Esoteric Evolution - 8

The Separation of the Sun and the Sun Logos

During Hyperborea

The separation by the Sun

The formation of the solar system

The Elohim

The Logos

The Sun Spirit

Christ as the Sun Logos and Sun Spirit

Divine love

Genesis. The beginning of the story of creation

Sources

The following review shows the Earth in its relation to its incarnations in the past and those in the future:

In the fourth incarnation phase, the phase we call Earth and in which we are today, seven main eras may be distinguished, in which humanity and the Earth step by step develop further:

The previous chapter (No. 7) described the splendor of light, color, radiance, and luster that emanated from the original body of the Earth during Hyperborea. This original body, which still bore in itself the Sun and the planets, and thus also the Earth and the Moon, was like a gigantic sun that spread light through the whole cosmos. The human body, which then still consisted of a plant-like vaporous figure of fire, air, and vapor, also radiated light.

At that time, the spirit of the human being was not connected with this corporeality. It was still outside it in the inner being of the divine.

This chapter shows why the Sun and the other planets separated from the original body during the Hyperborean era of the Earth, and what the consequences of this were. The lofty spiritual beings that were involved in this process will also be described.

Why did the Sun separate from the mighty original body during the Hyperborean era? There were several reasons for this. In the first place there was the fact that the Earth was about to pass over into its next state of densification. To the sphere of fire, warmth, air, light, and vapor must, for the sake of continuing evolution, the watery element be added.

This progressive densification, however, made the Earth unsuited to be the home of the extremely high creative spiritual beings that could only live in the rarified, subtle sphere of fire, warmth, air, and light to fulfill their task for humanity. For this reason, they disconnected the Sun form the greater whole, took the light and finer substances with them and built a new dwelling place in the Sun.

Thus, their development, which progressed much faster than that of human beings and was much more lofty, could continue unhindered. The result of this was that these high spiritual Sun Beings worked from then on from the outside, via the sunlight, into the Earth and becoming humanity. No longer from inside, therefore.

Before the Sun left the original body, other parts of that body, the later planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, had already become separate and autonomous during Polaris.

During Hyperborea the Sun, and with it the later planets Venus and Mercury, separated from the original body. They too became autonomous. Venus and Mercury became the dwelling places of spiritual beings that were not highly enough developed to keep living with the high beings of the Sun. On the other hand, because of the increasing densification, they could not remain living on the Earth. For this reason, new dwelling places were created for them on Venus and Mercury.

In their development, the Venus and Mercury spirits, as they are called, were much more advanced than becoming humanity. We will see below that, as spiritual beings who stood on the level of the Archangels and Spirits of Personality or Archai, they later, because of their exceptional position, received a special task to fulfill regarding the development of humanity.

When these profound changes had taken place, the only part of the original heavenly body that still remained was the Earth, which then still carried the Moon in itself. The high Sun Beings then worked in such a way that the Earth turned around its axis and began to orbit around the Sun. This created the alternation of day and night. We must not imagine this like our present day and night. A day and a night at that time lasted much longer than in our time.

This whole process of the separation of the sun and the forming of the different planets, from which eventually our current solar system emerged, took long, long periods of time - billions of years. But it is important to realize that cosmic processes are the result of spiritual causes and not physical ones as people think out of materialistic viewpoints.

Who were those lofty spiritual beings who separated the planets and the Sun from the Earth and created a dwelling place for themselves on the Sun? They were the unimaginably high spiritual beings who belonged to the two highest groups of the hierarchies, and that was Christ.

To these high hierarchical beings belonged seven especially highly developed beings who had the Hebrew name of "Elohim" in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Paul calls the Elohim "Mights." Rudolf Steiner often used the name "Spirits of Form."

As high Sun Beings, they are the creators of the Earth and all that it entails. They are said to give form to space out of the spaceless, and lead spiritual forces out of eternity into time-bound existence. For example, they bring forces and workings of the hierarchies of the Thrones and Dynameis together and let them come to rest in the fixed, physical forms of the earth's surface. Hence their name, Spirits of Form.

The Elohim or Spirits of Form create as well as maintain physical forms on earth. Weaving and working in the sunlight they lead, together with other high spiritual beings such as Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Kyriotetes, and Dynameis, earthly developments from the Sun and determine with the forms they create the external appearance of the Earth, nature, and human beings.

As creative beings, the Elohim or Spirits of Form have a profound connection with Christ. Why is this so? To answer this question, we have to understand who Christ actually is. Christ is not just a spiritual being like any other. In Him live and work the high divine powers of the Logos and the Sun Spirit. What does this mean?

The Logos, also called the Sun Principle, or the Word, forms part of the Divine Trinity, which consists of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The three together, and yet one, they form, as God, the original source from which the entire creation has come forth. All spiritual beings in the ranks of the hierarchies, from the most lofty to the angels in the lowest hierarchy, are in the service of the Trinity and implement their plans and assignments.

The Logos, also called the Son, the creative divine Word, is the active, creative principle of the Trinity, and thus the actual divine creator of all that exists in the cosmos and on Earth. The beginning of the Gospel of St. John in the New Testament of the Bible point to this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and nothing of all that has come into being was made except through him.

This shows the working of the Logos. The Bible text them continues:

In him was life, and the life was the light of human beings.

Here we see the principle of the Sun Spirit.

As the above-quoted texts show, the Logos, the Word, lives in the Sun Spirit. Inversely, the Sun Spirit also lives in the Logos. Rudolf Steiner says that the Sun Spirit, as an extremely high spiritual being, is the light body of the Logos. As a spiritual being he envelops the Logos and bears it in himself as his deepest, innermost being. He is completely united with it.

The Sun spirit, also called World Light, manifests the Logos by means of the light.

Because the life-bestowing force of the Sun Spirit - and therefore in it also the Logos - works in the light of the Sun, both in a spiritual and in a physical sense, there is life on Earth. In other words, plants, animals, and humans have life, and therefore they also have development. That is a fact even today. Without the warmth and light of the sun we humans could not exist on Earth, and neither could nature.

At the beginning of our solar system, on Old Sun, something happened that is comparable to the connection that Christ, as cosmic divine being, made in later times with Jesus of Nazareth on Earth.

On Old Sun, the second incarnation phase of the Earth, the lofty being we call Christ was initially an archangelic being. In those ancient times of humanity, however, he was called as an Archangel to be the bearer of the Sun Spirit and the Logos, the creative World Word, and become one with it.

To understand this, we have to know that the Sun Spirit, the Logos, who came from the highest heaven far above that of the heavenly hierarchies, descended to the Earth in order in the far distant future to become a human being among human beings, and connect with them. Thus, he would be able to connect human beings with the divine world again in a new way.

We see how one great secret after another is revealed. The unification of the Sun Spirit and Logos was so profound that from that time Christ is viewed as the Sun Spirit, the Word, or the Sun Logos. Hence, he could later say: "I am the light of the world."

Because the high divine powers of the Logos and Sun Spirit worked in and through him, Christ became the leader of all heavenly hierarchies and their creative work, and with this he became the ruler and leader of the Sun and Sun Beings, and therefore of the Elohim or Spirits of Form. It is the reason why in esoteric Christianity he is called the leading spirit of our solar system.

In ancient times, in the period of Old Sun, his dwelling place was the Sun. This means that when the Sun at that time separated from the original world body, his dwelling place moved, together with that of all Sun Beings, to a place outside the Earth. And from there he led the development of the Earth.

In summary, we can say: As Sun Spirit and Sun Logos, Christ is an all-encompassing cosmic, universal being who has influence on all parts of our solar system - an overwhelmingly lofty divine being therefore.

As the high Sun Spirit who bears the Logos in himself, as Sun Logos, Christ is identical with divine love. His essence is all-wisdom and love. It is he who in the course of evolution streamed the power of love into humanity.

The element of love is essential in our human development. After all, we only become "human" in the true sense of the word, if not only wisdom, the gift of the Logos, but most of all the power of love permeates our whole organism and inner being. One of Christ's tasks was by means of his deed of love - his death on the cross on Golgotha, his resurrection, and his connection with us humans - to instill divine love into human beings on Earth, and thus to redeem them. This means making them spiritually free by bestowing the possibility on them to connect again with the divine world in a new way, from within them.

The foregoing explains why Christ as the Sun Logos and the Elohim are so closely connected with each other. As the ruler of the Sun and leader of the Sun Beings, Christ in esotericism also called the Regent of the Elohim. This includes his directing the Elohim, the Spirits of Form, and he creates and leads development on Earth through them.

This brings us to an important point. As we have mentioned before, during Hyperborea, as a consequence of the separation of the Sun, the watery element develops on the Earth. That was not yet water as we know it today, but a much heavier watery substance that had in it in liquid form everything that would later become solid and hard, such as stones and metals.

Imagine, said Rudolf Steiner, the moment when the Sun has for the most part departed from the Earth and has taken the finer substances as well as the sunlight with it. What was then left on Earth?

What we then see is darkness, wildness, and water. By the departure of the high Sun Beings wild forces take over on Earth, wild forces that have a connection with the Moon. Only later does a re-ordering take place, when also the Moon, taking the negative forces with it, separates and the Earth and the Sun enter into a new relationship with each other.

What would we have found if we had then been able to observe the Earth? We would, said Rudolf Steiner, have seen the situation as it is described in the first words of the Book of Genesis in the Bible! What does it say?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

In other words, Genesis, the story of creation in the Bible, begins when during Hyperborea the Sun has largely separated from the Earth and the Spirit of God, the creative Sun Logos, works in upon the Earth from outside.

It shows that there is agreement between the biblical creation story and esoteric evolution as taught by Rudolf Steiner.

Elohim/Creation - George Cabisca

Old Saturn

Rudolf Steiner:

Cosmic Memory, GA 11

An Outline of Esoteric Science, GA 13

Egyptian Myths and Mysteries, GA 106

The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, GA 110

Secrets of the Biblical Story of Creation, GA 122

Emil Bock, Genesis - Creation and the Patriarchs

Oskar Kürten, The Sun God, the Logos and the Trinity

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Translated by Philip Mees