TWENTIETH LETTER - November 1945 Our Connection with the Stars - An Example: Tycho de Brahe Now that our description of the nature of the planets has come to a conclusion, we will start to delineate some historic nativities [mainly that of Tycho de Brahe]. For this purpose we will mainly use the knowledge that we have elaborated in the first 19 letters, and we will also have to develop some new points of view in order to perform our task. The nativity that we would like to work out is that of Tycho de Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer. He was born on December 14, 1546 o.s. [Julian Calendar], at Knudstorp in the County of Schonen (Southern Sweden), at 10:00 a.m. He descended from a noble family of Swedish origin. We now need to work out the position of the sky at this particular moment in relationship to the birth place and the time. This is to be done with the help of astronomical knowledge of the planets’ rhythms etc. It is not an easy task with regard to historic data, because the planetary rhythms are not as simple as we perhaps expect them to be. Many details and so-called astronomical “disturbances” are to be taken into account. Therefore, we cannot embark here on the details of these astronomical calculations. (For modern data we can use astronomical tables such as the Ephemeris, which give the position of the planets and other necessary details for each day.) When Tycho de Brahe was born, the constellation of Archer had fully risen in the east, and Goat followed during the hours after his birth. Thus the constellations Archer, Scorpion, Scales, Virgin, Lion, and Crab were above the horizon. Virgin was at about the highest point of the arch of this part of the Zodiac that was in the hemisphere above the horizon. It was in the southwest as seen from the birth place. Crab was setting in the west, and Twins had already set. The Sun was at this time of the day in the southeastern sky. As the birth took place in wintertime and in a high northern latitude, the Sun stood very low, just above the horizon in the constellation of Archer. Behind it stood Mercury, which was then in superior conjunction, and Saturn was behind both of them. The Moon had just entered the constellation of Virgin, and it was probably still faintly visible in the southwestern part of the sky. All the other planets were at this moment underneath the horizon of the birth place. They were in that part of the sky which was, at that time of the day, still hidden underneath the eastern horizon. Jupiter and Venus were in the constellation of Goat, and Mars was in the constellation of Fishes. In order to find the right proportion of the nativity within the complexity of human connections with the starry universe, we must now consider for a moment the meaning of birth with regard to the totality of human existence. At the moment of birth the organism of the child is separated from that of the mother. It is now left to itself with that particular condition of body which it has acquired up to this moment. All the processes of creation that took place during the embryonic development have at this moment come to an end, and although we can still observe development and growth in the time after birth, this depends to a certain degree on the form that has come to a rigid limitation at the moment of birth. Just as this remarkable moment in the life of a human being is brought about by the separation of the child from its mother, there is also a moment when the human being is separated from its heavenly Mother whose outer features we see in the visible stars. Before birth, the human embryo was embedded in the womb of its heavenly Mother in the movements of the stars in the universe and especially of the Moon, just as the physical embryo was surrounded and protected by the womb of the physical mother. At the moment of birth this heavenly Mother-Being withdraws and shows in a last but now fixed picture, all that it had created before birth. This is the nativity. Therefore, we should look at the nativity as something that marks the close of a prenatal development. And we see it in the proper proportion if we consider it as a kind of key to the prenatal events. But it is the right key only if the birth has not been forced to suit egoistic requirements, which is a rather widespread practice today. It is different in cases where the life of the mother or the child is in danger and when medical help is necessary. If we now consider the picture of the nativity of Tycho de Brahe in regard to the coordination in space, then we have a real image of the baby in its ethereal, even physical peculiarities. Let us imagine the daily rotation of the sky from east to west in the hemisphere above the horizon. For the polar region, of course, it is different — underneath the horizon, this daily movement is from west to east. Furthermore, let us imagine a human embryo coming into existence upon the Earth globe. The sphere above the plane of the horizon, where the movement is from east to west, reminds us of the dome of the human skull. From this sphere come those forces that are more concerned with forming the head during the embryonic development. Just as the stars rise in the east and stroke, as it were, the Earth in their daily movement toward the west, the head is the predominant part of the embryo, and out of it the body and the limbs grow downward. However, we cannot see the stars below the horizon. If we are good mathematicians, we can calculate their positions at a certain moment and point in the direction in which they must be underneath the Earth, just as our limbs more or less point toward the center of our globe. Hence, this sphere is connected with the creation of the limb system. In between the two spheres in the direction of the plane of the horizon, we have to seek for the forces that manifest themselves in the creation of the rhythmic system. Therefore, we have to seek the coordination of earthly and heavenly space that finds its expression in the nativity and which gives a fixed image of the constant weaving of the bodily form during the nine months of embryonic development and arrive at the picture that is given above. At the time of Tycho de Brahe's birth, the constellation of Goat rose in the east. We can see in this a fixed picture of those forces that had formed the head of this human being during the embryonic state. Then, as the stars move toward the west and descend below the horizon, they indicate how, out of this head, the rhythmic and the metabolic systems grew downward. Thus we have the picture of the complete embryo as in the diagram. If we now add to this picture the movements of the planets during the embryonic development, we will have a very illuminating demonstration of the connection of Tycho de Brahe with the starry universe and how his destiny was reflected in it. We will now consider the movements and gestures of the planets within this picture. We will first look at the Sun. A few days before the birth it entered the constellation of Archer, yet within its own orbit it had entered just at this moment the ecliptic sign of Capricorn. (Unfortunately, these partitions of the ecliptic have the same names and symbols as the fixed-star Zodiac. They should have different symbols, because they are of a different quality and then much confusion could be avoided. We tried to speak about this differentiation of signs and constellations in letter 13.) The Sun in the sign of Capricorn gives us an image of Tycho's bodily constitution. As we have already pointed out in the 13th letter, the sign of the Capricorn is connected with the formation of the knees, but there is also a very significant relationship between knees and eyes in the human body. If we now look at the position of the Sun with regard to the image of this human body in the diagram above, we can at once perceive that this Capricorn Sun is strongly related to its head. Therefore, the constitution in this case must have been eminently organized toward the manifestation of “knee-forces” in the head, which are nothing else than the eyes. If we now consider the fact that Tycho de Brahe was an astronomer at a time when the telescope was not yet invented, and he was, nevertheless, the first one who made a substantial number of observations with regard to the positions and the peculiarities of the stars, we are forced to the conclusion that he was really able in an extraordinary way to use his whole body like an eye. He must have been able to subordinate his whole organism to the action of the eyes. This required quite a different attitude and bodily discipline in those days than in our time. For instance, we can attach a camera to the telescope, which then does the work of observation for us. This extraordinary capacity in Tycho de Brahe is indicated by the Sun in the sign of Capricorn, and in its conjunction with Mercury and Saturn. Another aspect, which we can consider from this position of the Sun, is that of the “open space”, which we described in the 15th letter. We also mentioned Tycho de Brahe then, so we need not repeat this here. However, we can now add that the Earth planet appeared in the open space in the Light of Jupiter. If we could have looked down upon the Earth from cosmic space when it was in that part of the ecliptic which was not touched by the Sun during the prenatal development of Tycho, we should have observed the planet Jupiter behind the Earth in the constellation of Goat. This indicates that there rested deeply with Tycho's rhythmic system, in his heart, the searching for that chalice of the cosmos into which must flow the spiritual substance of the Earth as the Holy Host of the universe. It was so deeply sunk into his being that it became a reality only in his life after death, when this grand imagination was not held by the forces of his body any longer. In the fact of Jupiter standing behind the Earth, we have a revelation that this Earth secretly really belongs to the furthest future of our planet, we might almost say to the “Jupiter-future” of our Earth planet when the Earth will become the new “Sun-Host” in the Holy Grail of another universe. Later we shall have to say more about Jupiter in this nativity. The Moon was in the constellation of Virgin at the time of Tycho de Brahe's birth. As we saw the indication of those universal ether forces that build up the physical frame of a human being in the position of the Sun, thus we can experience in the Moon the image of the “other side” of the cosmic ether that works within the organism and finally prepares it to become an instrument of consciousness, even of the consciousness soul. We have spoken of this in detail in the 16th and 17th letters. In this case the Moon stood in the upper part of the cosmic Virgin. Here we have the indication that Tycho de Brahe was able to enter into the realm of the secrets of creation with his consciousness forces. These stars in Virgin were perceived in many ways in olden times. One way was to perceive the heavenly Father and Mother as united in one Being. Another imagination was that of a gigantic studio or laboratory where mighty hierarchical Beings gave the initial impulses for the various steps of evolution. However, this imagination varied according to the regions of this constellation. The imagination of this Virgin-mystery was implanted into Tycho's being from the aspect of the universal “head forces” that represent the spiritual essence of the world of the stars. We need to remember that the woman, who is described in chapter 12 of the Revelation of St. John, has a crown of twelve stars upon her head. It is the realm of the manifestation of the hierarchies through the visible stars. Thus we can see how deeply Tycho de Brahe was connected with the starry world. From his 13th year onward, he regarded the science of the stars as the revelation of the Divinity. The Moon at the time of birth is, from still another point of view, a gateway to the forces of the consciousness soul or, as we may put it, to the realm of thinking. In the 14th letter, we described the Moon Nodes and their rhythms. (See the diagram in the 14th letter.) Also in the same letter we developed the fact that the Moon Nodes move across the point where the Sun stands at the moment of birth, either some time before or after birth. This revealed to us the connection with the realm of the dead. In the same way, we can also consider the fact that the Moon Nodes move across the position in the Zodiac where we find the Moon in the nativity. This can also take place sometime before or after birth, and need not necessarily coincide with the moment of birth. As we have already pointed out in the 14th letter, these Moon Nodes are gateways from the Sun to the Moon sphere. If we now relate these gateways to the Moon of the nativity, then we gain a picture that shows us how the higher forces of the Sun sphere awake in the realm of the Moon, or in its human reflection, the activity of thinking. In other words, we have a description of the influx of the Thoughts of the Gods that dwell in the sphere of the Sun and beyond into the human thinking. How the Thinking of the Gods appears in people as their own thinking, as each one's own philosophy, can be found in the individual distribution of the planets in the Zodiac at the time when those gateways — the Moon Nodes — move across the position in which the Moon stood in the nativity. We owe this discovery to certain indications that Rudolf Steiner gave in his lecture cycle Human and Cosmic Thought, [where he defines these philosophies and moods]. He speaks there of the fact that besides the actual nativity, another “spiritual nativity” can be found that shows the philosophy of a human being and which may even be of greater importance than the physical nativity. Researches in connection with historical personalities have led to the confirmation of the fact that this spiritual nativity is the one which appears when the Moon Nodes move across the Moon of the nativity. The question is: how can we read in this spiritual nativity the individual philosophy? This was clearly indicated by Rudolf Steiner. He described how we can distinguish between philosophical tendencies. They are: Gnosis: the highest form of philosophical conception, that which shines like a super-thinking capacity into the human soul. It corresponds to Saturn in the starry universe. Logism: the tendency to comprehend the universe with logical, philosophical thinking. Its cosmic counterpart is Jupiter. Voluntarism: the philosophical tendency that strives to cognize the universe as the result of the activities of the will forces. In the cosmos it is related to Mars. Empiricism: the philosophical tendency to learn the truth through sense-experience and experiment. Its cosmic origin is the Sun. Mysticism: the striving to attain philosophical truth through mystical contemplation. In the cosmos Venus corresponds to this philosophy. Transcendentalism: a world conception that takes into account the existence of a world beyond the senses, a kind of metaphysical world. It is related to Mercury. Occultism: cognizes the “hidden” world as the only real one. The Moon is its cosmic image. Each one of these seven philosophical tendencies can appear in twelve different philosophical “moods”, just as the planets move through the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. These twelve moods are: Idealism: experiences the universe against the background of active, divine ideas. We find this related to the constellation of Ram. Rationalism: a mood that cognizes the presence of ideas in the universe, not as active entities, but as concepts that have been put into the existing objects long ago and cannot evolve further. We find its cosmic equivalent in Bull. Mathematism: the mood of experiencing the universe as the expression of great mathematical laws, as if it were created by a great cosmic mathematician. We find the cosmic reflection in Twins. Materialism: considers that the universe consists only of matter that can be weighed, measured, and counted. Crab is related to this world conception in the cosmos. Sensualism: cognizes the universe as existent only in that realm that is within the compass of the senses. It corresponds to Lion in the Zodiac. Phenomenalism: acknowledges the “phenomena” in the universe as the essential foundations of a philosophical world aspect. The constellation of Virgin is its cosmic counterpart. Realism: strives to make the mood of cognition of reality the foundation of any philosophical tendency. Its cosmic origin is Scales. Dynamism: a philosophical mood that carries the fundamental concept of powers or forces, but not yet individual spiritual beings, into any of the seven philosophical tendencies. Scorpion is its cosmic manifestation. Monadism: acknowledges a world of individual spiritual beings (the Monads) that are beyond the boundaries of the human being. Yet these Monads are incomprehensible; thus this world of monadic beings is still only an abstract reality. We find Archer as the cosmic counterpart. Spiritualism: cognizes the universe as the work and manifestation of individual spiritual beings of a definite hierarchical order. The character and the attitude of these hierarchical Beings can be distinguished and recognized. Its cosmic manifestation is Goat. Pneumatism: a philosophical mood that cognizes Spirit as the foundation of the universe, yet does not distinguish between individual spiritual beings. The Spirit is, according to this view, a more or less undivided Oneness. This corresponds to Waterman. Psychism: a mood that does not recognize the Spirit as the foundation of the universe but, instead, proposes something like a World Soul as the essence of universal existence. It is related to Fishes.