Trees of Life & Knowledge

Jehovah, one of the Elohim, forbade eating from the Tree of Knowledge, and... after the Luciferic temptation, once human beings had in fact eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, they were barred from also eating from the Tree of Life. How strange that the Elohim should speak of trees!

I have often said that the language of a document such as the Bible should not be taken lightly. If trees are spoken of in the Bible, if the Elohim speak of trees, you can be sure it's significant. Something essential is meant by this expression. It has been said of Homer that he declared that each thing has two names, one in the language of the gods and one in the language of ordinary mortals. With this in mind, we might imagine that the gods' referring to trees may have something to do with this divine language. Considering the subject more deeply, we may wonder what the Elohim are actually talking about when they speak of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. What do they mean?

If you consider our teachings in their entirety, my friends, you will realize that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge must have something to do with the essence of the human being. Being forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge means, as you will eventually discover, that the human soul is not to strive for the kind of knowledge bound to the physical body. This has led to the kind of sense-bound perception we know today. “Eating from the Tree of Knowledge” means becoming bound up with the physical body to the extent that the kind of knowledge brought about by Lucifer now prevails...

Thus, the Elohim were referring to something inherent in human beings when they spoke of the Tree of Knowledge. And they must also have meant something intrinsic to the human being when they spoke of the Tree of Life.

We may wonder why we see as we do today, how it came about that we perceive as we do. It came about because our soul and spirit, permeated with the being of Lucifer, have become embedded in our physical body and are consuming it, although this is not what was originally intended. This physical body is the Tree of Knowledge, and the ether body is the Tree of Life. After having let themselves be seduced by Lucifer into using their physical body for purposes of perception as we know it now, human beings were prevented from also acquiring knowledge through the ether body. That has been denied us. If you are really thinking, my friends, you will arrive at trains of thought like this one.

The next question to be asked, then, is why the physical body is called the Tree of Knowledge in the language of the gods.

Why do they call it a tree, and why do they also call the ether body the Tree of Life? Why are they talking about trees? It is easy to understand what is meant by this if you recall that the gods in question evolved during the Sun period for the most part and thus assumed some essentially Sun-like qualities. For a moment, just reflect on the fact that during the ancient Saturn period, everything was at the mineral level, while during the ancient Sun period, everything was at the evolutionary stage of plants. Since the gods we call the Elohim developed their characteristic way of speaking during the Sun period, it is natural for them not to speak of things that could only be experienced later, during the Moon and Earth stages of evolution, but about what evolved in the universe during the Sun stage, namely plant life. When using their own language, which is the language of the Sun, it is only natural for them to speak of trees.

-Rudolf Steiner 

In the fourth seal we see the Pillars, one of them planted on the sea, the other on dry land. These Pillars indicate the secret of the part played in human evolution by the red blood, rich in oxygen, and the blue of bluish red, rich in carbonic acid.

The evolution of the I of man during the Earth epoch finds physical expression in the interaction between the red blood, without which there could be no Life, and the blue, without which there could be no Knowledge. Blue blood is the physical expression of those forces which give us Knowledge- forces which, however, taken by themselves and in their human form, are very nearly akin to Death. Red blood is the physical expression of Life- which however in its human form and by itself, could never give us conscious Knowledge. Together and in their mutual interaction they represent the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life or the two pillars on the foundation of which the life and cognition of the I can grow and develop to that degree of maturity where at long last man will be fully united with the universal forces of the Earth.

The Initiate foresees a future condition of mankind in which the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life .... will be intertwined and united within man himself. At the present stage the aspirant to spiritual development should inscribe the message of the two pillars in his heart. Separated though they still are, they summon us to transcend the present state of mankind and to direct our footsteps to the place where through our widened consciousness the two will be interwoven - a secret that is indicated in the J-B. The verses inscribed on either pillar will bring home to us their meaning. Those on the first pillar relate to Knowledge, those on the second to Life itself. Thus at the former stage the formative, creative powers are revealed to man; at the latter he himself reveals them, magically. Progression from the mere faculty of cognition to that of magical activity in life is the significance of the transition from the power latent in the first inscription to that which is latent in the second.

-Rudolf Steiner 

Basil Valentine & the Philosopher's Stone

In the hands of the Moors who held Granada, there was at that time a sacred treasure, with the possession of which a kind of hidden knowledge was associated. It was a sacred relic connected with a form of Alchemy. Destiny brought it about that this object and the knowledge associated with it fell into the hands of Francisco Almeida. Almeida felt that he had the right to dispose of it after his own insight, but the Order of St. Iago did not agree with him, and desired to keep for itself the right of disposal, both of the relic itself, and of the hidden knowledge which went with it. 

Almeida however insisted on his right and eventually passed on the relic and the knowledge to a certain man from Alsace, whose name was Stefan Rautter. This individuality is known to history under the pseudonym Basil Valentine. His writings, preserved by his pupils and circulated in manuscript form, were at a later time collected and published by Johann Thölde, secretary of the Rosicrucian Order. Thölde's edition contains a few biographical remarks by Basil Valentine himself, but the real name of the latter is not given; it is only inserted in handwriting in one of the extant copies of the edition. Basil Valentine here mentions, among other things, that he undertook in peril of his life a journey to St. Iago di Compostella, and he remarks that those who may now benefit from the knowledge which he brought from thence should thank God that he was enabled to complete the arduous journey.

Basil Valentine's work contains the great secret of Alchemy, which consists in the study of certain transmutations of carbon, referred to mysteriously as the prima materia. The secret is not revealed; it is only hinted at in a half-jocular form, where it is said that the disciple of Alchemy must not take it amiss if he be called upon to dirty his hands with coal.

Basil Valentine also mentions that he came to England. Thomas Malory, who here became his pupil, repeats the same jest in the story of the knight, Beaumains. Indeed, the entire seventh book of Malory's Morte d'Arthur proves him a pupil of Basil Valentine; only what Basil refers to as the stone that goes through many colors is for Malory the knight of many-colored amour.

It was Almeida, therefore, who withheld the knowledge from the Order of St. Iago and was responsible for giving it to Basil Valentine. The hidden knowledge, and the preparation in question, was preserved from thenceforth in the Rosicrucian schools of Alchemy. This knowledge is indeed very ancient, and in the last resort goes back to the time of Alexander the Great, who learned the secret of substance and of its medical use from his tutor, Aristotle.

The coal, the transmutation of which is the subject of Alchemy, is indeed none other than the carbon that is contained in every living substance. In the living body of man this carbon does indeed take on all colors, inasmuch as all the organs are made up of its compounds.

Carbon builds up the human body, which is not only alive, but also permeated in its living substance by soul and spirit. What Basil Valentine calls the Philosophers Stone is none other than the human being looked at from the threefold aspect of Body, Soul, and Spirit.

Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens

Therefore the Philosophers Stone is represented as consisting of three substances, though one in essence. In the Mystery Schools of Antiquity it was always known that the human being must experience a transmutation in body, soul, and spirit if the ordinary consciousness is to be changed into a higher, clairvoyant consciousness. To describe this transmutation in the language of carbon chemistry was the essential content of Basil Valentine's Alchemy.

Thus Almeida brought the Royal Art from Granada to Compostella and from thence, by the hand of Basil Valentine, to Alsace and to Thomas Malory in England.

-Walter Stein

http://www.thepresentage.net/wp-content/uploads/thepresentage.netv1i6portugal.pdf

Metabolic Knowledge

"In those mysteries into which the resurrected Christ sent His message there still existed the knowledge that in ancient times the human being possessed the highest knowledge of matter, “metabolic knowledge.” The way was sought to reawaken this ancient knowledge of matter — although not in the way of primeval mankind, nor in the way of the “hashish-eaters,” who wished, through the effects of certain material substances, to gain a knowledge which cannot be obtained without them. The way to reawaken this ancient knowledge of matter was striven for, but in a different manner, namely through clothing the Mystery of Golgotha in certain mantric forms, chiefly in the structural forms of the mystery of Revelation, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion, by presenting the Holy Supper through the giving of bread and wine to the worshipper.




"Poison was not given, but the Holy Supper was offered him, wrapped in the mantric formulas of the Holy Mass, in the fourfold form of the Mass — Gospel, Offering, Transubstantiation, Communion. For after the Communion, after the fourth part of the Holy Mass, the actual Communion of the Faithful occurred, and an endeavor was made to give them at least an intimation of the fact that a certain wisdom must be regained which leads to the goal of ancient “metabolic knowledge.” The human beings of today can hardly imagine this “metabolic knowledge,” because they have no idea how much more, for instance, a bird knows than a man — although not in an intellectual, abstract sense; or how much more even a donkey knows than a man, a donkey, which is an animal living entirely in the metabolic system. It is, however, only a dull knowledge, dreamlike knowledge. Today there exists a degeneration of what primeval man once possessed in his metabolic system. It was out of the first Christian teachings, however, that the Sacrament of the Altar was conceived in order to lead mankind to regain a knowledge of the immortal of the human soul.




"At the time when the Christ, who had passed through death, taught His initiated disciples, men were unable to attain such knowledge by themselves. He imparted it to them. And during the first four Christian centuries this knowledge continued on alive, in a certain way. Then it grew sclerotic within the Roman Catholic Church, for although the latter retained the Holy Mass, it had no longer a proper interpretation of it. The Holy Mass — thought of as a continuation of the Last Supper as it is described in the Bible — has naturally no meaning, unless a meaning is first inserted into it. The establishment of the Holy Mass with its wonderful cult, its imitation of the four mystery-degrees, is to be traced back to the fact that the resurrected Christ was the instructor of those who were able to receive these teachings in a higher esoteric sense."







https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TC4814_index.html

And Karel Weinfurter pointed out:

Master Kerning ceaselessly points to the fact that god is present within the whole

body. Ninety-nine per cent of the occultists and theosophists believe that human

mystical development starts within the soul. This view is one of the greatest mistakes

of modern occult literature. Exactly the opposite is true. Mystical blossoming first

happens within the body, taking place in the form of body sensations that nobody

knows who has not experienced them and who did not enter the mystical path."21

Selfishness, Black Magic & Evil- Rudolf Steiner

Selfishness is not a force implanted in human nature by the gods in order to be denied or rejected; it is essential for man’s well-being and survival.
If, looking for the reasons behind selfishness, we ask ourselves: Why have the gods, the good gods, implanted what in the opinion of many is so horrible into mankind? The answer given by spiritual science is that selfishness offers a very strong protection against what people would face without it.
If one wanted to practice black magic, he would normally find it relatively easy to gather apprentices and teach them about certain machinations that are terribly damaging to the world. But why do most people avoid becoming pupils of black magic? The answer is simple: they are afraid of the potential harm to their own personality.
Selfish fear offers the best protection against the use of very evil forces, like black magic. It drives people away from utilising such forces, and that is an excellent thing. 

- Rudolf Steiner – GA 101 – Mythen und Sagen Okkulte Zeichen und Symbole – Berlin, October 21, 1907 (page 119-120)

The common essential feature of all evil is none other than selfishness.—


Basically, all human evil comes forth from what we call selfishness. We shall go and follow through from the smallest details, which we regard as human slip-ups, to the strongest crimes, that are human imperfections and human evil, regardless of whether they are portrayed to us as apparently arising more from the soul or apparently more from the bodily: the common essential feature, that comes from selfishness is universally present. We find the true meaning of evil, when we think of it as bound up with human selfishness; and we find all striving outwards and over imperfections and evil, when we see this striving upwards in the struggle against what we call selfishness. A great deal of careful thinking has been done over some ethical principle or another, over some moral basis or another; but the deeper we plunge into ethical principles and moral foundations, precisely this shows us that selfishness is the common root of all human evil. And so we might say: the more a human being works him/herself free of evil here in the physical world, the more he/she overcomes selfishness.


-Rudolf Steiner  

Solitude

All men need to be alone to a certain extent, and this is not just egoism. Someone who always wants to help others will at some point feel that he can’t help anymore if he doesn’t get the forces for this out of solitude. One who always wants to talk will someday sense that his words are empty if he doesn’t let spiritual forces come to him in solitude. We must be alone for prayer and meditation; communal prayer can only bring men to a certain groupsouledness. 

One who thinks that it’s egotistical to go into solitude simply feels the need to be with other people, not to help them. A supposedly selfless wish to help can really come from egoism, where one simply seeks sociability. For instance, the magnetic healing that’s used to lessen others’ pain could just come from the need to have a pleasant feeling from stroking someone’s body. Although love and egoism are opposite poles, it’s nevertheless true that in certain boundary cases they come very close to each other and it’s difficult to tell them apart.

- Rudolf Steiner  From the Contents of Esoteric Classes –Esoteric Lessons Part II – Karlsruhe, 14th October 1911