Hello everyone, I am relatively new to spiritual science. I know with our birth, the zodiac signs; we can calculate our previous incarnations and it has a connection to our death from life before. I know Steiner has spoken about this and we are aware of his incarnations. And I know He recommends trying to remember your first memory; critical age of up to 3 years. But I am wondering if anyone is aware of their incarnations? Would anyone be kind to help me through this method, therefore be able to understand further, on how to try to piece the past together, in away where I can understand it. Or any thoughts about this topic, would be appreciated. Thank you ! Peace by with all of you!
Talk:Discussion pages
From Anthroposophy
I've been reading lately how the reincarnation cycle was begun by Archons who feed on our loosh and thus force us to reincarnate over and over again to the physical Earth plane so they can satisfy their thirst for our pain and suffering.
Does RS address this theory or concept? I have been on a spiritual path for 40 years and have thoughts that repeating earth lives over and over to "work out" Karma just doesn't seem what God/Jesus wants for us.
I have only recently discovered the works of RS and am fascinated by his life and lectures. Other influences have been Edgar Cayce, Manly P. Hall, "Seth", Dolores Cannon, and other past-life authors. Also the Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi Library resonate with me, in particular the creation of the Earth, Moon, and Sun by Aeon Sophia and her misguided descent from the pleroma that created the Archons.
Thank you in advance for your answer, and I really want to say your website has excellent information with extreme detail in the drawings and diagrams. Well done!
I wrote a full answer this morning, then got an error message when posting - everything was lost. Meanwhile the technical issue seems to have been fixed. I'll have to rewrite the whole thing, sorry.
No worries, I will in the meantime look/listen to more RS on this subject.
Thank you
I've been reading lately how the reincarnation cycle was begun by Archons who feed on our loosh and thus force us to reincarnate over and over again to the physical Earth plane so they can satisfy their thirst for our pain and suffering.
Does RS address this theory or concept? I have been on a spiritual path for 40 years and have thoughts that repeating earth lives over and over to "work out" Karma just doesn't seem what God/Jesus wants for us.
Short answer: Rudolf Steiner did not address this theory or concept of Archons the way you describe it, and how it appears on internet forums these days. That being said, Archons are a concept of Gnostic teachings which are, in general, difficult to 'place' or interpret for our contemporary minds, and hence various versions exist, they can be described as fallen angels or indeed also sometimes as a category of beings at the basis of a creation of a cosmos which enslaves humanity.
Rather than map the term Archon or address the theory you mention in your question, below I will give you the spiritual scientific description and then come full circle to your question, so you see how that concept relates. My advice is that if you follow any links, best to right click to open in new tab.
1/ First, let's take a step back on all ideas and stories one can find in the world. With the internet bringing free flow of information, we are overwhelmed today with huge amounts of information. In this infoglut a lot of stuff is pure non sense and hotchpotch. There are so many more Man-made thought forms, than there is truth or objective reality .. so one needs to be conscious that so much exists that is purely made up and has no basis in reality. The challenge is how to assess and filter.
We try to process what we encounter, we are led by interests, coincidence, intuition, by who we are (and the laws of karma) .. different things resonate with different people. This can only be a very personal process and journey, and we have no choice but to try to find our way in all this, trying to sort the valuable from the mumbo jumbo. It is it is up to everyone individually to sharpen one's virtue of discernment and work and practice the study process to construct meaning for ourselves.
And, as it is such a personal process, there is no sense to try and convince someone else. We make our own way. But importantly, like the Parsifal figure we have to ask questions as a way to grow our soul faculties.
So now moving to your question, below I will offer some answers and links to topic pages and schemas on this wiki, in case you would care to study, then it is up to you what to do with this. The below can be a map and guide to such study, but it does not provide any spoon-fed answers, as insight can only come from own soul work.
2/ In ancient times in the Lemurian epoch, we can consider the beginning of mankind on Earth at the time there was the descent of different cohorts of spirits into bodies on Earth, taking hold of physical bodies. Up to that point, the spiritual entity of the human being was not physical, or individual. Humanity is in a process of individuation, of developing the human 'I' from the original group souls of humanity. This is a complex matter, and the site covers it extensively from different perspectives, see eg Schema FMC00.472 and Schema FMC00.472A on Development of the I, or Schema FMC00.370 and Schema FMC00.377A.
Now as part of this 'start of humanity as we know it', there was a category of angelic spiritual beings which we call Luciferic beings, who didn't attain their developmental goal in the previous planetary stage of evolution Old Moon, and that therefore continued their development on Earth, and: they do this in and as part of Man.
The above idea should not shock us, as after all the human being and nature kingdoms are all made up of spiritual beings, see Cosmic Fractal. However, granted, this not the contemporary dominant worldview of materialistic 'mineral science', but it is the basis of the worldview of spiritual science.
This above event is called the 'fall', or also the luciferic infection, because it brought Mankind sin and death, but also freedom. So it's not just or only bad, this freedom is a big thing as it represents a step change for the divine creation, it's the basis for pure love and for selfless giving, which can only follow out of free choice. But this freedom (and the possibility to err) came at a big price, called 'evil' .. or let's say counterforces that were created (and allowed by divine providence) in order to strengthen the development of humanity. Humanity now has to overcome error, sin, and all that follows from this. In the future, Mankind will redeem these luciferic beings as part of its development. Another way of putting it: in a sense humanity can help and allow these other beings to get 'back on track'. This does not happen all by itself, it is part of our active mission.
This monumental event described above (see also FMC00.480) is referenced in some of the oldest books of wisdom of mankind, such as the Book of Genesis and the Book of Dzyan. However mind boggling it may come across if one is new to all this, nevertheless it describes the truth, as presented consistently in wisdom teachings and religions across cultures and ages. These are not just Man made thought forms (as millions of thoughts can be found on the web), but rather what actually happened as per clairvoyant research of the akashic records. It has been part of human wisdom forever, all we are doing here is trying to describe, study, discuss it in a language and knowledge framework, adapted to our age and contemporary consciousness.
Now if one is new to spiritual science the above may be a bit 'too much', it comes across as overwhelming, because one requires a knowledge framework of spiritual science, which one has to develop for one self. And true, intellectual study is not everyone's cup of tea. On the side: one advantage of being on this wiki is that, in answering your question, I can insert weblinks to the topic pages and schemas that enable anyone to self-study in a more effective way. And as this is published and available from across the world, it is available for anyone who would be looking and care to investigate further, alone or together with others.
3/ Now, unfortunately, the above (Luciferic infection) is not the end of the story.
Because the human being is really a complex structure made up of different 'limbs', so to speak, Man's bodily principles, that are all under development ... this makes it possible for different categories of beings to 'sneak in'. Whereas Man's ideal balanced make-up is made up of the 'regular' spiritual hierarchies, all those hierarchies individually are also under development, and some of the entities are ahead of the curve whereas others lag behind. This is where these 'adverse' influences or counterforces comes from, it is said evil is just good in the wrong place.
So, besides Luciferic beings there are also what we call Ahrimanic beings and their influences that are sneaking into Man, and hence Man is really a battlefield for the soul, this is a key point covered on o.a. Sixteen paths of perdition and Christ Module 14 – the counterforces: Lucifer, Ahriman and Sorat. This is known for ages, can be found in art & religion, see for example the artwork on the last two pages, such as Schema FMC00.499A.
Hence, Man is placed with free choice in the world, with the mission to - from the inside out - develop a balanced pathway through this minefield of challenges, distractions, addictions, attacks. The compass or gyroscope is spiritual, and the future goal of humanity is represented by the Christ (Schema FMC00.481), moral ideals, love as selflessness and sacrifice. And that is what this site is all about, to teach about the cohesion of those things, of how these matters hang together.
4/ Coming full circle. So you see, in a way, back to the Archons story in your question now, there is a bit of truth in it, in that there are beings part of Man, and some of them do kind of 'vegetate' on the elementals we create through our functioning. It also true that this is linked to the start of reincarnation, but as is explained elsewhere on this site reincarnation is a temporary phenomenon that started in the Lemurian epoch and will end also (in the future Sixth epoch). Hence, this is only one aspect of a much broader picture, and it is surely not the essence of development, or the goal for the future of humanity and creation. Even though it is part of our great challenge and mission, it's not correct to sketch it the way it is done in the Archons story that is spread on the web today.
It appears that people often jump on Man-made fictional stories and theories that are launched and spread, because of their sensational content. Some of these stories are inspired on or may contain snippets or elements that are part of the truth. But partial truths and untruths are worse than ignorance. That is a technique on its own: to confuse and distract the hell out of everyone, something nicely commented on in this note. As a result, search engines can not be used any more because keyword terms will lead you to materialistic stuff and untruths instead of the original meaning of concepts. It becomes ever harder in today's world to still find some stable ground and true north. People that are confronted with enough of such stories (as the world is flooded with them) will get lost in the storm or in the forest if they don't sharpen their soul faculties by actively using their threefold soul. As Krishnamurti put it half a century ago, before web, smartphones and social media: "the entertainment industry is taking over your brain". That is why I started this answer with the paragraph on discernment, the most spiritual of virtues. It's normal that people are dragged along in everything we are exposed to, because they have no frame of reference, no knowledge whatsoever to be able to assess or place these kinds of things (or think or say much sensible about this).
The importance of this frame of reference is why this site tries to provide 'maps', such as Schema FMC00.486, or the PDF file The great journey of humanity, that can be used along one's journey of building such comprehension.
5/ Then to your point on the fact "suffering and karma is not what God wants for us". The existence of suffering and evil is a common and predominant argument of atheists, and the above was introducing, just telling you about a frame of reference to help understand this. Without this, many very intelligent people and thinkers just block on this point due to the limitations of their worldview. It's not for nothing this is called the Mystery of Evil, it's not something you 'get' in a few sentences.
It is surely true also that humanity has some huge challenges ahead, that we cannot even imagine today. Whereas today good and bad flow into one another, in the future they will be separated like water and oil, and there will be complete opposition with evil forces more fierce then we can today imagine. Fortunately the good part will also evolve accordingly in order to face these conditions.
Imagine a lab experiment with a multi-stage distillation column, with always an extract before the next stage, the rest discarded (re parable of the sower), or like chemotherapy, killing the bad cancer cells just barely keeping the patient alive. If there would be no resistance of the road to your car tires, your car would not advance.
So if you look around you in the world, and your intuition or gut says this bell does not sound like how you would expect the divine plan to sound, you are of course right. It's clear that adverse forces are there around us in the world, and as said, things will still get a lot tougher before part of humanity will have reached a first major intermediate goal at the end of the Sixth epoch, which is what the Book of Revelation talks about. Things like alcohol and drugs, violence and sexual additions, the rise of egotism and black magic, are all forces that sidetrack souls that are not having the intrinsic strength at this time, and we can only be compassionate for our fellow human beings. With consciousness and freedom comes responsibility. You will find more about these themes on Meaning of Free Man Creator, Seeds for future worlds, and Contemporary worldview war. We can go into those things if you want.
To conclude: I hope you appreciate the nuance I've tried to convey with the more extensive answer. And bottom line: no it's not evil at the steering wheel of creation.
thank you Dierderik for the wonderful and detailed response. As I said earlier in my intro, I am somewhat new to the RS work and look forward to continuing to explore it. Your website is absolutely a gem of scientific information of anthroposophy, which sets it apart from other esoteric fields of study.
I believe the gnostic Nag Hammadi library has some overlap with the RS material, and is not to be discounted entirely. But certainly Steiner's dedication to producing and detailing the clairvoyant knowledge he held is a great resource and gift to humanity.
Sorry for the late response--I had tried to reply earlier but the webpage stumbled and my reply would not go through. I saw Rhea's comment after posting my initial questions and she included a link that helped me understand Steiner's view and description of karma.
Best regards.
@Diederik excellent bang-on reply, I couldn't have said it better myself!
In fact, I'm actually a bad writer and speaker. Which means karmically speaking I might be highly eloquent in the next incarnation which will likely come during the Oriphiel age (would be quite useful during that period!).
I want to add that the real truth is hidden because it requires a high degree of maturity. IMO society would collapse if Rudolf Steiner's works were mainstream with the current weak souls incarnated on earth.
At the same time, Rudolf Steiner notes:
“Even the denial of the reality of reincarnation — from the third century A.D. onwards — was made on the premises of reincarnation, because it was the intention to evolve that practically all his spiritual life was taken up into incarnation. For that reason Christianity had no knowledge of reincarnation for 1,500 years. If we were to deny man a knowledge of reincarnation any longer we would be denying him this knowledge for a second time. That, however, would be a great sin, a sin against mankind. But to deny him this knowledge on the first occasion was necessary, for the value of the single life between birth and death had to be acknowledged."
"knowledge of incarnation" here does NOT pertain to lies like Samsara which states that reincarnations is beginningless and endless and that you might reincarnate in animals even. It pertains to the Anthroposphical notion of reincarnation.
We're now transitioning out of these outdated Christian/Budhist beliefs but this will only happen slowly incrementally. We've only got about 2 to 3 incarnations on our belt since attaining our true ego since the Christ event. That's very little if you compare that to how long we have to go from here to eternity.
For many people the Anthroposophical truth would be a heavy burden to bear especially if they cannot share it with others. Remember there's a growing lack of brotherhood these days as Steiner predicted. The anthroposophy subreddit is a joke for example. There's no masculine Cain stream of consciousness to be found there.
"We've only got about 2 to 3 incarnations on our belt since attaining our true ego since the Christ event."
@HolyAlucard, how did you come to that conclusion, i.e., only 2-3 incarnations in ~2024 yrs?
@Lightseeker That's an estimate Rudolf Steiner gave.
"And then Christ came to mankind. Human beings who are living at the present time have had perhaps two or three incarnations since then"
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA135/English/SBC1977/19120221p01.html
Thanks for that link, HolyAlucard. Here is another specific reference that concurs with your link:
* As a default indication, Rudolf Steiner indicates that the original plan (see 'Occult atom') foresaw two incarnations per cultural period of about 2160 years, (often but not as a rule or always) a male and a female incarnation alternating. This is related to the Zodiac Clock and the time the Sun takes to pass one zodiac sign, as in that time the Earth, humanity and culture changes completely, so Man can get new experiences. (1906-06-07-GA094, 1906-08-25-GA095, 1923-08-29-GA227)
I found this to be helpful also:
https://anthroposophy.org.uk/the-shaping-of-destiny/
What a wonderful and fascinating journey this has been for me.
@Lightseeker what's more exciting is that the Future Oriphiel age will start early. Not 2235 but end of september 2024. We're heading for much more horrific times than WW2. Opening of the 6th seal of revelation will mark the start of the oriphiel age.
“I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind” (Revelation 6:12, 13).
Sun becoming black indicates the end of the Micheal age.
Moon becoming red (the color of the devil) means Jehovah will completely lose his power to Lucifer.
Stars of heaven falling to earth indicates the complete loosening of the etheric body for everyone => second death / psychosis. We'll all go from the blue pill (dream like state) to the red pill (reality).
EDIT: After further research, I believe now the Oriphiel timeline is revealed by Anthroposophy is accurrate, see my reply below.
The schemas presented on this website are very precise in their dates, down to specific years.
So what evidence is there that the Oriphiel age is being pulled forward? Would that necessitate all other dates to move up, or just lengthen the Oriphiel age by some +/- 350 years?
Also "exciting" may not be the word I'd use in anticipating the coming Oriphiel age, but then again it seems to be a necessary precursor to cleansing humanity through divine wrath from the destructiveness of materialism.
@Lightseeker I'm just writing these things before they occur so you'll be able to verify whether I know what I'm talking about when these events come to pass.
EDIT: After further study into Anthroposophy and astrology, I'm a more firm believer of the anthroposophical timelines where the 6th seal is mapped to the 6th cultural age of the 6th epoch: W/images/3/30/FMC00.505.jpg.
Also regarding the timeline of the Oriphiel age rounded to the decade starting at 2030: astrologically that's when Pluto is again in Scorpio since 1983. With Scorpio being the first of the 5 descending zodiac signs where Ahriman rules: Zodiac streams: seven and five
Hello, I am posting this for anyone interested in pursuing a phenomenology of spiritual activitiy, such as is found in Philosophy of Freedom. I have been developing some essays along those lines. They are somewhat a mix of phenomenology and an overview of spiritual evolutionary principles via examples, metaphors, and illustrations.
In my experience, this has been one of the most helpful ways to penetrate into the deeper aspects of spiritual science. The amazing thing is that when we simply think through our living experience (including inner experience), refraining from adding any modern assumptions and prejudices (like that we can only reliably investigate sensory experience, or mathematical abstractions from sensory experience), we inevitably end up with the core ideas of spiritual science even if we are not specifically aiming for that.
All of spiritual science is born from investigating, via higher cognition, the first-person ideational perspectives responsible for the Earthly and Cosmic rhythms that overlap with our own and tracing that higher-order activity to their phenomenal shadows, or vice versa. As I explore in the essays, our normal conceptual thinking is but an aliased perspective of those higher cognitive states. That is why, with assumption-free logical reasoning through living experience, we can reach very similar conclusions as attained through spiritual science and also test the ideas reached by the latter to see whether they bring the diverse facts of our living experience into greater harmony with one another.
Here is the link to Part I - https://spiritanalogies.substack.com/p/retracing-spiritual-activity-part?r=rlafh
It helps to go through in order, although I imagine some already familiar with spiritual science could jump in at any essay and still get significant value from imaginatively exploring the ideas.
Of course, I am happy to discuss the ideas here, answer any questions, or hear any feedback or even pushback.
Someone mentioned a “loosened etheric” as leading to an adversarial or ahrimanic clairvoyance. Is there some reading you would recommend to understand what is this?
Thanks for that question, this is typical example of a sentence where one has to think twice on what may have been the context and how to best answer your question.
First: the loosening of the etheric from the physical body is an important evolutionary trend that is happening right now and will continue in the centuries to come, it is important to study and understand this, because to it are linked the awakening of a new clairvoyance, christ in the etheric, .. but also it represents the first step in the pathway of spiritualization of mankind. As sketched in the Book of Revelation (and on the wiki site) .. through stages of ao the Future Oriphiel age and especially the next sixth cultural age .. in the sixth epoch will have the opportunity to spiritualize and disconnect from the physical body, the reverse of what happened in the third Lemurian epoch. A certain cohort will in fact succeed in doing so. A large group will not. In our times, the fifth and sixth cultural ages are key in this development, and RS tries to awaken people, just as John the Baptist did, to the fact they have to wake up to what is happening and change their ways so as to jump on that train of evolutionary development. He also mentions only a third of the population reaches a certain goal in any period, a simple statement worth pondering over.
Now in that context we consider the 'elemental unbalance' of Man's bodily principles, RS calls it the luciferic and ahrimanic influences mostly, but there are also the soratic (see also The double, on the page I think I add a simple introduction by Daskalos). Now I use the term elemental unbalance because this is Bardon's IIH way of putting it, the step 1&2 soul mirrors are the way of introspection and shadow work that is key in this. What Rudolf Steiner describes, e.g. in the 1917-01-GA174 lectures, is that the development of the I, in its long process, can go as intended, but most obviously also can go wrong at every stage of development of the I: imagine each cultural age since the Atlantean epoch into the current. So there is the model-blueprint or 'correct' I, but there also many illnesses or aberrations. The population consists of all these variants. And so if one is under the spell of a dominant luciferic or ahrimanic, that has all kinds of weird by-effects.
So: The ahrimanic clairvoyance you mention is a term never used by RS, because it is not clairvoyance, it is a form of delusion that may feel the same as connecting with the spiritual world as in well-developed clairvoyance, but it's actually the consequence of elemental unbalances or deformations of the soul that cause one to get visions, hear voices, etc. That is also why RS explains large groups of people will suffer from this in the future in ever larger degrees: nervous diseases and suicides will become epidemic. The materialistic culture will react by trying to 'protect' people (from these natural effects of spiritualization and the loosening of the etheric) by medical treatments (...). Some people believe this is what has started now, that by getting into a person's blood, the human esoteric physiology can be so affected as to shunt, delay or stop a natural spiritualization. But that's a different topic.
If you're interested I would suggest to read up the relevant sections on:
Human etheric body (for the loosening)
Stages of clairvoyance (eg the 1910-GA120 quotes on there relate to your question, quite literally)
Development of the I#Other (first bullet, and FMC00.338, and the related topic of the sixteen paths of perdition in Schema FMC00.233, more on those on Sixteen paths of perdition which also includes a 1917-01-GA174 quote)
Last, in the above it's important to realize that the origin of illness comes 'into' Man through the I and the double. You will be able to find richer context on all that I answered on those pages, including literal quotes from Rudolf Steiner's lectures, often with direct links.
Please let me know if this helped or not really, feedback and suggestions warmly welcomed.
“The whole trend goes in a direction where a way will finally be found to vaccinate bodies so that these bodies will not allow the inclination towards spiritual ideas to develop and all their lives people will believe only in the physical world they perceive with the senses.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171027p01.html
It's not so much a vaccine but an anti psychotic injection! When it comes to antipsychotic pills, you can still fake taking them, you can even speed up metabolism of this by smoking! But with an long lasting injection you're completely screwed.
Thoughts?
Dear .. (don't know your name) ..
please allow me to start with a kind suggestion .. to read the purpose of this Structured Discussions board on the upper right. The goal is to have qualitative discussions and interact on and deepen questions people live with .. so these topics can be of lasting value or general benefit, complementing the site contents. In other words the intention is not have a forum like you find these eg on facebook.
That being said, as you know the site is a study tool. Regarding your post, in your browser you can search for the string 'vaccin' on the web page below.
However what matters is to be able to put all this together, in one's soul, and after wise consideration, in the end relate it to our choices and actions in the world.
Now, sensing the gist from your first post, I take the liberty to add the link below, just for background reading (without any qualification of source or message)
https://www.liberopensare.com/themeaning-of-the-present-time/
Here someone was pointing to the importance of the current times, extract below
- This present incarnation is something unique in the history of time, just as the transition between the fourth and fifth epochs of evolution was, in the course of time, a unique occasion, because it corresponded to the physical birth of the Christ, which for us means the spiritual birth of the Christ in the human soul. When we say the birth of the Christ in the human soul, we are saying the birth of the conscious soul, a consciousness that is continually triggered by the entity of Archangel Michael as we go about our exercises in inner practice, at the time in which a dilemma concerning our destiny unfolds for us. (September 1983)
- Today, in the age of Michael, the future Christian initiation has already begun, which concerns us and which must be thought of in this incarnation, the most important one we have ever lived through and will ever live through. (September 1984)
- We must know, with absolute certainty and conviction, that we are citizens of the world, that we have come down to this Earth to perform a certain experience that is definitive in this incarnation, becausé this is the central incarnation in our evolutionary journey. It is the most important, but at the same time it also has its own impermanence. It is as if what we do this time is done once and for all, as well as if we were never to be born again, as if we had been warned that this was the last day of our life. So we give the best of ourselves. We know that we will have repeated earthly lives, but this incarnation, even in its transience, is the limit for what there is to do. So realise that we come from celestial conditions, as we have seen in the karma of the solar community, that we have all already been together, and that we have made a commitment for a certain purpose on Earth. (July 7, 1987)
- This is a central incarnation, just as pivotal in the history of humanity’s evolution as was the time in the fourth epoch of evolution when Christ was born on Earth, imagine that we are in the middle of a line and after that the line will continue. (July 21, 1987)
It depends on your age and perspective in life, to be able to place how huge the change is that is happening in the world today. Because this very much depends on the generation. But people can sense it even subconsciously and you can feel it expressed in the zeitgeist.
If you're interested in this and new to this site, below some pointers to related background reading:
- Schema FMC00.052 and Schema FMC00.534 put a few things in perspective (you may want to read the notes to the schema on the web pages they're used)
- re also topic page and note Mineral plant like spiders#1998
- Fall and redemption - original sin and grace#Note 1 - What is going on in the world today?
- Sixteen paths of perdition#Note 3 - The opium war
Pages such as the 'contemporary' and 'sixteen' and 'spiders' are having a lot of related relevant contents, it requires study of course to assimilate and integrate it all.
Was this helpful?
@Diederik Ah sorry, read over that part in the description. Thank you for the references, I missed some of those.
I've actually wrote a more detailed post with questions that you seem to have missed: Topic:Xymozwrmyntjsr33
Let me know if that's the correct format.
https://anthroposophy.eu/Gender_and_sexuality
In this page you mention:
"In the current process of incarnation, the choice of gender comes quite late in the descent from the spiritual world before physical incarnation. Whereas the new incarnation ('I'-identity) has been worked and crafted in the spirit world, and further developed in the descent in the planetary spheres, it is only in the Moon or lunar sphere that the gender is choosen (1922-11-05-GA218). This is also where the karma is recorded after death (eg 1924-01-28-GA240) and again taken on at descent. A soul has to have the strength to take on that karma, and the gender choice is related to this."
Could you please eloborate on how the gender choice relates to the picked up karma package?
I've also read "MANIFESTATIONS OF KARMA GA 120 9. Karmic Effects Of Our Experiences As Men and Women. Death and Birth In Relationship to Karma"
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA120/English/RSP1984/19100526p01.html
Here Steiner described how a "Man is a Woman's karma" and vice versa.
"“It is not so easy to believe that intellectuality remains external and affects the inner being of man but slightly. And a materialistic mind affects the soul life even less. The consequence of this is that the being on quitting an incarnation in which he has lived but little in the soul, carries with him the tendency between birth and death to penetrate less deeply into the organism in the next incarnation. He has but little power to do this, and that is why in the next incarnation the organism is less impregnated. So comes the inclination to build up a female body in the next incarnation, and it is therefore correct when occultism says that ‘Woman is man's karma.’”"
Here Steiner mentions how the materalistic man has no strength to deeply penetrate into matter again in the next incarnation and thus is forced to become female. is This what you meant?
A couple of other interesting quotes you mention in the wiki page:
"the soul is not tied to a particular sex: he souls of the female gender work themselves through [this] until they can live equally with men in the bodies the latter have made out of and for themselves, and there will [then] be one sex on Earth." (1905-10-23-GA093)
"the female sex was there originally, and follows a falling curve, whereas the male sex is in a rising curve, and is seeking in itself the procreative force which the female already has" (1905-10-23-GA093)
Do I understand it correctly that as a female you develop more spiritually on average throughout life and you can then utilize these fruits in your next incarnation as a male? We know that karma exists so that there's a greater guarantee that each incarnation there will improvement over the last one. So can we see the gender alternation as a fail safe aside from just being a different experience?
I'm personally a male with a very flexible brain (in fact part of the brain is thus feminine), if I'm understanding Rudolf Steiner, there would be no point for me to reincarnate as a female in the next incarnation. Especially not during the Oriphiel Age?
Modern young men are more boyish looking and androgynous especially compared to a 100 years ago. Can we view these traits as having penetrated less deeply into matter as well? Is this again another karmic fail safe? Making men more childish making them more in touch with their underdeveloped pure self before the fall?
the 'childlike' part and luciferic 'grown' part of men:
"Man is a twofold being. Whatever consciousness he has developed hitherto is permeated by the Luciferic forces. It is only the unconscious part of man's being, the last remnant of his evolution through the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods when no Luciferic forces were at work — it is only this that streams into him to-day as a virginal element of his nature; but it cannot unite with him without the qualities and forces he is able to develop in himself through the Christ-principle."
“Hence there is a ‘childlike’ part and also a ‘grown’ part in man. It is the latter part of his being that is permeated by the Luciferic forces but its influence asserts itself from the very earliest embryonic stage onwards. The Luciferic forces also permeate the child, so that in ordinary life what was already implanted in the human being before the Luciferic influence, cannot make itself manifest. The Christ-power must re-awaken this, must unite with the best forces of the child-nature in man. The Christ-power may not link itself with the faculties that man has corrupted, with what derives merely from the intellect; the link must be with that which has remained from the child-nature of primeval times. That is what must be reinvigorated and must thereafter fructify the other part (of man's nature).
“But there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest,” that is, which of them was most fitted to receive the Christ-principle into his own being.
"But Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child and set it by them and said unto them. Whosoever shall receive this child in my name" — that is, whosoever is united in Christ's name with what has remained from the times before the onset of the Luciferic influence “receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me” (Luke IX, 46–48) — that is, He who sent this (childlike) part of the human being to the Earth. Emphasis is there laid upon the great significance of what has remained ‘childlike’ in man and should be fostered and nurtured in human nature.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA114/English/RSP1964/19090926p01.html
To be hyper masculine also comes with huge risks of sexual sin today with excessive access to females which would only foster the Luciferic ego. You cannot be one with the harlot and with Christ at the same time.
It's only natural to me that karma would see to it that a large segment of the population is protected somehow from the sexual immortality. On dating apps, 80% of women chase the top 20% of men. This kind of hard competition will help the average modern young feminine man to turn more inward and develop their soul.
There are also huge risks today as a hyper feminine female in terms of Luciferic infection with regards to Social Media and internet in general.
In our modern times, it's no longer a fail safe for spiritual development when incarnating as a female. Could we thus repharse/modernize the occult saying to "Feminine man is a masculine man's karma" and vice versa? The feminine modern man of today would not have been able to survive in the past. The modern feminine man will also not be able to survive during the future Oriphiel age. We are thus living in exceptional times.
As you've noted in your frequency of incarnations wiki, with the degree of materialism and the pace that society develops/grows/changes thanks to technology, we're looking at much more frequent incarnations for a significant subset of the population. If we're looking at least double the frequency for this subset, then it would not be out of ordinary to reincarnate in the same gender. It's only out of ordinary when you only reincarnate in one gender across a whole cultural age.
First of all you have my heartfelt thanks for creating this wiki. Really helped me to connect the dots and my life was aimless without understanding of Rudolf Steiner's works. I've been living a life of heavy Ahrimanic oppression with very little love nor friendship (mostly isolation). I'm tired everyday. I don't remember my past life but I have come to learn my nature. After much research into Steiner's works, I've come to the conclusion that I was much more possessed by Lucifer in the previous incarnation. So due to karmic effects the pendulum shifted all the way to the other side as Rudolf Steiner would put it.
However, this is exactly the kind of life that I see myself having planned for between death and rebirth. I've been forced to go through rites of passages and strengthen/purify the etheric body and astral body. Even if I'd slightly change something from my past, I might have never come this far nor discover Rudolf Steiner. Some of the karma exercises from Steiner are actually exercises that I'd been doing intuitively for years. This is one of the ways that I have zero trauma. Other things that I'd been doing intuitively are things like really consuming Art such as music, Steiner notes this has great effects on the etheric body.
I'm almost 30 and while I'm still young I'm actually more preparing for my next life rather than the rest of my current life. I've spent my life battling Ahriman and I've defeated him. What remains now is Lucifer. I'm not worried that much about Asuric influence. It's critical that I battle Lucifer in this life to prepare myself for the Oriphiel age. A life of isolation can lead to a life of fame and vice versa. I believe I should live this life with the understanding that I might be a leader of people in the next incarnation. We don't need to consider merely our own destinies especially when we possess over secret knowledge. These aren't delusions of grandeur or vanity, the next life will be completely different for each and everyone. It's very much in line with the following inspiring quote by Rudolf Steiner: "What strength, what energy and confidence in life would be gained by men if they knew that they can turn to account in a new life whatever forces are apparently lost to them!" (19120221-GA135).
From what I understand, especially for people familiar with Anthroposophy, for them the incarnation will come either during the Future Oriphiel Age or after it. There'll be only be a small group of people serving Oriphiel spread throughout the earth, prepared and experienced with spiritual warfare against the Ahrimanic, Luciferic and Asuric forces. We cannot imagine the degree of corruption humanity will have achieved by then especially sexual perversions.
Steiner notes we should "set to work now with the utmost seriousness". For me personally there's no doubt in my mind that I'll reincarnate during that age rather than cowardly skipping over it. From the very start of my spiritual journey I wanted to [help] save the world. There are so many people living today and in the past that I owe my spiritual development to. I now have this unique opportunity to play my part, to potentially make a big positive difference for humanity in the next incarnation.
I've known about Steiner a couple years now but his works didn't manage to penetrate my soul that deeply and there was a lot of key puzzle pieces that I overlooked. It's only recently within the past couple months that I managed to do a deep dive into his works and this wiki helped a great deal to achieve that.
I'm finally able to fully commit to celibacy and I'm ready to incrementally face Luciferic temptation. If it's true that I have a lot of potential for heroism in a next life then it would logically follow that the enemy will want to take me out. At the same time the good spiritual entities would then want me to succeed. It's a battle of chess. We're at war.
Rudolf Steiner teaches us that the more we develop our spirit/I-consciousness the more Lucifer and Ahriman will fight to possess us (see 1922-11-16-GA 218).
I've checked your website traffic, it looks like there's less than 5000 unique visitors per month to this site. On reddit the anthroposophy communities count a couple thousand members and Rudolf Steiner is barely talked about on reddit in general. It might not look like much but the internet is merely 30 years old and even just one individual can make massive impact in the course of evolution. Rudolf Steiner was the living proof of that.
My spiritual journey started 4th of July 2016. Christ has been with me since then and will continue to stay with me. The quote Rudolf Steiner, "To ensure that in future, when we have found our way to Christ, our karmic account will be balanced — inserted in the cosmic order — in such a way that the settlement of it will benefit as many people as possible — that will be the concern of Him who in our time is becoming Lord of Karma " - 19111202-GA130 and "‘Christ becomes for men the Lord of Karma.’ This means that in future the ordering of karmic transactions will come about through Christ" - 19111014-GA131
So from my understanding, Rudolf Steiner says here that whatever your karmic settlement may be, Christ will ensure it will benefit as many people as possible. One of the ways Christ will pull that off is by preparing souls in the incarnation[s] before. This gives me a lot of hope because it's in my control to see it through. Everyday, I'll have to make the conscious choice to continue walking the distance.
I want to end with an inspiring poem from J.R.R. Tolkien called the Riddle of Strider:
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king."
Thank you for your message and the kind words on the website, happy that it has been of use or practical value in your life, so the pleasure is mine .. as that is why I made this site.
Let me know if you had any questions or how I can help. If it is more personal I would suggest having the conversation via mail, you can reach me directly via the Contact page.
I've only recently begun to really read the texts and lectures on anthroposophy and theosophy, so forgive me if the answer to this is obvious to some of you (or if any other question or idea I have in the future seems trivial or simple).
I was just reading Steiner's lecture GA 107 about Christ and the opposing forces. I thought it was very interesting how he describes the reason for suffering and karma coming into the world and being this counterweight that essentially is trying to keep us from getting stuck in the complete illusion that only physical reality exists/matters. And it's interesting how those things that seem to hurt us the most at times are actually calling us home. But it did make me wonder if there was ever even an actual possibility of those interferences from Lucifer and Ahriman not happening. He talks about how if humanity had evolved in the "intended" manner that we would never have lost our connection to Spirit and we would've known that everything was essentially of it. So what would have been the purpose of a life on the physical plane lived in that manner? Would it have in a way been "better"? I mean, I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt as much, but would we have gained more from that sort of experience than what we are gaining now?
Again, I've only really started with my reading so it's very possible that I'm just missing pieces of information. Also it is more of a philosophical question I guess because it's basically what would've happened in a completely different universe or planet at least.
I have the link for that specific lecture below https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA107/English/AP1954/19090322p01.html
Thanks for your question.
What Rudolf Steiner taught us, is that humanity is in the current situation and evolutionary frame, because divine guidance allowed for some 'counterforces' to exist. Today we call this evil, but they can better be seen as spiritual beings that are out of phase, to early or to late, versus our development. That way they provide resistance, and a consequence is the strengthened development for humanity. The reason why divinity allowed this, is for a real big idea: freedom of choice. Up to now the spiritual hierarchies are interlinked and carry forward and execute impulses from above downwards, but there is no such thing as free choice. Humanity, as the tenth hierarchy, is the first hierarchy that is set free from creation. Freedom is required for true selfless love. Bottom line, there is an exciting new development here, which is why it is said the gods are really watching humanity and Man is the crown of creation. See the topic page Evil (and eg Schema FMC00.427) for an overview.
Now to your question: to cut a long story short .. the above decision rippled through the hierarchies and resulted in what is called the luciferic infection. Angels that didn't finish their development on Old Moon now take the opportunity during the Earth cycle, but they do that 'in Man'. See Schema FMC00.238 (tip: suggest you always right click to open links in new tab)
The impact of this is vast, and now we come to the answer to your question. The best place to start reading is: Luciferic influence on Man#A very different world, and a bit lower on the same page are links to the many different aspects that this brought about versus 'a plan without': Luciferic influence on Man#Consequences of Luciferic infection for Man. And one that will probably interest you to read (as someone already asked a related or similar question before), is this: Q00.002 - timing of the Mystery of Golgotha .. because under point 2.1.3 is described how Man's consciousness would have been very different.
Now this is not the end of the story, as we haven't covered the further consequences of the Ahrimanic and Soratic counterforces, but the above is the first most important aspect to understand. We can come back on the rest, but have to keep things a bit concise here to not get side-tracked.
Bottom line to your question: we, and the cosmos, gain much more ultimately this way, even though it comes at a price. But note: what is also important is how we interpret and live the meaning of suffering and sacrifice: in the spiritual scientific worldview they gain a different meaning.
Hope I read your question correctly, and that the above answers or at least puts you on track for further reading.
PS: This is a broad topic, and as you will see one has to study its various aspects. As you probably know or have found, the GA is a jigsaw puzzle with some 50.000 or 100.000 pieces (you could say pages, or 5000 lectures with 10 or 20 topic fragments or aspects). What this site tries to do is provide a top level interface layer to that to facilitate the study process.
Now if you would just read the GA lectures, you'd also get there, but it would take many years .. however that approach has the advantage you're doing it organically and 'overall', as a worldview shift, all contents and topics at the same time in parallel as you work through and process the huge amount of information. Which has other benefits as well as challenges, hence this site is intended bring insights through enhanced efficacy of the study process itself. The key however remains your own mind and soul work.
I think this website and the way you've organized the information is helpful as it gives me an overall idea of things, and what it is that's interesting to me in this moment and how it connects to other topics. But yeah I'll probably need to read a lot of the lectures to actually feel like I understand anything. Thank you very much for replying so thoroughly and giving me links as well. It means a lot to me.
Hello Do you start from Pisces and do the reversed Zodiac or start with Capricorn and go forward...what is the "place holder" for new year's eve? Thanks
Dear, thank you for your question regarding the Thirteen holy nights
Unfortunately there is no simple answer as far as we know, as various sources entertain different versions of the mapping of the zodiac signs. Each with a different 'logic' or explanatory rationale. That is why there is no simple unambiguous statement on the site, and also why the comparative table was not uploaded yet (though we can do that as this question seems to come back, there were exchanges on this topic over email also).
That being said, I personally believe that the 'state of soul' and the depth of concentration or praying mood in this period is (much) more important than the contemplation along the zodiac signs. What I mean by that is that this is especially a period to go inward and contemplate within oneself, or put differently: strive for a connection with one's own inner and higher self, better future self.
This can be intuited from deeper study and meditation on the topic 'the three meetings', and I know people therefore 'fill in' this period with an own personal version for this special period. This praying mood can consist of many different elements such as (a) the lord's prayer, EDN-ICM-PSSR, after vacancy of mind along a morning and evening meditation of an hour each day. Connecting with the cosmic events of this period is a very personal matter, but you can certainly do so by entering into imaginations deeply. Another example (b): open the valve of imagination freely in one's meditative soul and imagine the winter solstice so important for people across millenia, the descent of the pure adam sister soul at christmas, the descent of the christ at epiphany, the white lodge at this time around christmas, what takes place with the spiritual hierarchies around this period of the year .. all of this to enter into a personal praying state of soul, and connect it to oneself as totally connected microcosm to the macrocosm.
What I'm trying to say is that a personal ritual is certainly no less valuable and may or will actually carry a deeper meaning because it is genuine and personal, comes from the depths of our soul (which is the key thing), and this, in my humble opinion, is certainly better than that we would get stuck with the intellectual dilemma around what is the right sequence of the zodiac signs. We should not feel bad or believe there are implications if we get it wrong because this is the only way and most important. Another way of saying the same thing is that the feeling and willing 'concentrate' are most important, which is a general comment for the study of spiritual science and the path of initiation.
Although it is not a direct answer to your question, still hope the above can be of value to you. I will however look into this further as I certainly appreciate the question and take it to heart, but today I cannot provide a simple direct answer on the single right way of this zodiac sign mapping.
PS: the above-mentioned table was added as illustration on the Thirteen holy nights topic page, see Schema FMC00.360A.
Note: another aspect to be considered for this period is what happens during sleep, and the importance of the process of falling asleep and waking.
To get inspired for a start, read for example the RSL extracts on Three meetings first, and from there read Christ Module 16 - During sleep. Then with this, one can also try to imaginatively 'feel yourself into' the lower right part of Schema FMC00.023B on the Three Meetings page, and the connect between the intertwined rings depicted.
For people doing initiation exercises the daily 'connection' is part of daily practice (see eg IIH step 2), and this special period of the year becomes the culmination to take this a level higher.
What I wanted to add hereby is that once one has an imaginative understanding of the daily process , the yearly can be seen as a 'step up' in a way, which might perhaps help to tune in with your soul mood to what is happening in this period.
Indeed, the main point of participating in a spiritual sacrament in these 13 Holy Days and Nights period is, being in a meditative mood, to bear in mind that the Cosmic situation provides a unique opportunity for your True personal «I» to be united with the Universal «I» of Humanity, with The Macrocosmic Power of the Word/Logos – i.e. directly with Christ Himself.
I personally find useful to follow the scheme provided in 1927 by a Russian anthroposophist Andrey Belyi (pls., see the table).
These 13 Days and Nights are influenced by Macrocosmic Forces operating in a powerful way from a reality which is out of time and space – i.e., from eternity.
The inner spiritual Sun of the Earth – the Spirit of the Earth – sends from Its center on each of the following days its rays alternately towards each sign of the Zodiac, a pair (two rays) per day: during the day – into the future, and in the evening – into the past.
Every day is experienced by our soul as the rhythm of the change of the Zodiac Signs corresponding to each month of the year.
At this time, our «I» becomes the point of intersection, or, better to say, the point of joining in us of two streams of spiritual Light going from the center of the Earth to the signs of the Zodiac.
The experience of 13 Holy Days and Nights unfolds before us two times by twelve panoramas, corresponding to 12 months of the coming year and 12 months of the last year. That is, in the daytime we anticipate the future, and in the evening we observe (in images) month after month the outgoing year, summing up the work of the Spirit over the past 12 months.
Thus during this special time we feel connected both with the Primal Powers of the Word and that of the humanity as an indivisible unity, to which we belong.
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