, "were compelled for a while to undergo a complete clouding of their direct view of the spiri­tual world."

[again reference to Transition between 4th and 14th century#1910-12-31-GA126]

This was, as we know, a vertical position. We are reminded of the cosmic celestial configuration, of the critical points in evolution that take place every 5.200 years, always when the line of the apsides coincides with two cardinal points of the year lying opposite to each other. In the year 1250 the perigee was in the winter solstice, at Christmas time. We get the counterpart of the Ice Age, also in a cosmic sense. When the Sun comes near the Earth it finds the Earth soul withdrawn into itself. On the other hand, at the time when Earth expands its soul into the cosmos, the Sun's influence is diminished. Human beings are as if shut off from cosmic forces. They feel themselves thrown back into their inner being. What in the glacial epoch was a strong external activity of spiritual powers—of the spirits of form—works within the human being as a spiritual activity.

[reference to 1921-01-01-GA323 ... We see the vernal equinox in the sign [here, means "constellation"] of Pisces at the time when humanity is spiritually agitated. In the Greco-Roman times it was in the sign of Aries, before that in the sign of Taurus, and so on. We come back approximately to Leo and to Virgo in that age when our region and much of the rest of Europe and also America were covered by glaciers. And when we find the vernal equinox in the sign of Scorpius we shall have a glacial age again in these regions. ]

In fact, we find that in the year 9200 B.c. the vernal equinox was in Leo. For the other glacial age we find it in Libra, [having just been] "in the sign of Scorpius." In the year 1250 it was in Pisces. In order to bring together the various references in a consistent way, we will note the conjunctions of the perigee with the cardinal points, and give in each case the position of the vernal equinox (according to the constellations). We must think of these epochs, given in round numbers, as always fol­lowing one another at intervals of 5200 years.

[overview of the different configurations]

(1) Let us begin with the year 20.000 B.C. It is the time we can regard as the middle of the Atlantean epoch—in fact, as the middle of earthly evolution as a whole. From this time, we can expect a universe that oper­ates according to certain laws, that is running its course in a mechanical way. The "world of finished work" is in place.

The celestial configuration corresponds to that of the year 1250. The perigee [in 20.000 BC] is in the winter solstice, which then was in Virgo. The vernal equinox was in Capricornus. In this very important time decisive events for human evolution took place. The diagrams for the epochs are made according to the Ptolemaic view. The zodiac is always drawn in the same position (with Pisces and Virgo as a horizontal line); Earth (E) is always eccentric, located toward the perigee; the four cardinal points are indicated by W, Sp., S, F. See figure.

(2) In the year 14,500 B.c. we again have an extraordinarily significant configuration. The perigee was together with the vernal equinox in Libra.

Rudolf Steiner spoke of this time in the important lecture of Janu­ary 27, 1908. Coming from opposite directions, the line of the apsides and the equinoctial line meet in Libra for the first time in our earthly evolution.

From that time on the human being takes part in the creation of cosmic processes. In this same lecture, Rudolf Steiner describes how forces continuously "rain down" upon Earth from out of the zodiac. These forces are the offering of the zodiac to the new planetary being that has now advanced to the earthly stage. These forces must however also reascend from Earth, for through human evolution on Earth a new zodiac will arise. "The mysterious working together of our Earth with the zodiac consists of this."

These zodiacal forces have been coming down since the Old Saturn stage of evolution,

. . . and when the Earth was at its middle point the step was also already taken for the forces gradually to reascend. Those forces that are to be understood today as being in ascending evolution we bring together because they belong to the seven constellations—Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra. These are the seven constellations that correspond to the ascending forces. Five constellations correspond somewhat to the descending forces: Scor­pius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. Thus, you see how forces rain down from the zodiac and ascend, and how the ascending corresponds to seven constellations, the descending to five constellations.

Before this point in time, however, up to the middle of the Atlantean epoch, six forces were in descent, six in ascent. The boundary lay in Virgo, Libra still belonging to the descending forces. Thus from the beginning of earthly evolution up to this time, and without humanity having anything to do with it, the first six constellations, the "light signs" of the zodiac, from Aries to Virgo, were changed from descending to ascending. The forces coming from Libra then first became ascend­ing forces. We find the expression of this in the heavenly script, which indicates that at just this critical point, the vernal equinox was in con­junction with the perigee in Libra.

(3) 9200 B.C. We have discussed this position in detail. It is that of the Ice Age with the Flood that followed. The perigee was in the summer solstice in Scorpius, in that mysterious constellation of destruction and death, which is also considered a water sign. The vernal equinox was in Leo. Perhaps the most important of the three crosses of the zodiac is  this one formed by those constellations from which later the Chaldeans saw the four cherubim approaching: the bull, the lion, the eagle, and the human being (Aquarius). The eagle, as we know, has become Scorpius.

4) 4000 B.C. If in the celestial configuration just described we had that of the physical Flood, we come now to the time that Rudolf Steiner (in Earthly and Cosmic Man, lecture 7), has called a kind of spiritual Flood. The old clairvoyance disappeared more and more as the Kali Yuga, the Age of Darkness, drew near. It was not yet the beginning of the Kali Yuga itself, but to a certain extent its preparation. The perigee stands in the autumn equinox, and something like a shiver passes through human evolution. The perigee is still in Scorpius, for the line of the apsides takes almost 10,000 years to pass through a constellation. The vernal equinox has now entered Taurus. (We remember what was said in Letter 12 of Year One about the connection of the cultural periods with the zodiacal signs, the periods being reckoned from the middle of the constellation.) Although the vernal equinox already stands in Taurus in 4000 B.c., the third post-Atlantean culture period is reckoned only from the year 2907 B.c. (747 + 2160 B.c.). One sees from the figure that the vernal equinox, coinciding with the apogee and moving backward from Gemini to Taurus, has not reached the middle of Taurus.

(4a) We have here as a kind of intermezzo the position in the year 3101 B.C. at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, the time of great death for humanity, because the blackness of the "Age of Darkness" blotted out consciousness like a flood. The perigee does not coincide with one of the cardinal points. One sees that the vernal equinox is now in the middle of Taurus, and the third post-Atlantean epoch is about to begin. The perigee has just entered the constellation Sagittarius, which corresponds to the human I, and it is still in this constellation today.

(5) 1250 A.D. We have already described this situation also. It is the opposite of what is explained under numbers two and seven. The perigee is in the winter solstice in Sagittarius and the vernal equinox in Pisces. Once more a diagram, corresponding to the others, depicts the configuration.

(6) 6500 AM. The perigee is in the vernal equinox just about to enter [the conventional constellation] Capricornus from Sagittarius. Rudolf Steiner has described this age as the time of the reunion of the Moon with Earth, a time of terrible catastrophes for those human beings who have not spiritualized their intellects. (See lecture May 13, 1921.)

(7) 12,000 AD. This is the new Ice Age, differing from the other that took place 21,000 years before in that the perigee with the summer solstice will now be in Capricornus, while at that time it lay in Scorpius. One can call it a more hardened, a "less watery" Ice Age than that of Atlantean times. The vernal equinox will be in the constellation of Libra. It will then have left the dark signs, in which it has been since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, and will once more enter the light signs. One can experience this symbol as a descent into the increasing hardening of the earthly and as an ascent, full of light and springtime, of the freed spirit into the heights.

Thus we have tried to read the great world clock that is in the heavenly firmament. The diagrams, because of their small size and due to technical difficulties, reproduce only approximately what is based on quite exact calculations. Nevertheless, if one looks at them in suc­cession one sees how the "hands" gradually advance and how in their meetings they continually bring about new combined positions. Thus they become a true heavenly script. Even something of the great world ages may be deciphered from this heavenly script, as we saw in the case of the approach of the Kali Yuga. We will occupy ourselves with this next time.

change of the eccentricity of Earth's orbit

.. the form of Earth's elliptical orbit, its so-called eccentricity, changes continually.

Today it is very nearly a circle, which means that the two foci almost coincide with the center. (The distance from center to focus (the Sun) is, according to astronomical calculations, 2,5 million miles, with a major axis of 186 million miles).

In earlier times this ellipse was more oval, the major and minor axes differing more from one another, and in consequence certain conditions that have to do with the seasons were more accentuated. According to the calculations of celestial mechanics the ellipse at about this time must have been at maximum eccentricity.

Also, the angle of Earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic, which today is 23°27', alters over long periods of time, so that Earth's axis comes into a different relationship with neighboring stars.

change of the obliquity of the ecliptic

... the angle of Earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic, which today is 23°27', alters over long periods of time, so that Earth's axis comes into a different relationship with neighboring stars.

Discussion

Notes draft work area

archai = per cultural age; so SoF <-> epoch; catastrophes between epochs are at one extreme, 1250 are at another

transition 1250 is handover SoF to archai, see earth cycle

transfer of being left free

Related pages

• Transition between 4th and 14th century
• Zodiac clock
• 25920
• Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods

References and further reading

• Joseph Alphonse Adhémar: 'Revolutions De La Mer, Deluges Periodiques' (1860)
• Franz Koflor: 'Die Eiszeit während der Diluvialperiode und ihre Ursachen' (1927) in EN: 'The Ice Age During the Period of the Flood and its Causes'
  • Koflor was a geography teacher of Rudolf Steiner during his high-school years. Rudolf Steiner mentions this essay in his autobiography. Koflor took as his point of departure works such as the reference work by Adhémar.
  • The essay was republished by C. S. Picht in 1927, with remarks by E. Vreede in 'Das Goetheanum' 1927-06-12.
  • Note by Vreede: "Anyone reading the essay in connection with these letters must bear in mind that Koflor took it from the heliocentric standpoint as used in modern astronomy, in which the relations are all reversed. (He used the signs, too, where we use the constellations.)"

• Charles Lyell (1797-1895) .. demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the Earth's history
  • Principles of Geology (1830–33),
  • Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
• Elisabeth Vreede: 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science' (2007, letters 1927-30; first in DE in 1954 and first in EN in 1980)

.

see also: Atlantean epoch#References and further reading, for example:

• Sigismund von Gleich:
  • 'Der Mensch der Eiszeit und Atlantis (mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Urgeschichte der Mongolen, Abessinier und Basken)' (1936, 1990)
  • 'Siebentausend Jahre Urgeschichte der Menschheit zwischen 12000 u. 5000 v. Chr.' (1950, 1987)