Forecasting Cosmic Outcomes

How can it be that there are forecasts given to great Cosmic outcomes, that certain knowledge is said to be preordained - especially in the case of high beings to whom we may study the nature and influences of?

It is said that the beams of starlight come from a time which has passed many millions of years before. This is in part correct, but also incorrect. However the example is a good one, for in the case of stories which concern great cosmic battles and their outcome, they are purported so because they have arrived at a conclusion - even though we may still hold influences which shower down upon the globe and affect our kingdoms considerably in a manner which is, relatively speaking, out of date.

The influence long carries on, as small waves radiate out from the larger, until tired - and so we may well confuse a god or two for that very emanation so imparted and perpetuated; allowing also for those very elements which are so permeated by such influence as to perpetuate also past impulses, past emanations. This is why certain outcomes are predictable; however, not strictly in the preordained sense. Because, what has already been may not be termed as 'fated'; it is just that it is yet to be experienced within the relevant realms.
Added to this there are beings who are entirely sympathetic to the greater ones, and are either related offspring or related as pupil/successors to those elements, which by nature are so characterized and inspired by their originators - and being such, do cleave to 're-enact' much of the drama which has passed before (way back in the bosom of remembrance). As a play so recalled, so dramatized, these kindred beings do take over the part and become the personified arm or leg of the greater above.

Now in this case we may have a singularly different outcome to that of the original drama. The sequence of events may alter but be based on those terms as laid down in the greater heavens. So one may not so easily distinguish present day occurrences with those which have gone before; and it is to the point of great initiation whereby one may actually view the earlier sequence of events preceding these. Yet if one is to hold an affinity for qualities as witnessed raw, magnificent and awesome, it may well be difficult to return with an objective attitude of history and law.

All great beings have living representatives. They may also be divisible of themselves. They may also have lower offcasts which are of themselves and duplicatable. They may leave their impressions everywhere. We should be overcome were we to come face to face with even the shadow of an exalted being. There are even those who are hateful and loathsome in the extreme, but so magnificently so, that one would be 'taken' by the magnificence and strength of their emanations. We are most protected from such visions.

There is one who has tamed Himself that He would not overwhelm to distraction; and we are His in duplication, for He is the King of remedies. How may the elements coexist without warring? Without such domination as to pre-decide, what shall make a man a man? It is because of the properties as given by Christ, of Him. Otherwise we would be rent apart or overshadowed by such beings as do also hold elements within us.


-B. Hive

Mosquitos & Sin

THAT the mosquito bites you is a sin against you; her desire is a blight, and she then carries away a small portion of your soul-self unknowingly. Sin is like the mosquito, for it persists and would feed upon the man, taking a little from him, of him. 

Relative to his true nature, the size of the insect as opposed to the man is quite so; and every now and then same insect injects along with her desire, a poison which may provoke death - the same is with sin in each jab, sting and itch. Most are a nuisance; collectively (if they seized upon you all at once) they should surely take all of your life from you; but singly they are minor, unless they bring poison - a poison to kill us could be made to materialize and be supported.

-B.Hive

Demiurgos

In times when the Old Testament became the authoritative record, it was proper to regard the creation of man by Jahve or Jehovah as the dawn of world-evolution.

But in still earlier times the intervention of Jehovah was regarded not as the incipient but as a much later episode in the evolutionary process. It was said that another, more purely spiritual phase of evolution had preceded the creation of the world by Jehovah as it is described in the Bible and as it is ordinarily understood. In other words, it was held that the intervention of Jehovah had been preceded by that of other Beings, that the creation of man had occurred after the passage of an earlier phase of the evolutionary process.

Those men in Greece who meditated upon the earliest stages of world-evolution spoke of a primordial Being for the understanding of whose nature a much more highly spiritual mode of knowledge is required than for an understanding of the events described in the Old Testament. These men spoke of the Being whom they held to be the actual Creator of the world — the Demiurgos.

The Demiurgos was a Being dwelling in spheres of lofty spirituality, in a world devoid of every element of that material existence with which in the Bible story the humanity created by Jehovah is naturally associated.

We must therefore think of the Demiurgos as a sublime Being, as the Creator of the world who sends forth other Beings from Himself. The Beings sent forth by the Demiurgos were ranked in successive stages, each stage being lower than the last. (Such expressions are, of course, quite inadequate, but no other words are available.) The life of these Beings, however, was held to be entirely free from the conditions of earthly birth and earthly death.

In Greece they were known as Aeons — of the first rank, the second rank and so on. The Aeons were Beings who had issued from the Demiurgos. Among these Aeons, Jahve or Jehovah was a Being of a relatively subordinate rank. And this brings us to a consideration of the teachings of the Gnostics, as they were called, in the early centuries of Christendom. It was said that Jehovah united with matter and that from this union man came into existence.

Demiurgos
|
Æons 1.
|
Æons 2.
|
Jehovah Matter
Man

According to this Gnostic conception, therefore, Jehovah was a somewhat lower descendant of the more lofty Aeons who had proceeded from the Demiurgos, and as the outcome of Jehovah's union with matter, man was created.

-Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner on the Gnostics

https://sites.google.com/view/waldorfwatchwing/gnosis

Trust Meditation- origins

This "trust meditation" is one of several translations of several versions that are in circulation. The editors at the Rudolf Steiner Archive, however, have pointed out that none of these versions were ever given as such by Rudolf Steiner. They were created by unknown persons by patching together and modifying various passages from Steiner's lectures (or possibly from elsewhere). The first six lines in the above version, for example, are an abbreviated passage from Steiner's lecture "Cognition and Immortality" (Bremen, Nov. 27, 1910), which has been published only in the Archive newsletter (Beitrahygfrge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe, #98, p. 10). The remaining lines come from the end of Emanuel Zeylmans' biography

of his father, "Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven. Ein Pionier der Anthroposophie" (Arlesheim 1979, p. 358). The son relates that at his father's death he found a slip of paper in his father's wallet with these lines, which supposedly came from Rudolf Steiner. Although this is entirely possible (Willem was a friend of Steiner's and became the General Secretary of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society), the editors at the Rudolf
Steiner Archive have not been able to independently verify the source of these words.

The foregoing facts do not necessarily affect the truth of the whole "verse," but readers should be aware that it was not given as such by Rudolf Steiner and that it therefore probably does not have the occult power inherent in Steiner's other meditative verses.

[excerpt two]

I think the reference everyone is looking for is 27th November 1919. [Steiner did not say this on Nov. 27, 1919] 

Where Steiner allegedly said: (in an amalgam of out of context passages.)
"....First, however, everything that remains of the old will have to be reduced to nothingness. The clouds will have to gather round the human being, and he will have to find his freedom - find his own power, his own strength out of this nothingness. Outer material need will change into soul need, and out of this deep need of the soul will vision be born.
We must tear up by the roots every trace of fear and shrinking in face of what the future threatens to bring to human beings. All our feeling about the future must be permeated with calm and confidence. Absolute equanimity in face of whatever the future may bring - that is what man has to acquire, knowing as he does that everything that happens, happens under an all-wise cosmic guidance.
Our part is to do what is right in each moment as it comes - and to leave the rest to the future, That indeed is the lesson we have to learn in our time, to base our lives on simple trust. without any security of existence, to have trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. That is the only way for us if our courage is not to fail. Let us then set to work to discipline our will....."

(based on a translation by Mary Adams)

[exerpt three]

Steiner did not say this on Nov. 27, 1919; this is another amalgam of out of context passages. In this amalgam the first paragraph is extracted from the end of Steiner's lecture of Oct. 30, 1920 (GA 200, p. 120), which is published in English as lecture 6 of "The New Spirituality". The second paragraph is a different translation of the first paragraph of the "trust meditation" that I commented on earlier (the date is Nov. 27, 1910, not 1919). I don't know where the first sentence of the third paragraph comes from. The remainder of the last paragraph is a different (and incomplete) translation of the material from Emmichoven.

Daniel Hindes:

A little note about the following verse, which is very popular lately. It is attributed to Steiner, but it is not one of his verses. According to the editors at Steiner's archive in Dornach It appears to have originated among Dutch anthroposophists during WWII (this information is contained in GA40a). The first part is a versification of a paragraph from a 1911 lecture. The second part is demonstrably pseudoepigraphical (more on that below).

From the Steiner Lecture:
ATTRIBUTED TO RUDOLF STEINER:
We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what
comes towards man out of the future.
We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations
about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity
to everything that may come.
And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us
by a world-directive full of wisdom.

The part that is pseudoepigraphical:
It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence.
Trust in the ever present help of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves,
every morning and every evening.

Some basic hermaneutics can establish that the second half is not from Steiner. While the theme of the first four verses re-occurs repeatedly in slightly different formulations in lectures from the period 1910-1911 -especially in lectures where he is explaining anthroposophy to the public - the second half does not match in phrasing or in theme to anything in the Complete Works. For instance, you will not find a single instance of the phrase "pure trust" anywhere in Steiner's work. Nor any references to failing courage. Living in trust is not a concept you'll find in Steiner's work, and is arguably antithetical to much of Steiner's western path. And even seeking awakening from within is a novel formulation. Arguably this is the anthroposophical path, but you won't find Steiner describing it in those terms anywhere.

This is not to say that the verse has not given much comfort to many in times of uncertainty. But I feel compelled to point out its murky origins.

https://www.mail-archive.com/bdnow@envirolink.org/msg04857.html