The Cosmic Christ

Unrevised Lecture by Willi Sucher - 10 September 1951, Wemyss Bay

   

As we spoke of Saturn yesterday, today we speak of Jupiter. Saturn concerns the power of the Divine Father world of the creative Word, which hands over to the Son the forces that allow this work to be carried to a conclusion. We also recreated the world of John the Baptist. In his whole bodily make up, he lived in the Father world, and that world lived in Him; for in the fluids and circulation of the body, those forces can speak unconsciously. We can recapitulate John’s grand cosmic vision at the river Jordan, when the heavens opened with the Words extending through space: “Thou art my well beloved Son in Whom I behold Myself and am confronted by Myself” (R. Steiner).

At that moment of the totality of Creation, which had come to a certain point of completion, the Son, the Lamb of God, took over to complete it and realize in His Cosmic I AM the totality of the emanation of the Father world in the Cosmic Christ. Thus speaks Saturn in the constellation of Twins and Crab. The archetypes of all creation can be seen in the twelve cosmic sources of activity throughout space in the course of time. We have spoken of the sevenfold order and the twelvefold order. As we stand here on Earth, we endeavor to attain spiritual cognition and aspire to initiation across a stairway into cosmic space. This [rising in our Self from the Earth to Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and the Saturn sphere] is the sevenfold step of the neophyte, which is made manifest in the seven-foldness of the planets from the Moon and the Washing of the Feet to the outermost sphere of Saturn and Ascension.

Here on Earth we stand firmly on our feet and look around us. But when we have reached Saturn, we have achieved the possibility of looking from the periphery to the center, from where we can see the totality of any object in the universe. These twelve aspects, tinged by the sevenfold qualities, make up the totality of the 84 viewpoints mentioned previously, which come to a completion and a certain perfection.

The Zodiac is the last stage on the path of initiation, and here the soul comes to rest in the whole of the universe. We reach the Zodiac on our path of initiation through great labor, which the Gods have reached long ago in their evolution. What we see is the manifestation of their achievements, which now come to rest in the Divine world. Therefore, in the unimaginable sacrifice of the Christ of entering humanity and going through death, divinity took over the task of bringing this totality into the Earth so that the urge might be kindled in humanity to take the path to that great goal, although in a different manner. Thus, the world of creation was uplifted to the plane of experience of the “I” in the Christ, and in so far as humanity joins in, it can partake in this experience of the Christ.

The creative impulses of the Divine Father world are even present in the symbols of the constellations: Aries/Ram stands everywhere in nature, but especially in our human nature and organization. It is the starting point of creation; a kind of Sun from which creation begins — a horizontal line from which something wishes to descend. We thus describe the archetypal formation of the human head, which is inscribed into the countenance as eyebrows and nose. In the embryo, the hardening of the head starts at the base of the brain, which grasps the brain and descends into the jaws (see Willi Sucher’s book, Isis Sophia II, P_ART T_WO).

This can be enlarged and developed, becoming then the symbol of Taurus/Bull, which also has the tendency to develop the jaws in the embryo. The skull is like a bowl that grows up to envelop the brain. Then we have a division and the brain divides into a duality. Gemini/Twins is a kind of archetypal cell division in which one becomes two.

We have omitted something so far: the opposite signs. We find Libra/Scales opposite Ram, where we have symbolized a Sun diving into creation, while in Scales we have the symbol of the setting Sun. We saw Bull written into the jaw, on which the brain rests. Opposite we have Scorpion, which supports the Bull. This abstract symbol has deep meaning. Three strokes indicate mighty cosmic forces at work, hidden behind three veils. Bull works in the upper head where concepts are created, while in the opposite realm of speech, like an arrow, speaks out the concept, which is the arrow of Scorpion. Opposite Twins we have the arrow of the Centaur, Sagittarius/Archer, that wishes to go out into the world. The lower jaw represents the forces of the Archer, working in the whole human frame as symmetry: two eyes, two arms, two ears, etc., supporting the duality of Twins. The opposite force of Cancer/Crab is Capricorn/Goat. Yesterday we indicated the fish-tail of Goat. Now we come to Leo/Lion and Aquarius/Waterman. Aquarius builds the metabolism in the human frame. We take in food through the mouth and on into the whole organism, and the air we take in, we also see as something tending to go down into the body, though differently. The skull is now separated, detached, closed, and develops in a life and thoughts of its own. This Waterman configuration can now cooperate with Lion in the enclosed chest and create the thought-filled, wisdom-filled Word. Lion has a tendency to start from what is closed and go down into the body and into action. Next we come to the relation between Pisces/Fishes and Virgo/Virgin. The above approach can be applied to the whole human organization, but the head is more akin to the sphere and, therefore, the Zodiac. There are two Fishes held together by a ribbon of stars. One sees this in the constellation in the sky, where the Fishes swim in opposite directions. We are now right back to the Ram formation, and we reach a certain completion in which a polarity is established.

The brain must be at rest. A shock means disaster, for the skull lies on a resting pole, whereas the jaws, as a moving pole, are a premonition of the limbs. We have a resting head, resting brain and moving jaws that are like limbs of the head. Thus we have two Fishes, the polarities, with breathing as a link. If we know the art of proper breathing, no illness can exist. This balance of forces is indicated in the skull. Opposite Fishes is the constellation of Virgin, which represents a premonition of the future in the skull. It seems akin to Scorpion with its three veils, but Scorpion has a sting penetrating its three veils, which results in speech (Taurus/Bull). Although there is threefoldness in Virgin, there is only a curve dying away. The forces working behind Virgin are manifest in our digestion. An equal mystery is this process of digestion or transubstantiation of matter hidden behind three veils. In Fishes there is a polarity tending to separate, but the Virgin forces bring them together by creating a lemniscate, thereby creating two polarities. This is a polarity that tends to unite. It points to a far future when humanity will not only stare into the universe, but that which is perceived will be experienced as participating in the creating and will be brought over as creative deed and no longer the “telephone exchange” of the head and the “instruments” of digestion and speech below.

We have lost the Divine mystery that lies in the head, especially in these Islands where it was once so well known that people were created in the Image of God. It is something that we have slowly lost, and with Christ’s coming, the ancient knowledge was almost completely lost. Christ took on the sacrifice demanded of Him by the Divine world, and His Sacrifice brought the eternal Father world down to the Earth and incorporated it in a human body. By this initial deed, He created the possibility of this potential within every human being: that through such development we will eventually become members of the Divine world itself.

Now we must return to Jupiter. As we stand on the Earth and aspire to go out to the mysteries of creation and the cosmos, we have to remember that the Gods live inward toward the center. As our first step outward from the Earth is toward the Moon, then their first step downward is from Saturn through Jupiter. We know of the Spirits of Will, the Thrones, Who performed the initial act of creation in Ancient Saturn, according to Rudolf Steiner’s Occult Science. The next Hierarchies are the Kyriotetes, the Spirits of Wisdom. Various ages give different names to these Hierarchies. The Lamb of God was once called the Leader of the Spirits of Wisdom, who worked on Ancient Sun, which is now the sphere of Jupiter; whereas in Saturn, the Father Forces are contained.

When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world,” this was not simple piety but highly significant. To John the heavens opened and he heard those words. The Spirit that entered Jesus was the Lamb of God, Leader of the Spirits of Wisdom, from Jupiter (the Sun). John saw the “Dove” descend into the body of Jesus.

We saw Jupiter in the constellation of Ram at the Baptism in 31 AD. If we can only take this into our being and listen, we will hear the voice of the Lamb of God. Innumerable influences in the sky point to the one point, revealing the Vessel now prepared to receive the majestic Spirit of the Universe. You know that the Ram is the Lamb. The Hebrew ate the Easter Lamb (or Ram, because it had to be a one year old male animal). The Passover was always celebrated when the Sun was in the constellation of Ram, and it corresponds to the Easter Festival. This ritual, therefore, was a prophecy of the coming of the “Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world,” and that has to be eaten and enter the realm of transubstantiation within the human being.

The universal sculpting of Jupiter permitted the Lamb of God to enter the earthly realm. Then Jupiter enters the constellation of Bull. We related this to the larynx and the concept of the Divine Word containing the thoughts of the Gods. In the Gospel of St. Mark it is said that the Christ taught in the synagogue “as one having authority”, this meaning that He spoke as having the cosmic power of Bull and Scorpion, in its other faculty as Eagle, which is the power of the Kyriotetes, including the Exusiai or Spirits of Form. Now Christ can speak the creative Word of the cosmos, because the Kyriotetes were present. He worked down through the Spirits of Wisdom, Movement, and Form.

In Jupiter we realize the creation of the human form from its archetypal being. Thus Christ brought this archetype again from the Zodiac to Earth. In the Gospel of St. Mark, this cosmic Spirit is indicated as the naked youth who flees, leaving his garment behind, and again a youth sits at the grave to greet the woman on Sunday morning. This indicated the same cosmic principle revealed later to the disciples in the Risen Christ — the Phantom. Thus humanity again receives this cosmic principle.

When Jupiter moves into Twins, we reach Golgotha and the following forty days when the cosmic Christ is able to manifest this cosmic creative principle to the disciples, even so that Thomas can lay his hands in the wounds. A division into higher and lower is indicated in Twins, and there Jupiter indicates that what lies in the highest may now be communicated to the lowest. You can follow Jupiter into each constellation and each will give its clear message. In Lion, as related to Waterman, we find the first Christian community bringing both clarification and an organ through which Christ can better express Himself. At this time, when in the constellation of Lion, two years later we reach the conversion of St. Paul.

Following Jupiter, thus, through the Zodiac, we can find endless confirmation, for Jupiter does not make earthly events but only creates the conditions for events, as do all the stars. Humanity brings about the events, but we need the 84 viewpoints so that the wisdom of the cosmos can manifest on Earth. We can thereby work with Jupiter and the planets to bring the Divine wisdom to Earth.

   

Answers to questions:

1. In these days we are too receptive in allowing impressions to be poured into our senses, which we do not digest. However, in a second realm, we work as in a dream with our tools. There is an immense gulf between the two realms, and we cannot help it. There is a danger of the two spheres falling apart, but they should become one through the creation of a third sphere by which the two spheres are harmonized. We must aspire to an amalgamation of the two.
2. Virgin has the power to unite into harmony the duality of Twins. There is a tradition that the Magi saw a sign in Twins that was repeated in Virgin. They knew that the two must become one and realized that balance had been born. The Scales of the Balance stands between the threefoldness of Virgin and Scorpion.

3. The seven steps of the neophyte to initiation were as follows: Washing of the Feet (Moon); Scourging (Mercury); Crowning with Thorns (Venus); Crucifixion (Sun); Death (Mars); Resurrection (Jupiter); Ascension (Saturn).
   This represents the sacrifice of the planetary forces into the Earth, which are experiences that the neophyte shares with Christ. For instance, in Mars we have death and the forces of aggression, in Jupiter the resurrection of divinity in people. Saturn represents the Ascension, going out to the periphery of the cosmos and portal of the Zodiac, known as Zaruana Akarana — that which lives in the timeless, cosmic space.

   

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