Threefold Commonwealth
Unrevised Lecture by Willi
Sucher - March 1952
The
connection between the realm of social questions and the stars is unusual, but
it really is a very intimate one, as revealed through the history of social
development and astronomical world conceptions, which were born simultaneously
with new revelations in literature of the importance of the social question.
Two
to three thousand years ago the outlook on the starry world was different. We
now look on the celestial manifestations as points or discs in cosmic space.
Between them and the Earth is a huge gap of empty space. However, the ancients
saw it differently. We can trace the Moon’s movements against the background of
the fixed stars, through the various constellations and in a huge circle around
the Earth. This circle was the most important thing for the ancients. They had
an experience of the “spheres” of the planets, and these spheres were greatly
significant; whereas modern consciousness points only toward single stars.
However, the sphere used to have an impact on the social consciousness, which
was seen as a reality, for the Moon was seen as encircling the Earth from all
sides.
It
was somewhat of a group-soul experience, acting out of a common impulse such as
the animals have. The modern mind cannot bear that and wishes to express its
own individuality, not the general pattern of life according to another’s
authority. The social consciousness of humanity changes with every alteration
in the astronomical world conceptions; thus they progressed together until just
before Copernicus, when humanity thought the Sun stood still in the center of a
revolving universe.
However,
in the 16th century, Copernicus changed this conception. In the same
years, Machiavelli wrote Il Principe (1513), and Thomas Moor wrote Utopia
(1516). Caesar Borgia was considered to be the prototype of the autocrat in
Machiavelli’s book, achieving his intentions by any means.
Now
let’s look at the Arthurian type of Kinghood. King Arthur was one of those at
the Round Table; he has his throne but is one of a company of Knights who sit
around a round table that carries their nourishment and is also for the feeding
of humanity. Every Knight was sent out in turn to help all in distress. In
cosmic terms, this was as the Sun moving around the Earth.
With
Copernicus, however, came the world conception of Le Roi Soleil (Louis XIV),
whose Versailles initiated the radiating Sun out into France, “L’etat c’est moi.”
The King has now become the center of the world, his little universe, as the
Sun is center of the universe. Copernicus was a priest of the Roman Catholic
Church; he was very pious, and the Sun was the manifestation of the deity to
him. Then with Newton, again conceptions changed. Through Newton came a
mechanistic conception, and we will see the same in modern educational methods.
The universe is purely mechanistic; accompanying this in the social sphere, we
found the corresponding reaction in human consciousness. We find that the
social order has also become a mechanism — in modern terms, a perfectly
functioning state machine. This goes back to Frederick of Prussia who spoke of
himself as the servant of the state, not “I am the state” — “L’etat c’est moi.”
Napoleon and Hitler are the authoritarian counterparts of the central power in
a great state machine. It is no longer a living organism, for the universe has
become mechanistic. This is a great danger.
In
the solar system we have the moving Sun passing through the galaxy, taking the
whole solar system with it toward a chosen point in the universe as its final
goal — in fact, from the constellation of Lyre to that of Hercules. If modern
astronomy developed a step further, they would really reach living and helpful
conclusions. Fred Hoyle has spoken of the Sun poking a hole into cosmic space.
This is a significant phrase. The air closes in behind a bullet, as you know,
and the water closes in behind the ship. The Sun sweeps out a similar tunnel in
cosmic space, says this astronomer, which is our solar universe. However, I do
not agree that our Sun is the compact mass that he suggests; rather, that
through its existence as the Sun with it’s movement, it sucks up cosmic
substance from the “ovum”, the galaxy, and this activity distributes the
planetary substances and influences. The Sun holds together our solar system.
It cares for every solar planet and its existence, keeping each one in a state
of stability within the family. We have first a principle of gestation, and
then of equilibrium.
The
main experience of Earth is death, but we can also experience resurrection, as
Christ has revealed. Individually we have all that the human world develops
over time of religion, culture and the sciences. We can speak of cultural
values created by humanity, but are these only a kind of trivial “play hour” in
the cosmos? Only spiritual science can give the answer. For we are now
continuously led into voids in every aspect of life, yet we must go on.
However, this is also a rebirth of the spirit, which is possible. As the
Apocalypse insists, “watch for that which remains”, after our universe itself will have died.
Because
spatially the Earth is small, it has the potential for growth. This cosmos has
three spheres:
- The tremendous store-house of
Divine energy to draw upon through great Hierarchical Beings. Out of the living
Will of creation, our solar system is continually recreated through
metamorphosis of substance, and rejuvenated from the store house of the Deity,
even beyond the depths of space. Infinity is beyond human space conception; it
is the spiritual world.
- We have the right distribution in
the second sphere of these properties through the Sun's determining comic
cooperation through nature, which we transform into the goods and necessities
of our economic life. In this second realm is also a sphere that is the
stability of human relationships. This is the sphere of our rights.
- We come to the Earth where all is
dying, to be reborn into the cultural life as the spiritual germ of the future.
The
above is a very primitive conception of this threefoldness that is preeminent
in every sphere of life, and which we have no time to elaborate. However, this
threefold cosmos can be the yardstick for our threefold commonwealth. In the
Revelation of St. John the Divine, he is asked by an angel to measure the
Temple. This points us toward building our personal earthly Tabernacles to
radiate, as stars.
World
conceptions are still undergoing great changes and with forthcoming impacts on
the social order and consciousness. Even with Newton, the cosmic “machine” was
still a majestic one. Now our little solar system seems entirely insignificant
to modern science, and great galaxies shrink in a growing universe to grains of
dust. Our Earth has become insignificant, and atomism is the result of our
social consciousness. A human being also loses significance, and this is an
elimination of the individual. This repercussion is obvious in our world. There
are two main manifestations that have emerged, such as lack of initiative and
lack of responsibility, producing a major social crisis of this age.
It
is difficult to find anyone with creative and constructive imagination, for all
are becoming leveled to uniformity. Even a machine needs a technician, even
though it must come to a stop by itself someday. This is the danger of the lack
of personal initiative and responsibility.
Therefore,
we need a change in our world conception away from the expanding universe,
which is purely an explosive one. We can find in our own being the inner fund
to heal social conditions, and we can find ideas ready to carry us further into
the future.
The
ancients built their house according to the majestic prototype of the House of
God. They formed their tabernacle of life according to a Divine architecture.
Now we only shape it out of our own spiritual and personal poverty. We must
recognize a healthy prototype of the Temple of humanity, built into the
universe by human hands. It is not necessary to condemn or destroy, but to take
what science has discovered; however, we must stop at the abyss of opinion,
theory, and hypothesis of the scientist. What we discover objectively can be
recognized as truth, and we will find the cosmos to be a threefold being also.
We must take this as the measuring rod for the building up of our social
tabernacle.
The galaxy is the greater universe beyond our own, and
this Milky Way is revealed through a telescope as a multitude of fixed stars.
Looking out from within it, we see this “rim”, the Milky Way, as a circle of
our greater universe. It contains many suns like our own, but somewhere within
it lies our little solar system. Two-thirds from the center of the galaxy
toward the periphery is our solar system (top drawing).
Astronomers,
however, see it as a spiral form, and this galaxy in which our solar system
swims is important. In embryology we have the ovum, which then develops into
cavities. And we find a certain resemblance between the two, as seen in the
drawing of and embryo.
This
comparison is a reality; by studying embryology, we can study astronomy and
vice versa. The galaxy is a nourishing ovum in which swims our solar universe,
which can grow and expand into a great and living reality. The ovum is a
“feeding ocean” for the potential embryo, just as the galaxy nourishes our
solar system, from which come all the substances on which our Earth subsists.
Even our body is nourished by these influences from the greater universe.
© 2012 Astrosophy Research Center ‒ ISBN 1-888686-11-1
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