CHRISTMAS SEASON
November 1957 - Unrevised Lecture by Willi Sucher
In
view of the approach of Christmas, let us turn once again to that sublime
revelation, which has led humanity through time, as represented by the Madonna
and Child of Raphael. It is a theme painted by innumerable artists.
We
celebrate Christ at this time of the year, and the Imagination has a deep
background. Pre-Christian religions have no such picture as centerpiece of
their religious life and contemplation. In order to approach the solution, let
us take an excursion to the time of Christ’s birth and the experience of the
Three Kings, or Three Wise Men. Humanity then had different means of gauging
time — that is, by the stars — of which they knew much more than we do. It is
especially necessary for agriculture to watch the Moon, yet now we could hardly
discern a precise full Moon if we were asked. The stars at night told human
beings both time and season, especially the Great Bear with its direction in
relation to the Pole Star, and so forth. The shepherds as well as the kings
used these “clocks”, as they both had a deep knowledge of Earth and sky, though
in a different way.
Why
Three Wise Men, or Magi? They were priests whom Cyrus brought to Babylon when
he captured Mesopotamia, and were of Zoroastrian origin, or religion, having a
deep wisdom of the stars. Since that time in Persia, traces of their knowledge
have been found in all the great traditions of the world since 4000 BC,
telling us of the Virgin birth and of the Savior to come. Humanity was warned,
even in the time of Zarathustra, to watch the stars for the Savior, and they
were well equipped with a science to read the script of the heavens. Although
things moved more slowly then, there was time for contemplation, too, which was
necessary for reading the stars, for penetrating the veil of external
experience. At certain times, they drew what they saw in the heavens in the
earth, and in this “mirror” reflection, traced the message of the divine world
from the visible stars.
L.
F. Jacks, who inaugurated the Oxford Teachers’ Course for Rudolf Steiner, wrote
a book called Mad Shepherds, in which he states that one of them had the
power to leave his body and go to the stars. This was still possible in the
Middle Ages. Nostradamus used a basin of water in which he watched the stars by
night, as the stars’ light had to be broken up in this “mirror” image that was
thereby produced. In this way the inner language of the stars could be
experienced, and of such was also the knowledge of the Three Wise Men. If at
the time of the Wise Men, one was in the southern latitudes, one would have
noticed the constellation of Virgin — the largest constellation — above
Palestine, but now it is no longer there, as it has moved with time. In those
days, people still had a dim clairvoyance and an awareness of all that lived in
the sky as it was streaming into the Earth from the cosmos. If nowadays one
obtains peace and objectivity and gazes up at the heavens with an expectant
patience, one can still hear a heavenly symphony, such as the Three Wise Men
experienced, out of a glory of wisdom beyond our comprehension.
They
saw this Virgin constellation, not only viewed as an outline of the stars but
as a vision, a field of forces and of beings dwelling in this region, which contained
a lightning force that can strike the observer and even alter substances.
Through this constellation, they could look back into the past. The heavenly
constellations are a great chronicle of the totality of evolution. We wouldn’t
need any books if we were able to read their story, which also tells of divine
events to come. However, it was a scientific method that the Magi used, and
then confirmed by calculation, for these inner experiences. Calculation and
divination were the twin portals through which they went back in history that
evening to about the year 24BC
[Ed. Note: about 24BC was the previous Great Conjunction]. They worked not as mystics, who rely only on inner
experience, but as true occultists, who really walked the Earth but who
contained the inner experience within the scientific verification.
While
looking back, they saw the “Sun” standing in Virgin, as the majestic background
to this sublime Imagination. In Rudolf Steiner’s “Et incarnatus Est”
lecture, there are strange things reported. “The Magi, who were really
astrologers with the last star wisdom, said that on the night of the 24th to
the 25th December the Sun was shining in the constellation of the
Virgin; and it was realized by this Sign that the Savior, who had been expected
for thousands of years, had been born. This would seem nonsense, because, in
fact, the Sun was in Capricorn that day; and the Sun, as we say, never shines
at midnight? However, this statement is a challenge to our modern humanity not
to merely consider only what appears to our senses, but to use the scientific
gateway of the Three Wise Men. This we will do, for they would also have known
inwardly, and verified by calculation on that date, that the Wise Old Man of
the universe, Saturn, was standing behind Virgin, whilst at her feet rested the
planet Jupiter.
To
their inner perception the horizon would disappear, revealing the stars below
it; and thus the Wise Men saw the constellation of Scales, and then farther
below, Scorpion. In between these two constellations stood the fiery planet
Mars. The Magi would read the meaning as well as the vision. They knew the
predicted time had arrived, which was foretold about 24 years earlier.
In
Greece, the Virgin was known as Demeter or Ceres, the Goddess of Wine and
Bread. She carried in her hand a bunch of grapes (the star Vindemiatrix) and in
her other hand, a sheaf of corn (the star Spica). But she has changed since
then into the Imagination of St. John the Divine, with the crown of stars
around her head; She who would give birth to the Sun Child, Who would rule the
nations with a rod of iron. The Dragon at her feet sought to destroy her, but
Michael and his hosts protected her from injury.
We
know how Christ’s birth was threatened by adverse powers on Earth. We know that
Saturn has absolute gnosis of all things, and that Jupiter is a manifestation
of the cosmic forces of Michael. And in the depths, between Scales (or Balance)
and Scorpion’s “sting”, stands Mars “the fighter”, whose forces can bring
divorce and discord to the world. These lie below the horizon. This was the
vision of the Magi that Christmas night, through their clairvoyant faculties
and their knowledge of cosmic rhythms, verifying their inner experiences by
their eternal courses. One has to have the keys to open that gateway, and also
an awareness of the beings who are its guardians — the Guardians of Saturn.
This, then, was their first verification.
The
Christmas “Star” is a complex of events to be interpreted. It led the Wise Men
to the Child and the Mother, as their second verification. Such sages could
verify their search and vision a third time by seeing the shining aura around
the Child’s head. The Midnight Sun would be final verification. At the moment
of conception, a soul descended from the cosmos unites with the body. A sage
could see the soul mood of the Virgin, the Sun of Expectation hidden in the
Earth, shining in the aura of this divine Child. But they saw more; they saw
that the Child in its thirtieth year would pass through a great crisis, the Mystical
Death of ancient days. This, too, was printed in the aura of the world of the
stars during embryonic development. They would see in that 30th year,
Mars at his feet in the constellation of Bull, hiding and blocking the Bull
forces by its attack. Below this Bull constellation stood Orion, the Hunter,
who also represents Osiris of ancient Egypt, dismembered and buried. In this
constellation was that future crisis foreseen.
The
constellation of Waterman tells of another great event in the past, in the universe
before our own, that of Ancient Moon. Then the Moon-Earth was split off from
the Sun, came under the dominion of adverse powers, and took an independent
life. Eventually the Sun powers overcame it, and a reunion occurred between the
dark planet of rebellion and the mighty forces of the cosmic light. The sages
saw such ancient truths working into the 30th year, and then the
reunion of the dark forces and the light. This is known as the symbol of the
Holy Grail, the Vessel holding the Holy Host, the symbol of the Sun.
In
the 30th year, this Child would become a personified Holy Grail, a
body with such maturity, in the spiritual sense, as to be able to offer itself
to the cosmos as the vessel of the Sun. At his death, this vessel body would
become the Vessel for the Christ, the Guide of the spiritual forces of the Sun
and Master of the solar universe. That great Being descended at the moment of
the Baptism into the body of Jesus, at the age of 30 years old. It was thus
that a threefold verification came to the sages of the Virgin Birth.
One
can see this sublime Imagination of Mother and Child is not a Christian
“invention”, but deep implications lead us right back to the Council of Divine
Worlds, expressed through the events of the starry world. One could go further
and say that in the beginning there was nothing but Virgin. The Greeks called
Venus “The First One”, though it was almost a caricature of this divine truth.
The Cosmic Virgin began, and from Her was born all that came into existence in
the universe. Her final act of creation was the Christ, and the body in which
He was to dwell. The Kings witnessed the Divine become human.
Now
there must again be born into the future, through such a virgin birth, human
moral thoughts and deeds in the realm of culture. These are all that will
survive into the future, whilst all else perishes around us. The Virgin is not
an earthly being but a being that even stands upon the Moon, as the Soul of
Humanity beyond all incarnation, as the aim of the dim future. In that dim
future, human beings will no longer be able to incarnate physically, and yet
they must retain their integrity in the realm of the deed, as they now retain
their human-hood on the Earth.
This
age is a milestone for acquiring the fundamental knowledge of life after death
and the staff that will support us in the life beyond. We can only be born by
the Virgin, and we must practice reality of spirit in our deeds, rather than
any superficial values.
Tonight
we have traveled a long way, from the dim ages of the past through the
Imagination of the Cosmic Virgin, the Isis Sophia, until we came to the earthly
reality. Now we must turn our contemplation to the Virgin, and the virgin birth
of humanity, which can transform the future and make an event of Christmas both
of commemoration and of experience.
© 2012 Astrosophy Research Center ‒ ISBN 1-888686-11-1
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