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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 21 through 30 of 445

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210. Old and New Methods of Initiation: Lecture III 08 Jan 1922, Dornach
Translated by Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
When those people looked up to the starry heavens they saw in the external constellations and movements of the stars only something perfectly familiar to them in their picture consciousness.
This can be compared with what the ancient Indian people saw in their instinctive vision and in relation to this what they saw in the constellations and movements of the stars. The constellations and movements of the stars were no more than written characters, indeed pale written characters.
Looking for instance at the Egyptian culture from this point of view—and it was even more pronounced in the Chaldean—we see it rightly only if we remind ourselves that those who had any part in this culture indeed took the most intimate interest in the constellations of the stars as evening approached. For example they awaited certain manifestations from Sirius, they observed the planetary constellations and applied what they saw there to the way the Nile gave them what they needed for their earthly life.
327. The Agriculture Course (1958): Lecture VI 14 Jun 1924, Koberwitz
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
Undoubtedly, within these limits, a variation among the constellations for the different kinds of lower animals will be significant. It must be tested. Question: Did you mean the astronomical Venus, for the field mice? Answer: Yes, that which we call the evening star. Question: What “constellation of Venus with Scorpio?” Answer: Whenever Venus is visible in the sky with the Scorpio constellation in the background.
It may only involve a slight difference in the constellation. The proper constellation will move to some extent in the direction from Aquarius to Cancer as you pass from the winged insect to the larva.
276. The Arts and Their Mission: Lecture V 08 Jun 1923, Dornach
Translated by Lisa D. Monges, Virginia Moore

Rudolf Steiner
Thus man as thinker felt as though the force of his thinking were located not in his earthly organism, but out where the stars were circling and forming constellations; he felt his soul poured out into the entire universe. If he had investigated combinations and separations of thoughts, he would have looked, not for laws of logic, but for the paths and constellations of the stars in the nightly firmament.
To repeat: he felt his soul poured out into the universe; felt that, while with his thoughts he abode among the fixed stars and their constellations, with his feelings he lived within the sphere of the moving planets. Only with his will did he feel himself on earth.
For our speech is fettered to the material-earthly; it no longer manifests what it was when human beings, feeling transported into the Zodiac, incorporated into themselves from zodiacal constellations the twelve consonants, and from the movements of the planets past the fixed-star constellations, the vowels.
350. Rhythms in the Cosmos and in the Human Being: Druidic Wisdom — Mithraism — Catholic Worship — Freemasonry — The Christian Community 10 Sep 1923, Dornach
Translated by Steiner Online Library

Rudolf Steiner
Blackboard 2 I told you: in spring, the sun rises in a certain constellation, today actually in the constellation of Pisces. – Astronomers still show the constellation of Aries. But that is wrong, in reality it is the constellation of Pisces. For a long time, for two thousand years, the sun rose in the constellation of Aries, even earlier in the constellation of Taurus. And so people said: The sun always rises in the constellation of Taurus in spring, when growth begins. And they associated what lives in the human body, not in the head, but in the rest of the human body, namely what is associated with growth, with the fact that the sun's rays are changed, that the constellation of Taurus is behind them.
151. Human and Cosmic Thought (1991): Lecture IV 23 Jan 1914, Berlin
Translated by Charles Davy

Rudolf Steiner
Hence, if one speaks in the symbols of astrology, one would say that the spiritual constellation of such a man, according to his natural predispositions, is that Venus stands in Aries. I remark expressly, so that no misunderstanding may arise, that these constellations are of much greater importance in the life of the person than the constellations of the external horoscope, and do not necessarily coincide with the “nativity”—the external horoscope.
In physical astrology this a favourable constellation; in spiritual astrology this so-called sextile aspect is unfavourable. We can see this because this last position—Voluntarism in Mathematism—comes up against a severe hindrance in the soul.
Therefore Spiritual Science, while it must evoke the feeling by which we recognize how there should be peace between world-outlooks, must also point sharply to cases where persons go beyond the necessary limits set for them by their constellations. These persons do great harm by hypnotizing the world with opinions that get by without any attention being paid to the constellation behind them.
124. Background to the Gospel of St. Mark: Mystery Teachings in St. Mark's Gospel 18 Dec 1910, Hanover
Translated by E. H. Goddard, Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
But if we think of the Sun standing in one of the constellations and sending its rays through that constellation to the Earth, and if we consider how it is related to other stars, we have a kind of script which expresses the fact that a particular man is initiated into the Sun-Mysteries in a way that makes him an Aquarius Initiate.
So in order to specify the various forms of Initiation into the Sun-Mysteries we can use expressions indicating the Sun's position in a particular constellation. John the Baptist had necessarily to receive an Aquarius Initiation, the expression indicating that the Sun was standing in the constellation of Aquarius.
It is the facts of the spiritual life here on Earth from which the names of the zodiacal constellations are derived, by transference to the heavens. Our so-called learned men, however, explain such things by saying that the names of the constellations in the heavens were given to certain personalities on Earth.
123. The Gospel of St. Matthew (1946): The Beatitudes 10 Sep 1910, Bern
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
Christ passed on to them the forces the Sun had to bestow through the seven day-time constellations. There below was their day-time nourishment. During the night the disciples were aware that through the power of Christ, the invisible night-time Sun poured heavenly nourishment into their souls as it passed through the remaining five constellations.
And they knew that in their imaginative clairvoyant consciousness of the night they perceived through the five night-constellations what pertained to the epoch that was coming—that of the fifth thousand. The people of the Fourth Epoch, or the fourth thousand, were nourished from Heaven by the seven heavenly loaves—the seven day-time constellations; the people of the Fifth Epoch, or the five thousand, were fed from Heaven by the five night-constellations. At the same time the division between the constellations of the day and those of the night is always indicated by fishes—the twelfth sign of the Zodiac.
124. Background to the Gospel of St. Mark: The Symbolic Language of the Macrocosm in the Gospel of St. Mark 06 Dec 1910, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard, Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
I have said repeatedly that there are twelve different possibilities of passing out into the Macrocosm, directions indicated symbolically by the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. If a candidate was unable at once to attain the highest Initiation, the Sun Initiation, but could achieve a partial Initiation only, his soul was directed to the secrets connected with one particular constellation.
This meant that either in the rites of the Mysteries or, as in the case of John the Baptist, by grace from above, the candidate's gaze was guided to a constellation when the Earth lay between him and the constellation—that is to say, by night. Physical eyes see the physical constellation only. But when vision can penetrate through the material Earth—which means that the constellation is masked by the material Earth—then what is seen is not the physical but the spiritual reality, that is to say, the secrets which the constellation expresses.
180. Ancient Myths: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution: The Change of Soul in the Change of Consciousness 05 Jan 1918, Dornach
Translated by Mabel Cotterell

Rudolf Steiner
And just as we could point to a quite definite heavenly constellation, which the Magi of the East knew as the constellation in which the new cosmic age was to approach (we have pointed out in the Christmas lectures that by a certain constellation of the ‘Virgin’ the Magi of the East knew that they were to bring their offerings to the new World-Saviour) so too have those whose thoughts centred on the Osiris myth looked back to quite definite star-constellations.
It was brought about inasmuch as the most important signs were taken, not from animal or earthly forms, but from the star-constellations, in fact from what clairvoyance saw in the star-constellations. If I were to make a comparison from something lately in our minds, I might say: You have heard in the ‘Dream of Olaf &Åsteson’ how he experiences the spirit-snake, the spirit-dog and the spirit-bull; he describes what he feels about them.
Just as it depends on the sun, on the ordinary rising and setting of the sun, that I can perceive and think, so does it depend on greater, more extended star constellations which appear after centuries, after millennia, what man develops in perceiving and thinking of the kind that I have described.
102. The Influence of Spiritual Beings on Man: Lecture II 27 Jan 1908, Berlin
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
We may picture to ourselves that around this Saturn, this first, dawn-condition of our planetary system, there were the constellations of the Zodiac—but not yet as they are today. The single stars composing the Zodiacal constellations around that ancient Saturn were scarcely to be distinguished from each other.
We think of the forces which are now involved in the ascending line of evolution, collectively, as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra—because they actually belong to these constellations. These seven constellations comprise the ascending forces. The descending forces are comprised, approximately speaking, in the five constellations of Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.
The configuration of forces is such that He could become the Creator of these beings in the constellation of Aries, or the Lamb. The designation “Sacrificial Lamb” or “Mystical Lamb” is drawn from the heavens themselves.

Results 21 through 30 of 445

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