Comets and the role of Satan
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2004 12:44 pm
Subject: Comets and the role of Satan
We're back at the apocalypse-lectures to the
CC priests in September 1924, the very last lecture cycle Steiner
was able to complete before he became too ill to continue and
died six months later.
There are favorable and unfavorable effects
of comets. In the following excerpt from Lecture 16 in the above-mentioned
cycle, Steiner describes how physical substances from comets
enter human beings through what we eat. For this reason, it is
obvious that Steiner also took into consideration the existence
of physical matter outside the Earth and beyond the blue sky.
When the universe and our place in it is so complicated that
it cannot be summed up in a single equation, it needs to be portrayed
from many different vantage points.
Incidentally, in the quote that follows, Steiner
also utters a startling prediction of Adolf Hitler's rise to
power nine years before this actually happened:
The earth imbibes cometary
substance and subsequently gives it off again in a spiritualized
form; this then unites with the astral bodies of human beings
either in a good or in a bad way. When we see a comet in the
sky at a certain time, where is it after that time? In a lecture
I gave in Paris in 1906 I drew attention to the fact that cometary
substance contains cyanide, compounds of carbon and nitrogen.
[RS is referring to his lectures in Paris
from 25 May to 14 June 1906, but Eduard Schurè's summaries
of these lectures, included in the volume "Kosmogonie,"
did not record what RS said on this particular point.]
It was a good while before
external science began to mention this, but later it was proved
by spectral analysis.
[Around the year 1910 in connection with an
appearance of Halley's Comet. Astronomers had been aware of this
by the end of the nineteenth century.]
The fact that there is cyanide
in comets is most important, for distributed over the earth in
tiny amounts this substance is needed for the purification of
astral bodies. There is an immensely great cosmic physician at
work in the cosmos who is more or less constantly busy administering
therapies like this. Just think: What we see above us as a comet
in the sky in one period then becomes atomized as I have described;
it comes down from the sky in showers of fire; later it is in
the soil and still later it moves from the soil into the plants,
into their roots, stems, leaves and flowers. We eat the cometary
deposit, the cometary leaven that is given to the earth by the
cosmos, we eat it with our very bread. When the apocalyptist
contemplates this phenomenon he sees favourable effects from
one comet and unfavourable effects from another rising up before
his spiritual vision. The Beast will be let loose from its imprisonment
in the earth; that is what the comet is in the cosmic sense.
that the Beast will be let loose is significant for the development
of human beings. Such things are exceedingly powerful realities,
great and significant points in the evolution of humanity and
of the earth.
In 1933, dear friends, there
would be a possibility for the earth and everything living on
it to perish if there did not exist also that other wise arrangement
that cannot be calculated. Once comets have taken on other forms
calculations can no longer be accurate. What needs to be said
in the sense meant by the apocalyptist is: Before the Etheric
Christ can be comprehended by human beings in the right way,
humanity must first cope with encountering the Beast who will
rise up in 1933. This is what the apocalyptic language tells
us. Here a view of spirit unites with a view of nature. What
is there in the cosmos becomes clear to us in its fundamental
spiritual character. Take the way the peasants described what
they saw in 1872 as they stood and watched the shower of light,
and add to it what the spirit tells us as I have described it,
and compare this with many of the descriptions in the Book of
Revelation, and you will see that even the very words used match
one another. You will see that the Book of Revelation is speaking
of actual natural events.
- "The Book of Revelation and the Work
of the Priest" (Lecture 16, Dornach 20 Sept 1924, GA 346
)
When a quote is drawn out of context like
this, there are things that need explaining. I can only cover
a fraction of this without quoting the entire cycle(!), so I'll
stick to the direction we're going here, keeping in mind the
title of this post. When Steiner says, "Once comets have
taken on other forms calculations can no longer be accurate,"
he is referring to the activities and influences of Satan in
connection with comets in the sense referred to by John the apocalyptist.
Satan is trying to throw the planets in our solar system, including
the earth, off-orbit, through the use of comets, while Michael
is hard at work trying to keep these planets in orbit.
Here are a few relevant quotes from John's
apocalypse:
"And the great dragon
was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him." -
Re 12:9
"And he laid hold on
the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless
pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should
deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be
fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season." - Revelation 20:2-3
And Rudolf Steiner said:
Satan is an exalted being
who, however, treads another path than those that can be trodden
on the earth. The Beast and the False Prophet are powers who
seduce human beings, who have the will to tempt humanity on to
the wrong paths both morally and intellectually. The power, dear
friends, whom we mean when we talk of the fall of Satan, this
power has quite other plans. He not only wants to throw humanity
off course but he also wants to do this to the earth as a whole.
From the point of view of human beings and of the earth this
power is a terrible adversary of God.
But, you see, we can say hypothetically
- for only in this way can we do so without falling into intellectual
sin or more especially into spiritual sin - we can say the following.
We can ask: If we do not look at this from the point of view
of human, earthly evolution, if we consider it from other, higher
viewpoints - what, then, is the position of this power of Satan
over against other spirits in the cosmos?
It is not surprising that
Michael, whose standpoint differs from that of the human beings,
has quite a different view about Satan. Human beings remain in
the abstract and think that Satan is an evil power. But Satan
is also an exalted power, even though he is in error as regards
the directions that are suitable for the earth. He is an exalted
power. Michael, who has the degree of an archangel, does not
have the rank of Satan, who has the degree of an archai. Michael
is 'only' an archangel. From Michael's point of view Satan is
not a power to be despised but a power to be immensely feared,
for Michael sees this power who belongs to the hierarchy of the
archai as being more exalted than himself. Michael, however,
has chosen to go in the direction that is the same as that of
earth evolution.
A very long time ago Michael
decided to work in those planetary orbits that are preordained
by the sun existence. Satan is the power who for ever lies in
wait in the cosmos. There is something eerie about the way Satan
lies in wait. We can perceive this, dear friends, in those moments
when we see a comet shooting across our sky, a comet that follows
quite a different orbit from that of the planets.
If we draw it how Copernicus
saw it, which is not quite right astronomically, but that is
not relevant here, we have Sun; then Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
- these are the inner planets. The outer ones are Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune. If we draw it like this [blackboard drawing]
we have to imagine how comets have entirely irregular orbits
over against the regular ones of the planets. The idea that these
comets describe elongated ellipses is nonsense, but we need not
go into that just now. Anyway, the orbits of the comets, in so
far as they come within our planetary system, bear no relation
to the orbits of the planets.
Satan lies in wait for every
comet that turns up. He wants to catch hold of it and use the
direction of its momentum to disrupt the orbits of the planets
and thus also of the earth. This really is going on in the universe:
the satanic forces are lying in wait with the intention of changing
the whole planetary system. If they were to succeed, the planetary
system in whose orbits human beings are supposed to live would
be taken away from those divine, spiritual powers and sent off
in quite other cosmic evolutionary directions. Michael sees this
intention as a terrible error, about which he has to say: It
would be pointless for me even to harbour such an intention,
since it would anyway be a hopeless project for a being of the
hierarchy of the Archangeloi. Only beings in the hierarchy of
the Archai would have sufficient strength to achieve such a thing.
Among the orbits of the planets Michael works from the Sun and
has become what occultism calls the archangel of the orbital
periods, or the spirit of the planets. He decided long ago to
continue with his work within the orbital periods. To remain
with these orbital periods is an angelic decision.
At a specific time during
the old Atlantean period it was possible to learn through the
Mysteries into which the gods descended that the hosts of Archangeloi,
which means such archangels as Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel and
so on, reached the decision to remain within the predetermined
orbits of the planets. This happened at a particular time.
But the mighty cohorts led
by Satan have to this day failed to reach this decision. They
are still striving to use every comet's orbit to bring about
a different configuration in the planetary system. We are here
confronted with an adversary of Christ, one who wants not merely
to corrupt single individuals, nor one who wants to corrupt a
group of individuals, a human community, as do the Beast and
the False Prophet. With Satan and his cohorts we are faced with
endeavors to attack the earth in this context within the planetary
system as a whole. that is the third downfall in the Book of
Revelation. In connection with the first two downfalls we are
told about the rejoicing of the luciferic spiritual beings. [Re 19:1-3]
- "The Book of Revelation and the Work
of the Priest" (Lecture 11, Dornach 15 Sept 1924, GA 346
)
Further down in the same lecture, RS mentions
what is needed to counter Satan's endeavors:
"Satan will succeed in
taking his initial steps towards bringing disorder into the planetary
system. Humanity will have to develop a strong spirituality to
counteract this.The disorder that will come about can only be
couteracted by the strong spirituality of human beings." - ibid
There is a great help for the time being in
Satan being bound at this time in history; I'll get back to that.
Cheers,
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
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