Clothed with the Sun, a Crown of Twelve Stars upon her Head

The great vision in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation where the woman appears clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head, is a prelude of a coming event: the celestial Jerusalem descending from heaven. The New Jerusalem consists of gold (“clothed with the sun”), each of its entrances is made out of one pearl (“the moon under her feet”), its surrounding wall rest on twelve foundation stones adorned with the twelve gemstones (“a crown of twelve stars upon her head”).

The correlation between stars and gemstones is an indication of the high spiritual level we are confronted with when dealing with gemstones. It is the level which may appear before our inner eye when we look at the essential differences between human beings, animals, plants and rocks. The human being has its ego on earth. In animals we may observe a wisdom far greater than ours, but there is a complete lack of personal responsibility: the ego of the animals, their wise group soul, is in the astral world. In the plants we have before us pure life forces, gently touched by astrality in the flowering processes. The astral body of the plants is in the astral world. The plants’ ego is in a still higher world, the lower Devachan. Finally, in the crystal we may have the feeling that a shade of life processes is around it at the moment of crystallization. The etheric part of the crystals is in the astral word, the astral “body” in the lower Devachan, the ego in the higher Devachan.

The feeling that the physical appearance of crystals is connected with spiritual beings of a very high level, may account for the magical attraction which gemstones have had throughout human history. Modern spiritual approach should bear this in mind.

- Dr. Simon van der Heide