Symbols

Symbols are graphical depictions that are pointers to represent spiritual realities. Like a character of an alphabet with which we construct language to represent meaning, the symbols are esoteric characters pointing to meaning in the planes or worlds of consciousness.

Placing a symbol before one's inner eye in contemplation and meditation leads to spiritual and esoteric realities (1907-09-13-GA101)

Symbols are therefore part of a language to describe aspects of the Cosmic fractal and the Golden Chain, and branches such as alchemy and astrology use these symbols to study the effects of these spiritual influences in the physical world of Man and the Four kingdoms of nature. For example astrology can be seen as a language for psychology, human character and how the flows of life unfold in one's life.

Because symbols are pointers, or a representation in our physical world, of realities in the higher world (see Schema FMC00.532 below), they are to be approached through meditation using Man's higher states of consciousness (see stages of clairvoyance). In that sense (with reference to Schema FMC00.532) one can imagine them to be like a step-ladder for mind practice and contemplation, because the flat symbol has no specific meaning for one's mundane waking consciousness in the physical world.

Aspects

most common and ancient symbols
- astrology: zodiac signs, planets, and houses
- alchemy: the four elements and astrological processes, see eg Schema FMC00.162
numbers and characters
- numbers (from 0 to 10 or 12) are also filled with collapsed meaning, they represent the multiplicity that appears in the cosmos in a multi-dimensional way (across appearances and instances) - see Book of Ten Pages
- characters in ancients languages such as hebrew and egyptian hieroglyphs were also representing meaning (in contract with characters of our current alphabet which are used to make up words with meaning in different languages, but have no individual meaning as a character)
seals, as used in magic as sigils (symbols with embedded magical powers)
- magical seals (specific to a spiritual entity) are used for evocations or summoning individual spiritual entities, see eg Bardon's Practice of Magical Evocation (PME) or the medieval magical grimoirs (for introductory examples, see wikipedia page for Sigil)
- more complex depictions: eg Apocalyptic seals represent spiritual scientific meaning originating from imagery in the Book of Revelation (see Rudolf Steiner's descriptions on this site for an introduction).
various symbols important in spiritual science
- pentagram is the symbol of (current physical) Man, the pentagram corresponds to five etheric streams in Man, see Human etheric body
- hexagram
- the spiral - or vortex
  - symbol of evolution moving forward not continuously but in discrete jumps, the old developing upto a point that the new emerges, see also The two halves of an evolutionary cycle
  - The sign of of two spirals joined together represents the stage of development, where one part is ending and another is beginning. There are such vortices everywhere in nature; in star nebulae as, for example, the Orion nebula. (1906-09-04-GA095). Human and animal embryos have a spiral form in the early stages of their development. One part is a picture of the physical; the other part, which spirals around and into the first, is the astral (1906-11-30-GA121) - More on Nebulae
  - observed clairvoyantly, the astral body of the sleeping human appears as if it consists of many streams and sparkles of light and the whole appears like two intertwining spirals, as if there were two 6-figures, one of which vanishes into the physical body, while the other extends far out into the cosmos like the trail of a comet. (1905-02-06-GA090B and 1907-05-26-GA099). See also Human astral body
  - appears in nature as a consequence of the etheric formative forces creating physical reality (eg flower petals in plant kingdom galaxy, whirlpool, shells, see eg John Blackwood: 'Geometry in nature').
    - plant into space (GA214)
  - relation to lemniscate, orbits and space-time (GA324A)
- caduceus, two serpents around the staff of Mercury or staff of Hermes
  - symbol for the development of consciousness and the human 'I': humanity takes part in the descending and ascending lines incl. its transient states (1907-12-28-GA101); white and black snakes (symbol of astral body), or advances made by day and night, embracing the staff of Mercury (1909-01-07-GA266, 1910-03-28-GA119)
  - the human soul connecting with the path and spiral movement of the Earth (1913-10-14-GA152)
  - staff represents Man himself, with snake symbol as symbol of freedom (1904-07-01-GA090A)
  - and Thinking feeling willing (TFW), re 1918-04-09-GA181
- plant
  - "If we concentrate on a plant growing until the seed is formed and then gradually withering until everything except the seed has vanished, we can visualise this as a simple symbol of growth and decay" (1910-03-28-GA119)
  - see also: [[Christ Module 6 - Principle in image and story#[1.1] - The plant in the sun as a symbol the ancient Mystery teachings]], and Schema FMC00.270 (and variants) and Schema FMC00.110 on that page.
- Symbol of rose cross
- similar to the above examples, and the apocalypic seals, many other pictures have similarly been used across the ages to convey certain meaning in some type of encoded or encrypted way, illustration for example Schema FMC00.537
- sanctissimum or monstrance as symbol of the transubstantiation - see Schema FMC00.191: the shining, like a small Sun, in the sanctissimum wherein the host is carried on a crescent cup.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.532 is a draft pencil scribble or sketch transferred to a digital format for readability, but it should be read as a thought sketch and not as something exact. The Schema expresses how things, patterns of order, structures we find in the physical world 'below' are the result of the higher worlds of consciousness and the Golden Chain.

On the left, the different worlds are shown so as to illustrate our physical world is encapsulated, embedded, as the emanation of the spiritual influences of those higher worlds. The central axis symbolizes this path of the 'golden chain'.

Above, the higher spirit world with spiritual seeds (from the monad, 'atma') is an environment beyond time and space, before form. This is where Man's higher triad and spiritual core has to be positioned. From there on downwards, the Golden Chain pushes down the breath of creation into a sequential realm of time and form in space. It is in the lower spirit world one finds the archetypes with form, that will then be clothed with astral and physical matter. Descending down the astral and etheric the 'illusion' of time gets generated in the physical world, as everything gets clothed in the world of mineral 'substance' through the so-called tetrapolar magnet of the four elements.

It is due to this descent that in the physical world one finds symbols, the multiplicity in nature of number (see Book of Ten Pages), and recurrent rhythms (see Cosmic breathing). On the left of the Schema are shown the formative forces of the Elementary Kingdoms that, combined with the Group souls, generate the four kingdoms of nature. This is what gives rise to forms, symmetry, platonic solids, spirals .. and special patterns and ratio's such as Pi, the golden ratio, fibonacci series, etc.

Now it is because of all this also that certain texts can be read and contemplated in a multidimensional way, they are of a nature that could be called fractal or holographic, as they are like symbolic entry gates to 'folded' higher realities. Rudolf Steiner explains this for the Book of Revelation and the Lord's Prayer, but the same is valid for many ancient spiritual texts (eg Sepher Yetzirah, Vedas). Such texts are basically constructed from pointers connected to ideas in the spirit world and astral world, the sequence of words are just labels or sigils that connect to this higher spiritual reality which is not just sequential or uni-dimensional (and human intellectual rational thought). Hence these texts and words gain higher value with higher stages of clairvoyance such as imagination.

Finally on the right are shown the three dimensions of evolution that 'above' relate to qualities of the three Logoi or Trinity, and find their equivalences - in the manvantara outgoing cosmic breath in the solar system - in Conditions of Consciousness, Life and Form. Mapping form to the lower spirit world, and life to the higher spirit world, then consciousness takes a step change with every planetary stage of evolution at the levels above the higher spirit world (for details, see pralaya, the right of Schema FMC00.389, and coverage of the 1904-11-GA089 lectures on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension). Contemplate the schemas on three dimensions of evolution with this Schema below, to imagine how this lies at the basis of structural threefoldedness in the physical world.

The schema also explains why the Book of Ten Pages, symbols, etc .. and the study of these 'pointers below' have been an essential part of ancient Mysteries through the millenia, even across various stages of human consciousness in its evolution.

Lecture coverage and references

1904-07-01-GA090A

The arbitrary nature or freedom of the human microcosm express themselves in the inclination of the snake. The Hermes staff or rod represents Man himself, and hence the snake symbol as symbol of freedom.

1905-02-06-GA090B

Q&A (p63-64)

Nebulae in astronomy have to be considered as the shining off of the lowest astral conditions. The astral body of Man looks similar to the Orion nebula, like a whirl or cosmic world nebula.

1907-05-26-GA099

When the human being sinks into sleep, his astral body and ego, together with what has been worked upon in the astral body by the I, withdraw from the physical and etheric bodies.
When you observe the sleeping human being clairvoyantly, physical body and etheric body lie there in the bed. These two members remain connected whereas the astral body emerges together with the higher members; with clairvoyance we can see how, when sleep begins, the astral body, bathed in a kind of light, draws out of the other two bodies.
To describe this condition with greater exactitude we must say that the astral body of modern Man appears as if it consisted in many streams and sparkles of light and the whole appears like two intertwining spirals, as if there were two 6-figures, one of which vanishes into the physical body, while the other extends far out into the cosmos like the trail of a comet. Both these trails of the astral body very soon become invisible in their further extensions, so that the phenomenon then has an ovoid [oval] shape.
When the human being wakes, the trail no longer extends into the cosmos and everything draws again into the etheric and physical bodies.

1907-09-13-GA101

From these brief considerations we see how matters stand with regard to the real meaning of a symbol. All signs and symbols that we meet in occultism direct us to such realities, and what is most important is the fact that in due course one receives indications in the use of such figures. They then are the means toward reaching cognition or clairvoyance. No one who ponders the pentagram deeply will be unsuccessful if only he does so with patience. He must immerse himself in the pentagram, as it were; then he will find the currents in the etheric body. There is no sense in thinking out contrived, arbitrary meanings for these signs. One must place them before one's inner eye; then they lead to occult realities. This is the case not only with what can be found in the confines of theosophy, but also with the symbols and signs contained in the most varied religious documents because these documents are based on occultism. Whenever a prophet or a founder of a religion speaks of light and would thereby point to wisdom, this he does not do because he considers it an ingenious picture. The occultist bases his thinking on facts. Hence, it is not important to him to be ingenious, but truthful! As an occultist one must give up lawless thinking; one must not draw arbitrary conclusions and pass judgments. Step by step, with the help of spiritual facts, correct thinking must be developed. This image of the light, therefore, has a deep significance or, rather, it is a spiritual scientific fact.

1910-03-28-GA119

The advance made by the human 'I' can be indicated by a serpentine spiral. Two serpent forms, one light and one dark, wind around a vertical staff. The light curves represent the experiences of the day, the dark curves the forces working during the night. The vertical line indicates the advances made. Here, then, we have a different symbol representing the life of Man.
We can make both complicated and simple symbols. The following would be an example of a simple one. If we concentrate on a plant growing until the seed is formed and then gradually withering until everything except the seed has vanished, we can visualise this as a quite simple symbol of growth and decay.
In the Rose-Cross we have a symbol of man's development from his present stage to his purification; in the Staff of Mercury we have a symbol of Man's development through the experiences of day and night and the advance made by the I.

2023-09 - Rawn Clark on astrology

taken from facebook post in public domain.

Notes:

Uses specific terminology like 'essential meaning' (at the level of the higher spirit world) and 'temporal realm', (everything below, from the lower spirit world downwards); for a positioning of these terms, see the right of Schema FMC00.133
the rhythms of essential meaning that are described link to the nature of the Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods, as the spiritual hierarchies, in terms of structural make-up, 'span' from across the higher spirit world into the lower worlds and temporal realm.

Someone asked me to explain how astrology works.
Imagine, if you will, we stand within the great River of Life. The water that rushes past is essential meaning. There are countless streams that make up the whole body of rushing water; they mix and separate but are always in combination wherever they flow.
In the temporal realm where change is constant and infinite, different streams flow through at different times and the essential meaning composing the present moment is ever so lightly different than the next.
We call this stream over here, “Moon” because it somehow reminds us of the moon, and every time we experience this stream of essential meaning, this type or flavor, we call it “Moon”. And we notice over time that every time the physical moon in our sky is entering the sign of Cancer, that same stream of “Moon” is also flowing especially strongly; and so we say that “Moon” rules “Cancer” and every time we experience that same flavor of essential meaning, we say that “the Moon is in Cancer” and see that it is physically true.
Point of fact: at the astra-mental level at which these symbols exist there IS a correlation between the physio-astra-mental movement of the planets and the presence/movement of essential meaning throughout the present moment of time-space. It is an astra-mental correlation with a physical phenomenon.
There is a rhythm to essential meaning and its variation through time. To a great extent, there is (in the short term at least) a predictable pattern and this is the essence of astrology. It even takes account for those moments when a totally new essential meaning emerges out of the blue.
The present moment is awash with essential meaning, affecting everything we do, think, feel, see, etc. And it is ever-changing; or rather, there are an infinite number of changes happening every moment. So the essential meaning of the present moment is a vastly, unimaginably complex thing when we look at it in detail. Even a superficial perception of its essential meaning can be overwhelming; but when one perseveres and stays with the perceiving, we see that there are many big themes or similarities to parts of the overall flow. And we see that it changes at the smaller level each time we change place; sometimes drastically, and at others, hardly at all; but always there is the main current, the overriding theme.
There exist an infinite number of particles of distinctly unique essential meanings. Here in the temporal realm of sequence, not all of the essential meanings exist at the same time, in the same place. They all exist in the NOW moment but not all in the same place: they are spread out through the infinite universe. In our little corner of the universe, we experience only a portion of the total number of essential meanings, with new ones entering our domain periodically and old ones leaving. And it all moves with rhythm and form and balance; as it must because that is the nature of essential meaning.
And here’s an important thing .. to learn about the real universe: the movement of the planets through the zodiac, and everything that happens in the cosmos, is the manifestation of the essential meaning that permeates the universe.
So when the physical moon is in Cancer is does effect us in specific, predictable ways because in that moment, that specific stream of essential meaning is passing through and affecting us. The astra-mental is connected with the physical! The physical is the manifestation of what’s happening at an astra-mental level. Even that region of space that we arbitrarily call “Cancer” indicates a specific flavor of essential meaning, a specific stream that mixes with that of moon by virtue of its spatial conjunction.
It’s all connected . . .