Forces of Past and Future in Conflict - Cromwell and Charles I

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Unrevised Notes of a Lecture by Willi Sucher

August 2, 1954, Hawkwood College, England

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Tonight we shall have to discuss the prenatal nativities of Cromwell, who was born on 24 April 1599, and

Charles I, who was born on 19 November 1600 — this is according to the Julian Calendar, so it was really on 29 November. However, we are really dealing with only one-half of human life, and this prenatal delineation can be compared to the “talents” of the Gospel, which are either increased or lie buried to avoid loss. We can “sleep” on them. What we receive at our birth is a “talent” to be both increased and transformed, not sat upon with satisfaction, nor hidden.

So, first I draw Charles I and then Cromwell. Revealed in these prenatal asterograms is the remarkable difference between the two men, and I will therefore proceed to draw the prenatal arc of the Sun from conception to birth for each of them on the following diagram, to show how closely they interlock, and yet how much they are in conflict.

We see that the two asterograms are completely reversed. Think of the growing embryo, which is only interested in the fact that the stars shine on the Earth from the Ptolemaic viewpoint, affecting its growth, and it is not in the least interested in “systems”, whether Ptolemaic or Copernican. In the curves of these embryos and their form, you will see that it is contained within the arc of the Sun as it goes round the Zodiac during gestation (diagrams below).

The Sun is the main contributor to the form of the embryo. However, the form is also indicated in the head, with the countenance in the open part of the heavens that is untouched by the Sun during gestation (See Isis Sophia I), and this has a deep meaning. This is an archetypal formative principle working throughout the human body. It is a descent into incarnation. The head is the cosmos part, which descends into the “limbs” or countenance of the human being.

In these two cases the Sun arc is reversed. At birth, Charles’ Sun is in the main stars of Scorpion, which is an Imagination of the Eagle but declined into crisis as expressed in the Imagination of Scorpion. Surely, these two souls must have something of a common destiny, because they are so close together. It is obvious that they were connected in previous incarnations.

In 1603, both Jupiter and Saturn were conjoined in Scorpio. This was the Shepherds’ corner of the Golden Triangle, the time when Buddha was sent to Mars by Christian Rosenkreutz to Christianize Mars in its decline. These two souls descend at such a moment, so they must be mutually involved. For each soul descends with a definite intention to be born at that particular moment it has chosen. It feels, “This is the moment I should be on Earth to evolve with human evolution.” Both Charles and Cromwell chose this moment.

In the Shepherds’ corner, the Buddha impulse was working for freedom in humanity, because humanity was about to lose its spiritual freedom through the new scientific theories directed against the purity of human sense perceptions. Christ and Buddha decided that Mars should be purified for when the souls passed through that sphere after death. Thus these two souls, out of their interconnection, decided to incarnate then. They were “milestones” of modern humanity on the way to freedom, and this therefore has a deep connection with the French Revolution.

Cromwell was born when the Sun was in the constellation of Ram. Venus is always near the Sun and is more associated with the Sun than with the Zodiac (as are Mercury and the Moon). Venus is in complete contradiction in the two asterograms. We must discover, out of our own realms of imagination, a new approach to the cosmos, though in absolute clarity. From the viewpoint of the embryo, we must regard the Sun and Moon as moving round it.

We also have to remember that the planes of individual planets deviate a little, and in varying degrees, from the main plane of the planetary world. Their spheres we cannot see, but they are the most active, and these spheres are the whole foundation of these planes. For the ancients the sphere was the most important, more so than the individual planets, for they maintained that spiritual Beings moved the spheres, onto which the planets were fixed, and thus revolved with the revolving sphere. It is this alone that can give a clear conception of the spiritual hierarchies working through the universe. For at the points where these planetary spheres intersect the sphere of the Sun, there are gateways into the spiritual world — a kind of inter-communion between them — and these gateways, which occur at different points of the Zodiac at different times of history, are called the “nodes”.

The Moon node moves quickly and is more connected with the individual, whereas the Venus node moves very slowly and is almost beyond calculation. It takes roughly 3,400 years for this Venus node to move from one constellation to another. It is only at these two points that Venus appears to us to stand directly across the face of the Sun, passing over the Sun like a small dot. Mercury did this last November, for instance.

Venus transits such as this are very rare, and the next one comes on June 8, 2004 and June 6, 2012, as they usually happen twice in a century. Although they can also skip a century, as the last was in 1882. The transit resembles a Sun eclipse by Venus, but little is noticed because Venus is so small and far away. It also has an impact on the Earth and the kingdoms of nature. As the hammer of the Golden Triangle gives us the time, so do these events when reflecting what takes place on Earth, for spiritual events are reflected through these cosmic events. Now during the 17^th century, there were two such small Venus eclipses of the Sun; one on December 7, 1631 and the other on December 4, 1639.

These were crucial points in history and in the biography of Charles I. In 1629, Parliament was dissolved and tension had already begun; also this was somewhere near where his Venus was at birth. In 1638, there was the Scottish Covenanters’ War — a further descent for him into the pit. We know that Venus is connected with the Archangels and the spirit of relationship. At that moment, the ascending node of Venus was in Bull, and the descending node was in Scorpion. This can tell us much. It is again the matter of talents. This Venus node was also in Bull about the time of the Christ Events in Palestine.

Imagine the soul of Cromwell descending to Earth and taking Venus to help him with his relationships, as well as a dim recollection of all that followed the Christ Events (the persecution of the Christians, etc.), and the first impulse toward democracy. We know how deeply religious he was, and that he sought that inner conviction with the Divine world, even though he could not hold it. Venus in the ecliptic sign of Gemini shows a tension that pulls things apart. It can create a great tension between head and limbs and an incapacity to relate the above and below. With Charles, Venus is the opposite. His Venus node goes back beyond Post-Atlantean time to a time when kingship was different — to the time of the really divine right of Kings, as being spiritually effective. Read Rudolf Steiner’s Atlantis and Lemuria about kingship and Atlantis. In the King, the Deity was present at certain moments and worked through him, but it was not so later.

In Charles, there was still working a dim remembrance of this. The Archer calls for the kingly qualities of the Centaur. But in Cromwell, in Twins, the qualities of brotherhood are called forth. In the Sun and Venus, we have only the talents, and we realize that their struggle could have gone quite differently. It is always what we make of the gifts, and how we realize our prenatal decisions. They both descended with certain intentions, but once the curtain is drawn at birth, the soul is left alone for the sake of its freedom and development. It is out of our own inner efforts, from then on, that we must rediscover what we came to do. Charles wished to make of his inherited dignity that which was eventually achieved by the British Monarchy, but he could not remember his true intentions.

I hope this short sketch of the interconnections of these two souls, so vital to English history, has given you some idea of what lived in these two historic figures. In Charles, we find the impulse of an unredeemed past; and in Cromwell, the impulse of a future, which could not yet rise to its own realization and verification.

Answer to a question: Charles seemed to retreat behind a mask and was neither trustworthy nor reliable. He would make an agreement and then alter it. There could have been an agreement between him and Cromwell. But his inability to be trusted or to keep to a bargain was due to that ancient atavism, which still worked through him, for it is atavism that makes an agreement and then changes its mind. Therefore, he could not meet others frankly. It is this atavistic streak that breaks all agreements. But one still has an impression that his experiences bore fruit for him, and one can see that from the death chart. At death, Saturn was opposite in Bull (with the Moon node conjunct the Venus node). It was as if Saturn indicated what the human being strove to attain in the spiritual world as gnosis-cognition of what had been. What was his highest aim? Here, it is contained in this gateway of Venus and Moon.

All the time one gets an impression that a peaceful accomplishment could have come between these two men. But Charles needed to be understood and helped in carrying over the difficulties he brought with him, and Cromwell was too stiff and dour a character.

Both had previously incarnated soon after the Christ Event, and one seems to have been persecuted by the other. Cromwell had to create the balance between them by doing what he did. It was tragic for Charles, but it was also necessary for his higher being.

   

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