JOU R NA L FOR S TA R W I S D OM 2015

JOU R NA L FOR
STA R W I SDOM
2 015

E di t e d by Robe r t Pow e l l

E D I TO R I A L B OA R D

William Bento
Brian Gray
Claudia McLaren Lainson
Lacquanna Paul
Robert Schiappacasse

Lindisfarne Books
 Lindisfarne Books
an imprint of Steinerbooks / Anthroposophic Press, Inc.
610 Main Street, Suite 1
Great Barrington, MA, 01230
www.steinerbooks.org

Journal for Star Wisdom 2015 © 2014 by Robert Powell. All contributions
are used by permission of the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

With grateful acknowledgment to Peter Treadgold (1943–2005), who wrote

the Astrofire program (available from the Sophia Foundation), with which the
ephemeris pages in the Journal for Star Wisdom are computed each year.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the articles published in the Journal for Star
Wisdom are the sole responsibility of the authors of these articles and do not
necessarily reflect those of the editorial board of the Journal for Star Wisdom.
Design: William Jens Jensen

isbn: 978-1-58420-177-9 (paperback)

isbn: 978-1-58420-178-6 (eBook)

 CONTENTS

Preface 9

The Rose of the World (Rosa Mira)

by Daniel Andreev 14

Editorial Foreword
by Robert Powell 20

Working with the Journal for Star Wisdom 23

Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs

by Robert Powell 24

Ascension Visions
by Estelle Isaacson 39

At the Gates of Damascus

by Claudia Mclaren Lainson and Robert Powell 46

The Evolving Tradition

by Richard Tarnas 68

Into the Vortex

by Kevin Dann 74

Power of the Sun

by Nicholas Kollerstrom 83

Bulletin on Biodynamic Pest Control

by Brian Keats 87

Background to Lunar Perigee Plantings

by Brian Keats 90

Working with the Star Calendar

by Robert Powell 94

Symbols Used in Charts 96

Time 97

Commentaries and Ephemerides: January–December 2014

by Claudia Mclaren Lainson
with Monthly Astronomical Sky Watch by Sally Nurney 100

Glossary

References

About the Contributors

 ASTROSOPHY

T he Sophia Foundation was founded and exists to help usher in the new Age of

Sophia and the corresponding Sophianic culture, the Rose of the World, proph-

esied by Daniel Andreev and other spiritual teachers. Part of the work of the Sophia

Foundation is the cultivation of a new star wisdom, Astro-Sophia (Astrosophy), now

arising in our time in response to the descent of Sophia, who is the bearer of Divine Wis-

dom, just as Christ (the Logos, or the Lamb) is the bearer of Divine Love. Like the star

wisdom of antiquity, Astrosophy is sidereal, which means “of the stars.” Astrosophy,

inspired by Divine Sophia, descending from stellar heights, directs our consciousness

toward the glory and majesty of the starry heavens, to encompass the entire celestial

sphere of our cosmos and, beyond this, to the galactic realm—the realm that Daniel

Andreev referred to as “the heights of our universe”—from which Sophia is descending

on her path of approach into our cosmos. Sophia draws our attention not only to the

star mysteries of the heights, but also to the cosmic mysteries connected with Christ’s

deeds of redemption wrought two thousand years ago. To penetrate these mysteries is

the purpose of the yearly Journal for Star Wisdom.

For information about Astrosophy / Choreocosmos / Cosmic Dance workshops

Contact the Sophia Foundation:
4500 19th Street, #369, Boulder, CO 80304
Phone: (303) 242-5388; sophia@sophiafoundation.org;
www.sophiafoundation.org
 PREFACE
Robert Powell, Ph.D.
T his is the sixth edition of the Journal for Star
Wisdom, which is intended as a help to all peo-
ple interested in the new star wisdom of astroso-
phy and in the cosmic dimension of Christianity,
which began with the star of the magi. The calen-
dar comprises an ephemeris page for each month
of the year computed with the help of Peter Tread-
gold’s Astrofire computer program, and a monthly
commentary by Claudia McLaren Lainson (with
Sally Nurney). The monthly commentary relates
the geocentric and heliocentric planetary move-
ments to events in the life of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ united the levels of the earthly per-
sonality (geocentric = Earth-centered) and the
higher self (heliocentric = Sun-centered) in so far
as he was the most highly evolved earthly person-
ality (Jesus) embodying the Higher Self (Christ) of
all existence, the Divine “I AM.” To see the life of
Jesus Christ in relation to the world of stars opens
the door to a profound experience of the cosmos,
giving rise to a new star wisdom (astrosophy) that
is the Spiritual Science of Cosmic Christianity.
The Journal for Star Wisdom is scientific, resting
upon a solid mathematical-astronomical founda-
tion and also upon a secure chronology of the life
of Jesus Christ, and at the same time it is spiritual,
aspiring to the higher dimension of existence that
is expressed outwardly in the world of stars. The
scientific and the spiritual come together in the
sidereal zodiac that originated with the Babylo-
nians and was used by the three magi who beheld
the star of Bethlehem and came to pay homage
to Jesus a few months after his birth. In continu-
ity of spirit with the origins of Cosmic Christian-
ity with the three magi, the sidereal zodiac is the
frame of reference used for the computation of the
–9–
geocentric and heliocentric planetary movements
that are commented upon in the light of the life of
Jesus Christ in the Journal for Star Wisdom.
Thus, all zodiacal longitudes indicated in the
text and presented in the following calendar are in
terms of the sidereal zodiac, which has to be dis-
tinguished from the tropical zodiac in widespread
use in contemporary astrology in the West. The
tropical zodiac was introduced into astrology in
the middle of the second century ad by the Greek
astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Prior to this the
sidereal zodiac was in use. Such was the influence
of Ptolemy upon the Western astrological tradi-
tion that the tropical zodiac became substituted
for the sidereal zodiac used by the Babylonians,
Egyptians, and early Greek astrologers. Yet the
astrological tradition in India was not influenced
by Ptolemy, and so the sidereal zodiac is still used
to this day by Hindu astrologers.
The sidereal zodiac originated with the Babylo-
nians in the sixth to fifth centuries bc and was
defined by them in relation to certain bright
stars. For example, Aldebaran (“the Bull’s eye”)
is located in the middle of the sidereal sign/con-
stellation of the Bull at 15˚ Taurus, and Antares
(“the Scorpion’s heart”) is in the middle of the
sidereal sign/constellation of the Scorpion at 15˚
Scorpio. The sidereal signs, each 30˚ long, coin-
cide closely with the twelve astronomical zodia-
cal constellations of the same name, whereas the
signs of the tropical zodiac, since they are defined
in relation to the vernal point, now have little
or no relationship to the corresponding zodiacal
constellations. This is because the vernal point,
the zodiacal location of the sun on March 20/21,
shifts slowly backward through the sidereal zodiac
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
at a rate of 1˚ in seventy-two years (“the preces-
sion of the equinoxes”). When Ptolemy introduced
the tropical zodiac into astrology, there was an
almost exact coincidence between the tropical and
the sidereal zodiac, as the vernal point, which is
defined to be 0˚ Aries in the tropical zodiac, was at
1˚ Aries in the sidereal zodiac in the middle of the
second century ad. Thus, there was only 1˚ differ-
ence between the two zodiacs. So, it made hardly
any difference to Ptolemy or his contemporaries
to use the tropical zodiac instead of the sidereal
zodiac. But now—the vernal point, on account of
precession, having shifted back from 1˚ Aries to 5˚
Pisces—there is a 25˚ difference and so there is vir-
tually no correspondence between the two. With-
out going into further detail concerning the com-
plex issue of the zodiac, as shown in the Hermetic
Astrology trilogy, the sidereal zodiac is the zodiac
used by the three magi, who were the last repre-
sentatives of the true star wisdom of antiquity. For
this reason the sidereal zodiac is used throughout
the Journal for Star Wisdom.
Readers interested in exploring the scientific
(astronomical and chronological) foundations
of Cosmic Christianity are referred to the works
listed below under “Literature.” The Chronicle of
the Living Christ: Foundations of Cosmic Chris-
tianity, listed on the next page, is an indispens-
able source of reference (abbreviated Chron.) for
the Journal for Star Wisdom, as, too, are the four
Gospels (Matthew = Mt.; Mark = Mk.; Luke =
Lk.; John = Jn.). The chronology of the life of Jesus
Christ rests upon the description of his daily life
by Anne Catherine Emmerich in her four-volume
work The Life of Jesus Christ (abbreviated LJC).
Further details concerning the Journal for Star
Wisdom and how to work with it on a daily basis
may be found in the general introduction to the
Christian Star Calendar. The general introduc-
tion explains all the features of the Journal for
Star Wisdom. The new edition, published 2003,
includes sections on the megastars (stars of great
luminosity) and on the 36 decans (10˚ subdivi-
sions of the twelve signs of the zodiac) in relation
to their planetary rulers and to the extra-zodiacal
constellations, those constellations above or below
– 10 –
the circle of the twelve constellations/signs of the
zodiac. Further material on the decans, including
examples of historical personalities born in the
various decans, and also a wealth of other mate-
rial on the signs of the sidereal zodiac, is to be
found in Cosmic Dances of the Zodiac, listed
below. Also foundational is History of the Zodiac,
published by Sophia Academic Press, listed below
under “Works by Robert Powell.”
LITERATURE
(See also “References” section)
General Introduction to the Christian Star Calendar:
A Key to Understanding, 2nd ed. Palo Alto, CA:
Sophia Foundation, 2003.
Bento, William, Robert Schiappacasse, and David
Tresemer, Signs in the Heavens: A Message for our
Time. Boulder: StarHouse, 2000.
Emmerich, Anne Catherine, Visions of the Life of
Jesus Christ (new edition, with material by Robert
Powell). San Rafael, CA: LogoSophia, 2012.
Paul, Lacquanna, and Robert Powell, Cosmic Dances
of the Planets. San Rafael, CA: Sophia Foundation
Press, 2007.
———, Cosmic Dances of the Zodiac. San Rafael, CA:
Sophia Foundation Press, 2007.
Smith, Edward, The Burning Bush: An
Anthroposophical Commentary on the Bible. Great
Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 1997.
Steiner, Rudolf, Astronomy and Astrology. Finding
a Relationship to the Cosmos. London: Rudolf
Steiner Press, 2009.
Sucher, Willi, Cosmic Christianity and the Changing
Countenance of Cosmology. Great Barrington,
MA: SteinerBooks, 1993. Isis Sophia and other
works by Willi Sucher are available from the
Astrosophy Research Center, PO Box 13, Meadow
Vista, CA 95722.
Tidball, Charles S., and Robert Powell, Jesus, Lazarus,
and the Messiah: Unveiling Three Christian
Mysteries. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks,
2005. This book offers a penetrating study of
the Christ mysteries against the background of
Chronicle of the Living Christ and contains two
chapters by Robert Powell on the Apostle John and
John the Evangelist (Lazarus).
Tresemer, David (with Robert Schiappacasse), Star
Wisdom & Rudolf Steiner: A Life Seen Through
the Oracle of the Solar Cross. Great Barrington,
MA: SteinerBooks, 2007.
 Preface
ASTROSOPHICAL WORKS
BY ROBERT POWELL, P H.D.
Starcrafts (formerly Astro Communication Services,
or ACS):
History of the Houses (1997).
History of the Planets (1989).
The Zodiac: A Historical Survey (1984).
www.acspublications.com
www.astrocom.com
Business Address:
Starcrafts Publishing
334 Calef Hwy.
Epping, NH 03042
Phone: 603-734-4300
Fax: 603-734-4311
Contact maria@starcraftseast.com
SteinerBooks:
Orders: (703) 661-1594; www.steinerbooks.org;
PO Box 960, Herndon, VA 20172.
The Astrological Revolution: Unveiling the Sci-
ence of the Stars as a Science of Reincarna-
tion and Karma, coauthor Kevin Dann (Great
Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2010). After
reestablishing the sidereal zodiac as a basis for
astrology that penetrates the mystery of the
stars’ relationship to human destiny, the reader
is invited to discover the astrological signifi-
cance of the totality of the vast sphere of stars
surrounding the Earth. This book points to the
astrological significance of the entire celestial
sphere, including all the stars and constella-
tions beyond the twelve zodiacal signs. This
discovery is revealed by the study of megastars,
illustrating how they show up in an extraordi-
nary way in Christ’s healing miracles by align-
ing with the Sun at the time of those events.
This book offers a spiritual, yet scientific, path
toward a new relationship to the stars.
Christian Hermetic Astrology: The Star of the Magi
and the Life of Christ (Great Barrington, MA:
SteinerBooks, 1998). Twenty-five discourses set
in the “Temple of the Sun,” where Hermes and
his pupils gather to meditate on the Birth, the
Miracles, and the Passion of Jesus Christ. The
discourses offer a series of meditative contem-
plations on the deeds of Christ in relation to the
mysteries of the cosmos. They are an expression
of the age-old hermetic mystery wisdom of the
ancient Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus.
This book offers a meditative approach to the
cosmic correspondences between major events
in the life of Christ and the heavenly configura-
tions at that time 2,000 years ago.
– 11 –
Chronicle of the Living Christ: Foundations of
Cosmic Christianity (Great Barrington, MA:
SteinerBooks, 1996). An account of the life of
Christ, day by day, throughout most of the 3½
years of his ministry, including the horoscopes
of conception, birth, and death of Jesus, Mary,
and John the Baptist, together with a wealth of
material relating to a new star wisdom focused
on the life of Christ. This work provides the
chronological basis for Christian Hermetic
Astrology and the Journal for Star Wisdom.
Elijah Come Again: A Prophet for our Time: A
Scientific Approach to Reincarnation (Great
Barrington, MA: Steiner Books, 2009). By way
of horoscope comparisons from conception–
birth–death in one incarnation to conception–
birth–death in the next, this work establishes
scientifically two basic astrosophical research
findings. These are: the importance 1) of the
sidereal zodiac and 2) of the heliocentric posi-
tions of the planets. Also, for the first time, the
identity of the “saintly nun” is revealed, of
whom Rudolf Steiner spoke in a conversation
with Marie von Sivers about tracing Novalis’s
karmic background. The focus throughout
the book is on the Elijah individuality in his
various incarnations, and is based solidly on
Rudolf Steiner’s indications. It also can be read
as a karmic biography by anyone who chooses
to omit the astrosophical material.
Journal for Star Wisdom (Great Barrington, MA:
SteinerBooks, annual). Edited by Robert Pow-
ell and others in the StarFire research group:
A guide to the correspondences of Christ in
the stellar and etheric world. Includes articles
of interest, a complete sidereal ephemeris and
aspectarian, geocentric and heliocentric. Pub-
lished yearly in November for the coming year.
According to Rudolf Steiner, every step taken
by Christ during his ministry between the bap-
tism in the Jordan and the resurrection was in
harmony with, and an expression of, the cos-
mos. The journal is concerned with these heav-
enly correspondences during the life of Christ.
It is intended to help provide a foundation for
Cosmic Christianity, the cosmic dimension
of Christianity. It is this dimension that has
been missing from Christianity in its 2,000-
year history. A starting point is to contemplate
the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets
against the background of the zodiacal con-
stellations (sidereal signs) today in relation to
corresponding stellar events during the life of
Christ. This opens the possibility of attuning
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
to the life of Christ in the etheric cosmos in a
living way.
Sophia Foundation Press and
Sophia Academic Press Publications
Books available from Amazon.com
JamesWetmore@mac.com
www.logosophia.com
History of the Zodiac (San Rafael, CA: Sophia
Academic Press, 2007). Book version of Rob-
ert Powell’s Ph.D. thesis on the History of the
Zodiac. This penetrating study of the History
of the Zodiac restores the sidereal zodiac to its
rightful place as the original zodiac, tracing it
back to fifth-century-bc. Babylonians. Avail-
able in paperback and hard cover.
Hermetic Astrology: Volume 1, Astrology and
Reincarnation (San Rafael, CA: Sophia Foun-
dation Press, 2007). This book seeks to give
the ancient science of the stars a scientific basis.
This new foundation for astrology based on
research into reincarnation and karma (des-
tiny) is the primary focus. It includes numer-
ous reincarnation examples, the study of which
reveals the existence of certain astrological
“laws” of reincarnation, on the basis of which
it is evident that the ancient sidereal zodiac is
the authentic astrological zodiac, and that the
heliocentric movements of the planets are of
great significance. Foundational for the new
star wisdom of astrosophy.
Hermetic Astrology: Volume 2, Astrological Biog-
raphy (San Rafael, CA: Sophia Foundation
Press, 2007). Concerned with karmic relation-
ships and the unfolding of destiny in seven-
year periods through one’s life. The seven-year
rhythm underlies the human being’s astrologi-
cal biography, which can be studied in rela-
tion to the movements of the Sun, Moon, and
planets around the sidereal zodiac between
conception and birth. The “rule of Hermes” is
used to determine the moment of conception.
Sign of the Son of Man in the Heavens: Sophia
and the New Star Wisdom (San Rafael, CA:
Sophia Foundation Press, 2008). Revised and
expanded with new material, this edition deals
with a new wisdom of stars in the light of
Divine Sophia. It is intended as a help in our
time, when we are called on to be extremely
wakeful during the period leading up to the end
of the Mayan calendar in 2012.
Cosmic Dances of the Zodiac (San Rafael, CA:
Sophia Foundation Press, 2007) coauthor
– 12 –
Lacquanna Paul. Study material describing
the twelve signs of the zodiac and their forms
and gestures in cosmic dance, with diagrams,
including a wealth of information on the twelve
signs and the 36 decans (the subdivision of the
signs into decans, or 10° sectors, corresponding
to constellations above and below the zodiac).
Cosmic Dances of the Planets (San Rafael, CA:
Sophia Foundation Press, 2007), coauthor
Lacquanna Paul. Study material describing
the seven classical planets and their forms
and gestures in cosmic dance, with diagrams,
including much information on the planets.
American Federation of Astrologers (AFA)
Publications
PO Box 22040, Tempe, AZ 85285.
The Sidereal Zodiac, coauthor Peter Treadgold
(Tempe, AZ: AFA, 1985). A History of the
Zodiac (sidereal, tropical, Hindu, astronomi-
cal) and a formal definition of the sidereal
zodiac with the star Aldebaran (“the Bull’s
Eye”) at 15º Taurus. This is an abbreviated ver-
sion of History of the Zodiac.
Rudolf Steiner College Press Publications
9200 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks, CA 95628
The Christ Mystery: Reflections on the Second
Coming (Fair Oaks, CA: Rudolf Steiner Col-
lege Press, 1999). The fruit of many years of
reflecting on the Second Coming and its cos-
mological aspects. Looks at the approaching
trial of humanity and the challenges of living
in apocalyptic times, against the background of
“great signs in the heavens.”
The Sophia Foundation
4500 19th Street, #369, Boulder, CO 80304;
distributes many of the books listed here and
other works by Robert Powell.
Tel: (303) 242-5388;
sophia@sophiafoundation.org
www.sophiafoundation.org
Computer Program for Charts and Ephemerides,
with grateful acknowledgment to Peter Tread-
gold, who wrote the computer program Astro-
fire (with research module, star catalog of over
4,000 stars, and database of birth and death
charts of historical personalities), capable of
printing geocentric and heliocentric/hermetic
sidereal charts and ephemerides throughout
history. The hermetic charts, based on the
 Preface

astronomical system of the Danish astronomer The program includes eight house systems and a
Tycho Brahe, are called “Tychonic” charts in variety of chart formats. The program also includes
the program. This program can: an ephemeris program with a search facility. The
• compute birth charts in a large variety geocentric/heliocentric sidereal ephemeris pages in
of systems (tropical, sidereal, geocentric,
the yearly Journal for Star Wisdom are produced by
heliocentric, hermetic);
Astrofire. This program runs under Microsoft Win-
• calculate conception charts using the her-
metic rule, in turn applying it for correc- dows. Those interested in Astrofire may contact:
tion of the birth time; The Sophia Foundation
• produce charts for the period between con- 525 Gough St. #103, San Francisco, CA 94102
ception and birth; Tel: (415) 522-1150
• print out an “astrological biography” for sophia@sophiafoundation.org
the whole of lifework with the geocentric, www.sophiafoundation.org
heliocentric (and even lemniscatory) plan-
etary system;
• work with the sidereal zodiac according to
the definition of your choice (Babylonian
sidereal, Indian sidereal, unequal-division
astronomical, etc.);
• work with planetary aspects with orbs of
your choice.

A horoscope generated by the Astrofire program

– 13 –
 THE ROSE OF THE WORLD (ROSA MIRA)
Daniel Andreev
B y warning about the coming Antichrist and
pointing him out and unmasking him when
he appears, by cultivating unshakable faith within
human hearts and a grasp of the meta-historical per-
spectives and global spiritual prospects
within human minds . . . [we help Sophia
bring to birth the new culture of love
and wisdom called by Daniel Andreev
the “Rose of the World.”] . . . [Sophia’s]
birth in one of the zatomis will be
mirrored not only by the Rose of the
World; feminine power and its role in
contemporary life are increasing everywhere. It
is that circumstance, above all, that is giving rise
to worldwide peace movements, an abhorrence
of bloodshed, disillusion over coercive methods
of change, an increase in woman’s role in society
proper, an ever-growing tenderness and concern
for children, and a burning hunger for beauty and
love. We are entering an age when the female soul
will become ever purer and broader, when an ever-
greater number of women will become profound
inspirers, sensitive mothers, wise counselors, and
far-sighted leaders. It will be an age when the femi-
nine in humanity will manifest with unprecedented
strength, striking a perfect balance with masculine
impulses. See, you who have eyes.1
{These words are those of Daniel Andreev
(1906–1959), the great prophet of the coming
Age of Sophia and the corresponding Sophi-
anic culture he called the “Rose of the World.”
In this quote, zatomis refers to a heavenly
realm within the Earth’s etheric aura. Andreev
refers to Sophia as Zventa-Sventana, “Holiest
of the Holy.”]
A mysterious event is taking place in the meta-
history of contemporary times: new divine-creative
1 Daniel Andreev, The Rose of the World, p. 358.
Words in brackets [ ] here and in the following text
are added by Robert Powell.
– 14 –
energy is emanating into our cosmos. Since
ancient times the loftiest hearts and most subtle
minds have anticipated this event that is now tak-
ing place. The first link in the chain of events—
events so important that they can be
compared only to the incarnation of
the Logos—occurred at the turn of
the nineteenth century. This was an
emanation of the energy of the Vir-
gin Mother, an emanation that was
not amorphous, as it had been before
in human history [at Pentecost, when
there was an emanation of Sophia into the Virgin
Mary], but incomparably intensified by the per-
sonal aspect it assumed. A great God-born monad
descended from the heights of the universe into
our cosmos (ibid., p. 356).
[The words of the great Russian seer, Daniel
Andreev, are prophetic. As indicated in The
Most Holy Trinosophia, 2 he points to the
descent of Sophia and the resulting Sophianic
world culture, the Rose of the World, in a most
inspiring way.]
She is to be born in a body of enlightened
ether. . . . There She is, our hope and joy, Light and
Divine Beauty! For Her birth will be mirrored in
our history as something that our grandchildren
and great-grandchildren will witness: the found-
ing of the Rose of the World, its spread through-
out the world, and . . . the assumption by the Rose
of the World of supreme authority over the entire
Earth (ibid., p. 357).
[The Sophia Foundation was founded and
exists to help usher in the new Age of Sophia
and the corresponding Sophianic culture,
the Rose of the World, prophesied by Daniel
Andreev and other spiritual teachers.
2 Robert Powell, The Most Holy Trinosophia: The
New Revelation of the Divine Feminine.
 As quoted at the beginning, “warning about
the coming Antichrist and pointing him out and
unmasking him when he appears” is important.
As discussed in the article “In Memory of Willi
Sucher” (Journal for Star Wisdom 2010).
Humanity’s encounter with the Antichrist
is part of the initiation trial of humanity as
a whole crossing the threshold. The external
aspect of this initiation trial is the meeting with
the Antichrist as the embodiment of the sum-
total of humanity’s negative karma, the double
of humankind as a whole. The inner aspect
is the encounter with Christ or the Archangel
Michael as the Guardian of the Threshold. The
result of successfully passing through this initi-
ation trial is the opening up of conscious aware-
ness of the angelic realm. This is one aspect of
the great event at the culmination of the process
of humankind as a whole crossing the threshold.
Another aspect of this culmination is depicted
in the article on World Pentecost.3
More than anyone else, Daniel Andreev, as
prophet of the coming Sophia culture, the Rose
of the World, had a visionary experience of the
coming of the Antichrist. His words concern-
ing this are not in the English edition of the
Rose of the World. Because of the importance
of Daniel Andreev’s vision of the coming of the
Antichrist, his words about this appeared for
the first time in English in this journal.
The German translation of Daniel Andreev’s
book Rosa Mira: Rose of the World, in three
volumes, comprises a translation of the whole
original Russian text, whereas the English edi-
tion corresponds to volume 1 of the three Ger-
man volumes.4]
THE P REPARATION OF HUMAN BEINGS
FOR THE COMING A NTILOGOS
Certainly, humanity has not lacked warnings.
Not only the New Testament but also the Qur’an
and even the Mahabharata have warned us in the
distant past. Have spiritual seers in the East and
in the West not proclaimed the Antichrist as an
unavoidable evil? All leaders of the Rose of the
3 See Robert Powell, Prophecy–Phenomena–Hope.
4 The following translation from German into
English is by RP.
– 15 –
World will concentrate their forces upon the work
of warning about this monster. . . . This bearer of a
dark mission will probably not truly grasp whom
he serves and for whom he prepares the way. With
all his intellectual genius, his mind will be com-
pletely closed to anything of a mystical nature. . . .
He will be greeted enthusiastically: “There he is!
The one for whom we have been waiting!” He
will show his true force only much later, when the
“savior” holds the entire power in his hands. . . .
Is it a matter of a human being? Yes and no. On
several occasions [in Rosa Mira] I have indicated
that this individual was incarnated as a Roman
emperor and how, over the centuries and from life
to life, he became enveloped in demonic substance.
Concerning this monad, whom Gagtungr [Ahri-
man, or Satan] himself has kidnapped . . . enough
has been said about his previous incarnation [as
Stalin] in Russia. . . . [In that incarnation,] the
forces of providence hindered [Satan’s attempt] to
make of him a dark, universal genius.
[Now, in 1958, he is being prepared] for the suc-
cessful fulfillment of the historic role of the Anti-
christ. Stalin’s tyrannical genius and his ability
to control hypnotically the will of others is well
known. . . . [When he reincarnates as the Anti-
christ,] he will have at his disposal an enormous
capacity for work and a multitude of talents. . . .
He will be uniquely and terribly beautiful. From
his facial characteristics, it will be difficult to
place him in any particular race or nation. Rather,
he will be seen as a representative of the collective
of humanity. . . . [At a certain point in his life, he
will undergo a transformation.] His transforma-
tion will be noticed by people immediately, yet
they will be unable to recognize the meaning or
the “how” [of this transformation]. The external
appearance of the transformed one will remain
virtually unchanged. However, a terrible and
frightening energy will proceed from him . . . Any-
one who touches him will receive an electric shock.
An invincible hypnotic force [will proceed from
him]. . . . The disturbing influence [on spiritually
striving human beings] and upon the entire popu-
lation set in motion by the transformation of the
Antilogos will be extraordinary. . . .
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
After a rigged vote, he—the miracle worker—will
crown himself. . . . Humanity will be divided [into
those who accept him as world ruler] and those who
refuse to acknowledge the usurper. . . . Of course,
force will be used against anyone who refuses to
follow the Antichrist. Dark miracles will increas-
ingly occur, shattering the consciousness of people
to the very roots of their being. For many, Christ’s
miracles will pale into insignificance. Crazy enthu-
siasm will roll in waves across the world. . . . Eventu-
ally, the Antilogos will hold the sole rulership of the
planet in his hands. Yet, the true and highest lead-
ers will not subject themselves to this usurper. This
will also be the case for millions, perhaps hundreds
of millions, of people in every country of the world.
The age of persecution commences. From year to
year, they become increasingly extensive, method-
ical, [and] cruel. Here, the cunning Gagtungr
[Ahriman/Satan] even makes use of the heroic pro-
test of the masses. The candidate for the Antichrist
who had failed . . . who had taken his life at the end
of World War II, 5 advances now to become the
self-appointed leader of the rebels in the struggle
against the world ruler. . . . His thoroughly dark
movement will draw the hearts of many into a spi-
ral of raging wickedness and senseless hatred. . . .
Christ’s significance will continually be weakened.
Then his name will be denied—and finally envel-
oped in silence. . . .
Shock and terror will take hold of many. Mil-
lions of those who had previously distanced them-
selves from religious matters, who occupied them-
selves primarily with concerns in their own little
world or with artistic pursuits or scientific research,
will sense that an irrevocable and very dangerous
choice confronts them. In the face of this, even
torture and execution pale. . . . Countless people
will turn away from this offspring of hell . . . from
5 Daniel Andreev depicts the two main candidates
for the Antichrist in their twentieth-century
incarnations: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. In
those incarnations, they competed with each
other to become the most evil. In the following
incarnation, the most evil one would become
the vessel for the incarnation of the Antichrist.
According to Daniel Andreev, Joseph Stalin outdid
Adolf Hitler to become the chosen one, the prince
of darkness. —R. Powell
– 16 –
the dark miracles and the charm of the superman,
as well as from his immeasurable intelligence and
frighteningly cynical wickedness. . . . The majority
of people will fall away from God and allow them-
selves to be led astray by Gagtungr’s protégée . . . .
Stalin wanted not only to be feared; he also
wanted to be loved. The Antichrist, however, has
need of only one thing: the conviction that every-
one [should hold] without exception, [to] believe in
his superiority and [to] subject themselves to him
without hesitation . . . .
When [during the reign of the Antichrist] the
machine civilization begins its total assault on
Nature, the entire landscape of the Earth’s sur-
face will be transformed into a complete Anti-
Nature. . . . Nature, having become inwardly empty
and outwardly crippled, will no longer awaken
aesthetic or pantheistic feelings . . . .
Certainly, too, during the complete rule of the
tyrant, there will be many whose innermost life
will rebel against the senseless existence under
the Antichrist. However, psychic control will
stifle such thoughts as they arise, and only a few
will succeed in acquiring a system of psychic self-
defense to protect them from being physically
destroyed . . . .
All written or other testimonies that could be
dangerous for the Antichrist will be destroyed . . . .
[The suffering of human beings gives nour-
ishment (gavvach) to the demons.] . . . No world
wars, revolutions, or repressions, no mass spill-
ing of blood, could have produced gavvach in
such amounts. . . . In fact, even humanity in
its demonized aspect will not satisfy the Anti-
christ. He needs humanity as his source of gav-
vach. . . . [However] even in the most sinful soul,
an inextinguishable spark of conscience gleams.
However, despair, increasing ignorance, and
sheer boredom with life will also take hold of
many people, and this will lead to their rejection
by the Antichrist. Of what use to him is the intel-
lectual paralysis that sets in after such excesses
of despair? Such people are hardly suited to the
further development of demonic science and tech-
nology or to the conquest of the cosmos or the
satanizing of the world . . . .
 The Rose of the World (Rosa Mira)
[After the Antichrist’s death] the world state
will rapidly collapse, and only drastic mea-
sures will hinder anarchy in various parts of
the world. . . . “And there appears a great sign in
heaven: a woman clothed with the Sun” [Revela-
tion 12:1]. Who is the woman clothed with the
Sun? It is Sventa-Sventana [Sophia], embraced by
the planetary Logos and chosen to give birth to
the Great Spirit of the Second Aeon. The reflection
of this event in world history is the Rose of the
World, whose utmost striving before, during, and
after the time of the Antichrist prepares human-
ity to become a vessel for the Great Spirit. . . . An
unimaginable jubilation will take hold of this and
other worlds as humanity passes through a great,
light-filled transformation.
The prince of darkness will terrify human
beings. . . . Christ, however, will take on as many
forms as there are conscious beings on Earth to
behold him. He will adapt himself to everyone and
will converse with all. His forms will simultane-
ously yield an image in an unimaginable way: One
who appears in heaven surrounded by unspeakable
glory. There will not be a single being on Earth who
will not see the Son of God and hear his Word.6
[Note added by RP: On this day of April 30,
2014, the Sun was at exactly the same location
in the sidereal zodiac—15½° Aries—as where
it was located on Sunday, April 5 ad 33, at
Christ’s resurrection. Today was the cosmic
commemoration of the greatest event in the
history of the Earth: the Resurrection. At the
present point in time the cosmic commemo-
ration of the Resurrection happens each year
around April 30.]
As this vision began, I experienced the resurrec-
tion body streaming out through the Sun and fill-
ing my entire being. The sunlight rays bearing the
resurrection body touched every cell. Every cell
was awakening. By the power of the Sun, and due
to its position in the cosmos (for it was positioned
exactly where it was on Resurrection morning), I
merged with the resurrection body. I was in awe
to behold this body in its present form; I beheld
6 Daniil Andrejew, Rosa Mira: Die Weltrose, vol. 3,
pp. 202–226.
– 17 –
how it had evolved over time to become the body
of the Second Coming. All the various forms—
everything that I witnessed in the resurrection
body when I saw it being formed two thousand
years ago7— have evolved in the course of time
to become what they are now, at this time of the
Second Coming. The mystery of his resurrection
body, and how it has evolved over time to become
the body of the Second Coming, is something truly
vast and unfathomable. I beheld that on this very
day the resurrection body was streaming from the
Sun to the Earth as the body of Christ in the Sec-
ond Coming. This was beautiful! Everything in his
resurrection body is incomparably beautiful—so
wondrous was it that my spirit soared to meet him
as he was descending toward me.
This is something new, the onset of which is now,
at this time of the Second Coming. For there is
something very special thing happening with the
Earth at this time. Indeed the Earth is being envel-
oped and embraced in the resurrection body.
After beholding these things, I was able to then
experience many dimensions at once—past, pres-
ent and future were all before my inner gaze. In
my lifted state I was able to perceive in the eternal
round, and did not need to make sense of things
in linear time.
I found myself in the garden of the holy sepul-
cher, where I saw Mary Magdalene on the morn-
ing of the Resurrection, and I witnessed the Resur-
rection as it happened for her. I was at the point in
time when, with her whole soul, she went toward
the Risen One and he said, “Touch me not, for
I have not yet ascended to the Father.” There is
a profound mystery in these words. Within these
words lies the key to the soul’s journey from the
point in time of the Resurrection through the
Ascension and culminating for each and every soul
at this present point in time, during the unfolding
of the Second Coming. These words were given to
Mary Magdalene first. She was the first soul who
received this instruction.
Near to the end of Christ Jesus’s life, he had
taken Mary Magdalene through certain initiations,
7 Isaacson, Through the Eyes of Mary Magdalene,
book 2: From Initiation to the Passion, pp. 232–236.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
which made it possible for her to experience mysti-
cal union with Christ. In mystical union one expe-
riences spiritual touch, which is the ability to dis-
cern another being, by giving that being the space
to dwell within one’s own heart. From her initia-
tions, Mary Magdalene was able to inwardly come
into communion with—to “touch”—the Christ
being, to know him in a deeply spiritual way. After
his death on the cross, she lost touch with him.
He descended into the heart of the earthly realm,
and she was severed from this inner relationship.
On the morning of the Resurrection, he appeared
to her just after he had acquired his resurrection
body. At that moment of their meeting there in
the garden, he had not yet ascended with this new
body to present it to the Father. He needed to take
all that he was—everything that was his body—
and present it to the Father—and could not be in
a state of union with a human being until a later
time. Thus, Mary Magdalene could not experi-
ence spiritual touch with him. The resurrection
body had yet to be presented to the Father.
The culmination, the fulfillment of these words:
“Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my
Father” comes now, at this time of the Second
Coming. For this particular soul the fulfillment is
today [on this day of the cosmic commemoration
of the Resurrection—1,981 years after the Resur-
rection on Sunday, April 5 AD 33].8 In the Second
Coming the fulfillment of those words is, “Touch
me now, for I have descended unto you.”
Part of the soul’s journey is to follow the path of
Christ, to do the things he did and to bear one’s
8 Note in brackets [ ] added by RP. It is noteworthy
that 1,981 years equates with 167 orbits of Jupiter
around the sidereal zodiac. That is, on this day it
was not only the Sun that was where it was at the
Resurrection. Also Jupiter was at almost exactly
the same location in the sidereal sign of Gemini as
where it was at the Resurrection, closely aligned
with the star Sirius at 19½° Gemini. Interestingly
1,981 years is seven periods of 283 years. From
the baptism in the River Jordan in ad 29 to the
year 312 is a period of 283 years. It was in ad 312
that the Emperor Constantine the Great (after
having had a suprasensory experience expressive of
Christ—or rather, of Christ’s name) converted to
Christianity. Constantine’s conversion, 283 years
after the baptism of Jesus, completely changed the
destiny of Christianity.
– 18 –
cross, and then to spiritually encounter him at the
Resurrection. And having spiritually witnessed
Christ’s earthly path culminating with the Res-
urrection, one then follows the path of the Risen
One that takes one from the Resurrection through
the Ascension 9 to the Second Coming, where this
spiritual touch happens.10 It is happening today for
the Earth and Nature. I bear witness to this. And
it can happen in those individual hearts that are
prepared. Prior to today it already began happen-
ing for certain souls. Today, however, is the new
day for the spiritual touch of the body of the Sec-
ond Coming that is manifesting on the Earth.
For most people this day will pass unknown and
unrecognized—this day on which the resurrec-
tion body of the Second Coming has now touched
down upon the Earth. To this point in its unfold-
ing, I have been experiencing the resurrection
body through the course of time in its progression
from the day of the Resurrection. And today is the
first time that this fulfillment of the spiritual touch
of the body of the Second Coming to the Earth is
truly fulfilled. The experience of the Second Com-
ing will be, for most people, a process that unfolds
and deepens over the course of time. It happens in
a way that the person can experience him without
being overwhelmed by the utter majesty and radi-
ance of his presence.
On this day—never before had I seen him like
this!—it is in red robes that he appeared to me.
The body of the Second Coming is thus clothed
in glorious red, and he is pouring out his love
and mercy in radiant streams of light from his
wounds. He showed me the wound in his side
from which—as with all his wounds, but espe-
cially from the wound in his side—unfathomable
mercy and compassion is streaming. His love and
9 Powell, Cultivating Inner Radiance and the Body
of Immortality, maps out a path of daily spiritual
practice leading one through the stages of the
Transfiguration, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection,
and the Ascension—toward the next step, which is
the Second Coming. The inner radiance sequence is
thus a daily practice, a schooling, to align one with
the Second Coming.
10 What is meant here is the spiritual touch indicated
in the words: “Touch me now, for I have descended
unto you.”
 The Rose of the World (Rosa Mira)
mercy is for the world—for the entire Earth: for
all human beings and for the whole of Nature.
These mysteries are unfathomable.
All human souls must find their own “I” and
claim it for themselves in the light of the Resur-
rection. This is an experience of the Resurrection
anew, which is happening now, at this time during
the unfolding process of the Second Coming.
I was able to witness these things while being
inside the body of the Second Coming, which is
nothing other than the resurrection body that
has evolved to a very high level beyond its initial
manifestation to Mary Magdalene. The only way
I could gaze upon all of these things outside of
time is through this body. Now I understand the
cosmic history of the resurrection body: from the
Resurrection through the Ascension to the Second
Coming, to the present point in time—to this spe-
cial day of fulfillment when from now onwards
the Earth is being enveloped and embraced in
the resurrection body, with the resurrection body
streaming from the Sun to the Earth. Today is the
– 19 –
new day for the spiritual touch of the body of the
Second Coming that has now touched down upon
the Earth, and this event signifies the inaugura-
tion of a new era for humanity and the Earth.11
•
11 [Footnote added by RP]: The profound meaning
of this vision of Estelle Isaacson from April 30,
2014, on the day of the cosmic commemoration
of the Resurrection, can be deepened in light of
the significance of the year 2014 described in my
article “2014 and the Coming of the Kalki Avatar”
in Journal for Star Wisdom2014. See also Powell
and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor, which
focuses on the cultural wave that began in 2014
in connection with the Maitreya individuality
awaited by Buddhists as the next Buddha, who
is the same as the Kalki individuality awaited by
Hindus as the next Avatar. The mission of the
Maitreya individuality, according to Rudolf Steiner,
is to proclaim Christ in his Second Coming and
to transmit the power of morality, the power of
the Good, through the word—the Good, now, for
humanity and the Earth, being Christ in his Second
Coming, who is bestowing the power of the Good
upon those who align themselves with him.
 EDITORIAL FOREWORD
Robert Powell, Ph.D.
T he Journal for Star Wisdom (formerly Chris-
tian Star Calendar) has appeared every year
since 1991. From the beginning, the central
feature has been the calendar comprising the
monthly ephemeris pages together with com-
mentaries drawing attention to the Christ events
remembered by the ongoing cosmic events. The
significance of following the Christ events
in relation to daily astronomical events is an
important foundation for the new star wisdom
of astrosophy.1 This new star wisdom is arising
in our time in response to the second coming of
Christ—known as his return in the etheric realm
of life forces—as a path of communing with
Christ in his life body (ether body). It should
also be mentioned that, with the onset of the
second coming of Christ during the course of
the twentieth century, Christ is now the Lord of
Karma, and this is important to take into consid-
eration in the development of a new relationship
of humanity to the stars in our time, particularly
with respect to the horoscope as an expression of
human karma or destiny.
1 There are many different approaches to astrosophy
and not all use the equal-division sidereal zodiac
that forms the basis of the approach followed in
the Journal for Star Wisdom. All references to the
zodiac and to planetary positions in the zodiac in
the Journal for Star Wisdom are in terms of the
sidereal zodiac as defined in my book History of
the Zodiac. Moreover, in astrosophy there are
different chronologies of the life of Christ, and the
chronology that forms the basis of the approach
followed in the Journal for Star Wisdom is set
forth in my book Chronicle of the Living Christ.
Thus, all references to planetary positions at the
Christ events in the Journal for Star Wisdom are in
terms of the scientifically established chronology of
the life of Christ set forth in my book Chronicle of
the Living Christ.
– 20 –
The events of Christ’s life lived two thousand
years ago are inscribed into his ether body, and
to meditate upon these events at times when they
are cosmically remembered is a way of draw-
ing near to Christ. The recently updated version
of my article “Subnature and the Second Com-
ing” (in The Inner Life of the Earth 2) outlines
the background to contemporary events as a
confrontation between good and evil in relation
to Christ’s descent at this time through the sub-
earthly realms and also gives an overview of the
various cosmic rhythms unfolding in relation to
his second coming, including the thirty-three-
and-one-third-year rhythm of his ether body.
The Journal for Star Wisdom encourages
the reader to engage in the practice of stargaz-
ing, which is fundamental to the development of
the new star wisdom of astrosophy. One of the
foundations of astrosophy lies in the science of
astronomy, providing the new star wisdom with a
secure scientific foundation, which moreover, can
be brought into the realm of experience through
the practice of stargazing. In astrosophy there is
no longer a separation between astronomy and
astrology. For example, when in the Journal for
Star Wisdom it is indicated that currently Mars
in the heavens is at 15° Taurus then, assuming
that Mars is visible, the red planet can be seen in
conjunction with Aldebaran marking the Bull’s
eye at the center of the constellation of Taurus,
whose longitude, as the central star in this con-
stellation, is 15° Taurus. In astrosophy, the astro-
logical fact of Mars at 15° Taurus is identical with
the astronomical reality of Mars’ location at the
2 O’Leary (ed.), The Inner Life of the Earth,
pp. 69–141.
 Editorial Foreword
center of the constellation of Taurus. Astrosophy
thus relates to sense-perceptible reality and to
the Divine “background of existence” (the spiri-
tual hierarchies)3 underlying this reality, whereas
astrology is generally practiced in such a way that
there is a split between astrology and astronomy
(in this example, modern astrology, which uses
the tropical zodiac rather than the equal-division
sidereal zodiac used in astrosophy, would say that
Mars is “in Gemini”). The historical background
as to how this separation between astronomy and
astrology arose is described in my book History
of the Zodiac.4
The present issue of the Journal for Star Wis-
dom is the twenty-fourth, and the sixth published
under the new title; the first eighteen issues were
published under the title Christian Star Calendar.
By way of explanation concerning the new title,
this publication is intended as an outreach from
the StarFire research group (an astrosophy group)
that meets yearly in Boulder, Colorado (sometimes
in Fair Oaks, California); see the website www
.StarWisdom.org. 5 The Journal for Star Wisdom
is intended as an organ for the development of
the new star wisdom of astrosophy. This was
also the purpose of the Christian Star Calendar.
However, there the focus, at least, initially, was
primarily on the calendar—the monthly ephem-
eris and commentaries. In the course of time,
more and more research articles on the new star
wisdom of astrosophy came to be published in
3 According to Rudolf Steiner, the constellations are
the abode of the first hierarchy, called Seraphim,
Cherubim, and Thrones. The movement of the
planets takes place against the background of the
zodiacal constellations, which—considered as
the abode of the first hierarchy—form the Divine
“background of existence” in the heavens. “Suppose
you wanted to point to some particular [group of]
Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, one denotes
them by a particular constellation. It is like a
signpost. In that direction over there are the [group
of] Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim known as the
Twins, over there [the group of Thrones, Cherubim
and Seraphim known as] the Lion, etc.” (Steiner,
The Spiritual Hierarchies, p. 99; words in brackets
added by RP).
4 Robert Powell, History of the Zodiac.
5 Other astrosophy websites:www.sophiafoundation
.org and www.astrogeographia.org.
– 21 –
the Christian Star Calendar. A point was reached
where it became clear that the publication is more
of a journal than a calendar, although the cal-
endar continues to play an important role. It is
therefore a natural transition from the Christian
Star Calendar to the Journal for Star Wisdom.
As referred to in my article in this issue of the
Journal for Star Wisdom, perhaps the greatest
prophecy of our time—one that is little known,
but that is the reason for the existence of this
journal, and is a source of tremendous spiritual
light—is Rudolf Steiner’s prophecy from the year
1910, just over one hundred years ago. On Janu-
ary 12, 1910, he prophesied that the second com-
ing of Christ would begin in 1933, an event called
“Christ’s appearance in the etheric realm”—not a
return in a physical body but in an etheric (life)
body, the realm of life forces. Here with my trans-
lation of Marie Steiner’s notes from this impor-
tant, hitherto unpublished lecture:
3000 bc: Kali Yuga commenced and lasted
until 1899—a time of great transition.
1933: human beings will appear with clair-
voyant faculties, which they will develop natu-
rally. At this time, which we are approaching,
the newly beginning clairvoyant faculties have
to be satisfied, to experience what they [human
beings] should do with them.
I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world.
Christ will appear in an etheric form. The
physical Christ became the Spirit of the Earth—
this was the midpoint, the balance, of Earth
evolution.
5th Letter of the Ap(ocalypse): I will come
again; however, take heed that you do not fail
to recognize me.
2,500 years is the time that humanity has to
develop again the gifts of clairvoyance. Around
1933 the Gospels must be recognized in their
spiritual meaning such that they have worked
preparing for Christ. Otherwise untold confu-
sion of the soul will be caused.
Around 1933 there will be some representa-
tives of black magical schools, who will falsely
proclaim a physical Christ.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015

Each time that he becomes perceptible,
Christ is perceptible for other faculties.6
This was Rudolf Steiner’s greatest prophecy:
the second coming of Christ, which he called the
appearance of Christ in the etheric realm, begin-
ning in 1933. It is this event, the presence of the
etheric Christ, lasting from 1933 for 2,500 years
(until 4433), that is pivotal for the approach to
astrosophy (star wisdom) outlined in the Journal
for Star Wisdom.
In conclusion I would like to express gratitude
to our publisher, Gene Gollogly of SteinerBooks,
and to the able assistance of Jens Jensen of Stein-
erBooks, for making this fourth issue of the Jour-
nal for Star Wisdom available, and to all those
who have contributed to make this issue possible,
in particular to our authors for presenting their
research articles as contributions to the founda-
tions of the new star wisdom of astrosophy, and to
all our readers who ultimately are the reason for
the existence of the Journal for Star Wisdom.

6 Translated from the first page of Marie Steiner’s •

notes, recently published in German for the
first time in Der Europäer, vol. 14, Dec./Jan.
2009/2010, p. 3.

To starry realms,
To the dwelling places of Gods,
Turns the Spirit gaze of my soul.

From starry realms,

From the dwelling places of Gods,
Streams Spirit power into my soul.

For starry realms,

For the dwelling places of Gods,
Lives my Spirit heart through my soul.
—Rudolf Steiner

– 22 –
 WORKING WITH THE
JOURNAL FOR STAR WISDOM

T he listing of major planetary events each month is intended as a stimulus toward attun-
ement with the Universal Christ, the Logos, whose being encompasses the entire galaxy.
The deeds of the historical Christ wrought two thousand years ago are of eternal signifi-
cance—inscribed into the cosmos—and they resonate with the movements of the heavenly
bodies, especially when certain alignments or planetary configurations occur bearing a
resemblance with those prevailing at the time of events in the life of Jesus Christ. With the
rare astronomical event of the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun that took place
June 8, 2004, at exactly the zodiacal degree (23º Taurus), where the Sun stood at Christ’s
Ascension, a new impulse was given from divine-spiritual realms for the further unfolding
of star wisdom, Astro-Sophia.
The calendar may be found beginning on page XXX. It comprises ephemeris pages for
the twelve months of the year with accompanying monthly commentaries on the astro-
nomical events listed on the ephemeris pages. Indications regarding the similarity of con-
temporary planetary configurations with those at events in the life of Christ are given in
the lower part of the monthly commentaries, and the upper part gives a commentary on the
notable astronomical occurrences each month. Unless otherwise stated, all astronomical
indications regarding visibility mean “visible to the naked eye.” See the note concerning
time on the page preceding the monthly commentaries.
With this calendar, astronomy and astrology, which were a unity in the ancient star wis-
dom of the Egyptians and Babylonians, are reunited and provide a foundation for astroso-
phy, the all-encompassing star wisdom, Astro-Sophia, an expression of Sophia and referred
to in the Revelation of John as the “Bride of the Lamb.”

– 23 –
 ZODIACAL AGES AND CULTURAL EPOCHS
Robert Powell
RUDOLF STEINER’S DISCOVERY OF THE
720-YEAR DECAN R HYTHM IN H ISTORY:
A JUXTAPOSITION OF TWO COSMIC
R HYTHMS IN OUR TIME,
IN R ELATION TO 2014/2015:
1. Relating to the 1,199-Year Time Lag Between
the Start of a Zodiacal Age and the Beginning
of the Corresponding Cultural Epoch, and
2. Relating to the 720-Year Rhythm Connected
with the Decans
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to awaken the
interest of the reader to the significance of these
rhythms, and thereby to promote a more con-
scious understanding of the events of the present
time in relation to cosmic influences. Moreover,
as this article shows, Rudolf Steiner, owing to his
extraordinary spiritual gifts, can be regarded as
a pioneer—if not THE pioneer—of sidereal star
wisdom in the West, even though he did not indi-
cate exactly how the sidereal zodiac is defined
astronomically.
It is logical that once the sidereal zodiac has been
defined accurately,1 it is then possible to calculate
the lengths of the zodiacal ages arising through
the precession of the equinoxes. For example, in
popular culture there is a widespread belief that
we have already entered the age of Aquarius. How-
ever, as astronomers unanimously confirm, the
vernal point is currently in the constellation of
Pisces. Thus, as far as astronomy is concerned we
are still in the zodiacal age of Pisces. The question
1 Powell, History of the Zodiac, which is the book of
a PhD thesis, offers a precise scientific definition of
the original zodiac—that of the Babylonians—from
around 500 bc.
– 24 –
arises: What is the truth here? Because of the great
interest in the theme of the zodiacal ages, this
article explores this important subject and related
themes in depth.
Now, through the exact definition of the zodiac, 2
it is possible to know that the age of Aquarius will
start in the year 2375. 3 As will be described later
in this article, the average length of a zodiacal age
is 2,160 years, from which it follows that the age
of Pisces began in ad 215 (utilizing this average of
2,160 years, subtracted from 2,375). Going back
a further 2,160 years, we discover that the age
of Aries began in -1945 astronomically, which—
as will be explained later in this article—equates
with 1946 bc historically. This knowledge con-
cerning the actual dates of the zodiacal ages was
not indicated by Rudolf Steiner.
Cultural Epochs
Steiner’s spiritual research, however, did reveal
that the spiritual influence associated with a given
zodiacal age works itself out, after a certain time
lag, to become a powerful cultural influence
that gives rise to what he called a cultural epoch.
Rudolf Steiner’s introduction of cultural epochs
offers a truly great enrichment to our understand-
ing of the unfolding of history, as will emerge dur-
ing the course of this article.
Later in this article we shall explore in greater
depth the relationship between the zodiacal ages
2 Ibid.
3 Powell, Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1: Astrology and
Reincarnation, figure 11, gives an overview of the
precise dates of the zodiacal ages. Note that the
date of the start of the age of Aquarius is given as
2376 in the introduction to the American Sidereal
Ephemeris 1976–2000. This difference of one year
in the two dates is insignificant and can be ignored.
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
and the cultural epochs. At this juncture it can
be stated briefly that each zodiacal age gives rise
some twelve centuries later to a corresponding cul-
tural epoch. In other words, the time lag between
the start of a zodiacal age and the beginning of
the corresponding cultural epoch is approximately
twelve hundred years—the exact length of the time
lag being 1,199 years. Further, whereas the influ-
ence of a zodiacal age takes effect spiritually at the
time the vernal point precesses into a new zodia-
cal constellation, the corresponding cultural age
requires a further twelve centuries for the spiritual
effects to become evident culturally— giving rise
to a cultural epoch. The beginning of a zodiacal
age is often evidenced, for example, through the
birth of a great teacher of humanity who plants
the seeds necessary in order that the subsequent
cultural epoch can become a reality on the cul-
tural level approximately twelve centuries later. A
striking example, which we shall look at in more
detail later, is the founding of the ancient city of
Rome in 747 bc. This was precisely at the start
of the fourth cultural epoch, 1,199 years after the
beginning of the zodiacal age of Aries in 1946
bc—which was around the time of the birth of
Abraham, the founder of the people of Israel.
Through referring always to cultural epochs,
Rudolf Steiner bypassed the need to refer to the
zodiacal ages. Even though he did not indicate
the dates of the zodiacal ages, just as did he not
indicate the length of the time lag (1,199 years)
between the start of a zodiacal age and the corre-
sponding cultural epoch,4 he provided all the ele-
ments needed for an understanding of the unfold-
ing of the zodiacal ages and their corresponding
cultural epochs, including providing a background
for grasping the significance of the 1,199-year time
lag. Moreover, he laid the basis for a profound
understanding of the unfolding of world history
4 What is meant here is that, on the basis of the
published works of Rudolf Steiner, he did not
indicate the dates of the zodiacal ages or the length
of the time lag of 1,199 years. It is nevertheless
possible that he did indeed know the dates of
the zodiacal ages and the length of the time
lag between the start of a zodiacal age and the
beginning of the corresponding cultural epoch. But,
if so, he never communicated this knowledge.
– 25 –
as a reflection of cosmic influences—“as above, so
below”—through his application of the Egyptian
decans, which are ten-degree subdivisions in each
of the thirty-degree expanses within the circle of
the twelve signs of the sidereal zodiac. As each
constellation is therefore divided into three 10º
decans, applying this to historical periods means
that each 10º subdivision equals 720 years of his-
tory (2,160/3 = 720; 2,160 being the length of a
zodiacal age). Towards the end of this article, the
720-year “decan periods” will be discussed in rela-
tion to the present time in history, whereby the
strong influence of the planet Mars upon current
events clearly emerges.
As far as I know, Rudolf Steiner’s important
contribution to this aspect of star wisdom has not
been explored in depth before. It is therefore a joy
and an honor to have the opportunity to make this
new research available to readers of the Journal
for Star Wisdom. Readers are invited to journey
on an expedition of true scientific research, where
patience and persistence are called upon to navi-
gate one’s way through the foundational material
that is a prerequisite for grasping the star wisdom
influences that underlie the unfolding of history.
Toward the end of this article such influences are
revealed—not only in the past but also in relation
to the present time.
Here I would like to note that an earlier discus-
sion of the theme of this article took place among
several people. This earlier discussion, first pub-
lished by David Tresemer (www.starwisdom.org),
was prompted by a question relating to the follow-
ing words of Rudolf Steiner:
Initially the Event of Golgotha, the Incarnation
of Christ as Man, met with a way of think-
ing and feeling that was still of an instinctive
nature.  It took the next two-thirds of this
epoch for these forces emanating from the
Event of Golgotha to flow into humankind’s
more or less unconscious instinctive forces of
intelligence and feeling. 5
5 This lecture, translated from CW 330, was
published in The Anthroposophical Review, vol. 2,
no. 3 (1980). [CW = Complete Works].
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
In the course of the earlier discussion concern-
ing the above quote, the time lag of 1,199 years
(the period of rotation of the Venus pentagram)
between the start of a zodiacal age and the cor-
responding cultural epoch was pointed out.6 In
addition, the one and only instance when Rudolf
Steiner mentioned a 600-year “cultural wave” was
also indicated.7 This latter rhythm serves as addi-
tional confirmation of the relevance of the Venus
pentagram rhythm of 1,199 years, the 600-year
cultural wave being half of the 1,199-year time lag;
thus the time lag comprises two cultural waves.
Rudolf Steiner's remark concerning the 600-year
rhythm, known as a cultural wave, came in his
lecture on March 13, 1911:
We are living today at the beginning of a
period of transition before the onset of the
next six-hundred-year wave of culture, when
something entirely new is pressing in upon us,
when the Christ impulse is to be enriched by
something new. 8
It was noted previously that almost all anthro-
posophical authors employ ad 1413 as the date for
the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean (Piscean)
cultural epoch, rather than the astronomical date
1414. Acknowledging the 1,199-year rhythm in
relation to the astronomical dating of ad 1414 for
the advent of the cultural epoch of Pisces, a number
of other interesting historical correlations become
evident.9 In this connection, a helpful resource is
R.S.W. Bobbette's compilation of many of Rudolf
Steiner's statements on star knowledge—at least,
those that have been translated into English.10 
6 Powell, Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1: Astrology
and Reincarnation, chapter 3 describes the time
lag of 1,199 years as the period of rotation of the
so-called Venus pentagram once through the twelve
signs of the sidereal zodiac.
7 Powell and Dann, The Astrological Revolution,
pp. 17–22. See also Powell and Isaacson, Gautama
Buddha’s Successor, pp. 4–5.
8 Steiner, Background to the Gospel of St. Mark
(CW 124), pp. 152–153 (italics added by RP).
9 See Powell and Dann, The Astrological Revolution,
pp. 20–21.
10 R. S. W. Bobbette, “Introductory Essays on Rudolf
Steiner’s Star Knowledge” and “Rudolf Steiner’s
Observations on Star Knowledge” (http://www.
rsarchive.org/RelArtic/).
– 26 –
Decans referred to by Rudolf Steiner
The lecture by Rudolf Steiner quoted above is
of central importance for the theme of this arti-
cle—lecture 4 in Ancient Myths: Their Meaning
and Connection with Evolution.11 There Rudolf
Steiner talks explicitly about the influence of the
Pisces forces in connection with the vernal point
in Pisces. Also, he mentions the planetary rul-
ers—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars—of the three decans
belonging to Pisces, which (considered as a zodi-
acal sign) is ruled as a whole by Jupiter. In par-
ticular, with the retrogression of the vernal point
moving backwards through the sidereal sign of
Pisces—this being the so-called “precession of
the equinoxes”—the influence of Mars begins at
the start of the cultural epoch of Pisces, owing to
the rulership by Mars of the third decan of Pisces.
Here let us note that the third decan, extending
from 20° to 30° Pisces, is the first section of Pisces
that the vernal point moves through, shifting back
from 0° Aries to 30° Pisces and then continuing
to move retrograde through the three decans of
Pisces at a rate (on average) of one degree every
seventy-two years.
I am grateful to all who participated in the ear-
lier discussion underlying the theme of this article.
I am particularly grateful that Rudolf Steiner’s
lecture of 8 January 1918, where the Egyptian
decans are mentioned, was brought into the dis-
cussion. It is interesting to note that while this
is the only lecture in the Complete Works (CW)
of Rudolf Steiner where he refers to the decans
explicitly, there is another lecture, that of 30 July
1918, discussed below, where he draws atten-
tion to the 720-year rhythm connected with the
decans.12 This very important decan lecture of 8
11 Steiner, Ancient Myths: And the New Isis Mystery
(CW 180), lecture 4, Jan. 8, 1918. This is the
only lecture in which Steiner refers to the decans,
usually understood as 10° subdivisions of the
zodiacal signs, three decans per sign.
12 Since there are three decans, each ten degrees long,
belonging to each zodiacal sign, and since the
vernal point shifts back through the zodiac at a
rate (on average) of one degree in seventy-two years,
it is evident that the retrogression of the vernal
point through one decan takes 720 years—and,
moreover, that the backward shift of the vernal
point through three decans, comprising a zodiacal
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
January 1918, together with the lecture of 30 July
1918, holds the key to the theme of this article.
This will be discussed in section (2) below. Each of
the two sections deals with one of the two cosmic
rhythms under consideration—as is referred to
in the subtitle of this article. Readers please note
that in consultation with the original German
text of Rudolf Steiner’s lectures, my quotes may
differ slightly from the published English transla-
tion of these lectures. For example, with regard
to the decan lecture of 8 January 1918, Rudolf
Steiner refers in the German to “decans” and not
to “decanates”—“decanates” being the expression
used in the published English translation (the cor-
rect term is decans).13
(1) THE TIME LAG BETWEEN
THE START OF A ZODIACAL AGE
AND THE BEGINNING OF THE
CORRESPONDING CULTURAL EPOCH
To begin with, it is helpful to consider Rudolf
Steiner's choice of 1413 instead of 1414 as the
starting date of the fifth cultural epoch.
In my book Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1, chap-
ter 3, two candidates for the start of the fourth
cultural epoch: February 26 and April 21, both
in 747 bc, are discussed—the latter date (April
21, 747 bc) being considered by some as indicat-
ing the precise date of the founding of the city of
Rome14 —see below regarding the significance of
the date February 26, 747 bc. As referred to in
his lecture of July 30, 1918, quoted below, Rudolf
Steiner indicated 747 bc to be the actual year of
the founding of Rome. However, I am not sure
if Rudolf Steiner was aware of either of these
sign, lasts 2,160 years (3 x 720 = 2,160), this being
the length of a zodiacal age.
13 Paul and Powell, Cosmic Dances of the Zodiac,
offer an extensive overview of the 36 Egyptian
decans.
14 Several dates are given for the founding of the
city of Rome, ranging between 753 bc and 728
bc. All sources agree that the city was founded
on April 21, the day of the festival sacred to Pales,
the goddess of shepherds. Rudolf Steiner, however,
indicated that the founding of Rome took place in
747 bc; Steiner, A Sound Outlook for Today and
a Genuine Hope for the Future: Problems of the
Time (CW 181, lecture of July 30, 1918).
– 27 –
calendar dates (February 26 or April 21) in the
year 747 bc, but it is definitely the case that in his
copy of Hugo Winckler's book, as I have seen with
my own eyes, he underlined a significant passage
in that book quoted in English translation on page
56 of Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1:
The calendar reform that determined the
entrance into Aries is attested to historically. It
was carried out by King Nabonassar of Baby-
lon. The age of Aries is reckoned from the year
747 bc, the beginning of his reign, and this date
was utilized by the entire astronomy and chro-
nology of antiquity.15
Evidently this passage was of importance to
Rudolf Steiner, who indicated clearly that the
fourth cultural epoch began in the year 747 bc.
However, whereas Hugo Winckler stated, “The
age of Aries is reckoned from the year 747 bc,”
Rudolf Steiner referred not to the beginning of the
age of Aries but to the start of the fourth cultural
epoch in the year 747 bc. This is an important dis-
tinction, which is a point of discussion later in this
section (1).
For reasons indicated below, the (subsequently
determined) date February 26, 747 bc, is the obvi-
ous one to take as the exact start of the fourth
cultural epoch, noting that 747 bc was the starting
point for Rudolf Steiner's dating of the cultural
epochs, beginning with 747 bc as the start of the
fourth cultural epoch corresponding to the sign of
Aries. It is a question whether this specification of
the date 747 bc was based on his reading of Hugo
Winckler's book. Another possibility is that per-
haps Rudolf Steiner arrived at this date through
spiritual research and was then happy to find it
confirmed in Hugo Winckler's book, which is why
he underlined the quoted passage.
As one can read in this Wikipedia article, “The
Babylonian Era of Nabonassar, beginning on
February 26, 747 bc, was used by the Greeks
of Alexandria.”16 This statement offers a precise
15 Hugo Winckler, Die babylonische Kultur in ihren
Beziehungen zur Unsrigen (Leipzig, 1902), p. 36
[italics added by RP]. The English translation of
Hugo Winckler’s words is quoted from Robert
Powell, Hermetic Astrology, vol.1, p. 56.
16 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
dating for Hugo Winckler’s specification of the
year 747 bc utilized by Rudolf Steiner. Here it is
important to note that in the eighth century bc
the difference between the Julian and Gregorian
calendars was eight days, so the Gregorian date
equating with Wednesday, February 26, 747 bc
(Julian), was Wednesday, February 18, 747 bc
(Gregorian; for the conversion from Julian to Gre-
gorian dates and vice versa, one can use a calendar
calculator link).17
Regarding bc dates, a distinction has to be made
between the conventional bc dating employed by
historians and the counting of years utilized by
astronomers, whereby bc dates are denoted as
negative years and are assigned a minus sign. As
the great astronomer Jean Meeus remarks:
The astronomical counting of the negative
years is the only one suitable for arithmetical
purpose. For example, in the historical prac-
tice of counting, the rule of divisibility by 4
revealing the Julian leap-years no longer exists;
these years are, indeed, 1, 5, 9, 13, . . . bc. In the
astronomical sequence, however, these leap-
years are called 0, −4, −8, −12 . . . , and the rule
of divisibility by 4 subsists. (Jean Meeus, Astro-
nomical algorithms)18
This means that for astronomers 1 bc = 0, 2 bc =
-1, 3 bc = -2,… and 747 bc = -746. Considering that
the fourth cultural epoch lasted for 2,160 years,
2,160 has to be added to -746 to determine the
end of the fourth cultural epoch corresponding to
Aries. Adding 2,160 to -746 = 1,414, denoting the
end of the fourth cultural epoch. It follows that
ad 1414 is also the start of the fifth cultural epoch
corresponding to Pisces. That is, the fifth cultural
epoch in which we are living at present began in
ad 1414, which is 2,160 years after the start of the
fourth cultural epoch in 747 bc.
AD 333—Midpoint of Fourth Post-Atlantean
Cultural Epoch
In this context, given that Rudolf Steiner indi-
cated the year ad 333 to be the midpoint of the
calendars (under the section headed "Greece").
17 This calendar converter link is helpful: http://www.
fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/.
18 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29.
– 28 –
fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch,19 one might
object that the midpoint of the fourth post-Atlan-
tean cultural epoch would then be ad 334 instead
of ad 333, since 1,414 – 1,080 = 334. Continuing
this line of thought, a further ramification would
be that this would also compromise the date ad
666 (= 2 x 333)—both dates (333 and 666) being
referred to by Rudolf Steiner on a number of occa-
sions. 20 However, let us recall Rudolf Steiner's
specification in the Calendar 1912/1913 of the
year as extending from Easter to Easter. 21 Let us
call this the “Easter year.”
Taking the start of the fourth cultural epoch
as Wednesday, February 26, 747 bc (Julian), this
means that the fifth cultural epoch, beginning in
1414, started around Monday, February 26, 1414,
which falls in the “Easter year 1413” (extend-
ing from Easter 1413 to Easter 1414). Note that
because the Julian calendar was still in use, here I
have utilized the Julian calendar date of February
26. The corresponding Gregorian date would be
Monday, March 7, 1414, and this still falls in the
“Easter year 1413.”
If we were to use Gregorian years, because they
are astronomically more exact than Julian years,
we would take the start of the fourth cultural
epoch as Wednesday, February 18, 747 bc (Grego-
rian), and then add 2,160 years to arrive at Friday,
February 18, 1414 (Gregorian), as the start of the
fifth cultural epoch, corresponding to the Julian
date of Friday, February 9, 1414—both dates
(February 18 Gregorian and February 9, Julian)
fall in the “Easter year 1413.”
The same reasoning could be applied to ad 334,
since the early part of the year 334 falls in the
“Easter year 333.” Then the step to 666 follows by
adding 333 years, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner in
his lecture of October 16, 1918. 22
19 Steiner, Inner Impulses of Evolution (CW 171),
lecture of Sept. 17, 1916.
20 See, for example, Steiner, Death as Metamorphosis
of Life (CW 182), lecture of Oct. 16, 1918.
21 Steiner, Calendar 1912/1913. This is the original
version of what later became published under the
title Calendar of the Soul, which however, does
not contain the astronomical information from the
Calendar 1912/1913.
22 Steiner, Death as Metamorphosis of Life, lecture of
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
If we accept the dating of the fourth cultural
epoch to have lasted 2,160 years from 747 bc to ad
1414, there still remains the question: What does
this have to do with the age of Aries? We shall come
to the answer below. However, before answering
this question, it is important to note that Rudolf
Steiner indicated the cultural epochs to be 2,160
years long. Where does this come from?
The number 2,160 is 30 x 72, and since the
zodiacal signs are each thirty degrees long, and
since the rate of retrogression of the vernal point
through a zodiacal sign is (on average) one degree
in seventy-two years, a zodiacal age lasts for 2,160
years (30 x 72 = 2,160), which is the length of time
taken for the vernal point to “precess” through a
sign. Given that Rudolf Steiner indicated the cul-
tural epochs to be 2,160 years long, it is evident
that he was not referring to the unequal-length
zodiacal constellations of modern astronomy, but
that he was speaking of equal-division 30° signs.
Moreover, as follows from the quotes in the next
two paragraphs, he cannot have been speaking of
the tropical signs of the zodiac used in present-day
astrology, but he can only have been speaking of
the equal-division 30° sidereal signs first defined
by the Babylonians. He states this quite clearly,
although without mentioning the Babylonians:
“The zodiac was divided into twelve signs, which
represent the constellations.”23
Precession of the Equinoxes
Now let us return to the question concerning the
relationship of the fourth cultural epoch to the sign
of Aries, which entails considering the phenom-
enon known as the precession of the equinoxes.
That the fourth cultural epoch is related to the
sign of Aries follows from Hugo Winckler’s state-
ment quoted earlier and is elucidated by Rudolf
Steiner, who spoke of the fourth cultural epoch as
that of the Greco-Roman culture of ancient Greece
and ancient Rome: “Then came the Greco-Roman
time, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The Sun
entered Aries the Ram at the vernal equinox.”24
Oct. 16, 1918.
23 Steiner, Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies
and in the Kingdoms of Nature, p. 121.
24 Steiner, Ancient Myths, lecture 4, Jan. 8, 1918.
– 29 –
That Rudolf Steiner is here referring to the equal-
division sidereal zodiac is clear from other state-
ments made in this lecture. For example, early on
in this lecture he says: “When the Sun entered the
sign of Cancer at the vernal equinox, the first post-
Atlantean culture began.”25 Note that in the origi-
nal German text, Rudolf Steiner uses the expres-
sion “sign” rather than “constellation.”
As is well known, the signs are each thirty
degrees long, as is the case with the original, sci-
entifically-defined zodiac, i.e. the equal-division
sidereal zodiac of the Babylonians, defined around
500 bc and reconstructed in the book History of
the Zodiac. 26 The Sun at the vernal equinox in the
sign of Cancer can only mean the Sun at the vernal
point in the sidereal sign of Cancer. This statement
does not make any sense in relation to the tropi-
cal zodiac, which is defined with the vernal point
fixed at zero degrees of Aires; and thus in the trop-
ical zodiac it is impossible for the vernal equinox
to be in the sign of Cancer. Later in this lecture,
Rudolf Steiner states: “Then the Sun entered the
sign of Gemini, the Twins, at the vernal equinox.
And then as long as the vernal equinox continued
to be in Gemini we have to do with the second
post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the ancient Persian
culture.” Again, this statement does not make any
sense in terms of the tropical zodiac, in which it
would be impossible for the Sun at the vernal equi-
nox to be in the sign of Gemini. It is obvious that
Rudolf Steiner is referring to the equal-division
sidereal zodiac, and it is only against this back-
ground that it is possible to understand the content
of his “decan lecture” of 8 January 1918.
Moreover, Rudolf Steiner’s statement unequivo-
cally relates the arising of the cultural epochs to
the precession of the equinoxes through the signs
of the sidereal zodiac, since he says: “As long as
the vernal equinox continued to be in Gemini we
have to do with the second post-Atlantean cultural
epoch.” This explains why the dates of the cultural
25 Ibid.
26 Powell, History of the Zodiac. This is the book
of a PhD thesis that investigates the origin of the
first scientific definition of the zodiac: that of the
Babylonians, which was scientifically defined
around the start of the fifth century bc.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
epochs indicated by Rudolf Steiner are each 2,160
years long, since this is the length of time (on
average) that the vernal point takes to retrogress
through a sidereal sign of thirty degrees, moving
at a rate of one degree in seventy-two years. At
the same time, though, the following needs to be
taken into consideration, qualifying the foregoing
statement by Rudolf Steiner.
As each cultural epoch occurs with an 1,199-
year time lag after the corresponding zodiacal
age, it is only during the last 961 years of a zodia-
cal age that the cultural epoch overlaps with the
zodiacal age to which it corresponds (961 +1,199
= 2,160). Consequently, the first 1,199 years of
a zodiacal age overlaps with the cultural epoch
corresponding to the preceding zodiacal age. As
an example, the zodiacal age of Pisces began in
ad 215, which is 961 years after the start of the
fourth cultural epoch that began in 747 bc—not-
ing that the fourth cultural epoch corresponds to
Aries. In the year 1414, which is 1,199 years after
ad 215, the fifth cultural epoch (corresponding to
Pisces) began. That is, the fourth cultural epoch
corresponding to Aries overlapped with the zodi-
acal age of Pisces for 1,199 years, from ad 215
to 1414. It is only now, during the last 961 years
(1414 to 2375) of the zodiacal age of Pisces, that
the zodiacal age of Pisces and the cultural epoch
corresponding to Pisces (the fifth cultural epoch)
overlap.
The Time Lag of 1,199 Years
and the 600-Year Rhythm
In the foregoing we have indicated that there is
a constant difference, a time lag of 1,199 years,
between the start of a new zodiacal age and the
beginning of the corresponding cultural epoch.
This is discussed at length in Hermetic Astrol-
ogy, vol. 1, chapter 3, where the length of time
taken for the “Venus pentagram” to rotate back-
wards through all twelve signs of the zodiac is
determined to be 1199 years; i.e. the time lag of
1,199 years is the period of rotation of the Venus
pentagram. Also, in chapter 1 of The Astrologi-
cal Revolution (coauthored with Kevin Dann),
the time lag of approximately twelve centuries is
elaborated upon:
– 30 –
Over the course of his lifetime, Rudolf Steiner
identified and elaborated a whole series of cos-
mic rhythms that play into the course of human
history. Only once, however, did he note a 600-
year rhythm of culture, in a lecture where he
referred to a period of six centuries—from the
Renaissance to our time:
A certain renewal in the Renaissance. . . .
Then again there is a period of six hundred
years. . . . This brings us to the period in
which we ourselves are living. We are living
today at the beginning of a period of transi-
tion before the onset of the next 600-year
wave of culture, when something entirely
new is pressing in upon us. 27
Here it is clear that six hundred years,
described by Steiner as a “wave of culture,”
(cultural wave) is the half-period of the 1,199-
year rhythm of the time lag between the begin-
ning of a zodiacal age and its manifestation as
a cultural epoch. Evidently two 600-year cul-
tural waves elapse between the start of a zodia-
cal age and the start of the corresponding cul-
tural epoch. Applied to the Piscean age, the first
cultural wave of six hundred years was from
the start of the age of Pisces in 215 to 814, the
year of the death of Charlemagne (Carolingian
Renaissance); and the second cultural wave of
six hundred years, from 814 to 1414, was dur-
ing the period leading up to the Renaissance.
Adding a further six hundred years, we arrive
at the year 2014 as the start of a new cultural
wave. Though spoken in 1911, one can inter-
pret Steiner’s words “We are living today at the
beginning of a period of transition before the
onset of the next 600-year wave of culture,” as
pointing to this 2014 date. The 2014 date is
suggestive, in light of the highly publicized end
of the Maya calendar in December 2012. 28
It can be seen that the time lag of twelve centu-
ries between the start of a new zodiacal age and
the beginning of the corresponding cultural epoch
comprises two cultural waves, each six hundred
years long. Moreover, as I have shown in chapter
27 Rudolf Steiner, Background to the Gospel of St.
Mark, p. 152–153.
28 Powell and Dann, The Astrological Revolution, p.
20.
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
3 of Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1, , the time lag of
1,199 years is exactly the length of time taken
for the “Venus pentagram” to rotate backwards
through the sidereal zodiac. Given that the spiri-
tual beings called by Rudolf Steiner the “Spirits
of Time” (Greek: Archai) are associated with the
realm of Venus, it is clear that the 600-year rhythm
has to do with the activity of the Archai, the Spir-
its of Time, in their regulation of the unfolding of
the cultural epochs in relation to the precession
of the equinoxes through the signs of the sidereal
zodiac. Their activity regulates the relationship
between the start of a new zodiacal age and the
beginning of the corresponding cultural epoch;
and the 600-year cultural wave rhythm associated
with Venus could be called the Archai rhythm, just
as the 355-year rhythm associated with Mercury
can be referred to as the Archangel rhythm. 29
In this connection it is revealing to consider, as
mentioned at the start of this article, the difference
between the influence of a zodiacal age and that of
the corresponding cultural epoch. Essentially, the
zodiacal age relates to the spiritual level and the
cultural epoch to the cultural level, whereby the
latter is more noticeable outwardly.
When the vernal point (“Sun at the vernal equi-
nox”) moves back into a new zodiacal sign, a new
29 As indicated by Rudolf Steiner, at present we are in
the 355-year period known as The Age of Michael
(1879–2234). The Age of Michael is the current
archangelic period for humanity and the Earth,
which will culminate in the year 2234 with the
alignment of our Sun with the Central Sun (galactic
center) at the winter solstice. The archangelic
periods, each 355 sidereal years in length, are a
succession of historical periods in which, during
each period, one of seven Archangels, in succession,
assumes the task of guiding humanity and the
Earth: Michael/Sun (607–152 bc); Oriphiel/
Saturn (152 bc–ad 204); Anael/Venus (204–459);
Zachariel/Jupiter (459–814); Raphael/Mercury
(814–1169); Samael/Mars (1169–1524); Gabriel/
Moon (1524–1879); and Michael/ Sun (1879–2234).
The 355-year period is associated with the planet
Mercury, during which Mercury completes 1474
orbits of the Sun and, simultaneously, 1119 synodic
periods (orbits of the Earth). See Steiner, From the
History and Contents of the First Section of the
Esoteric School, 1904–1914 (CW 264), in which
he refers to the archangelic periods, though without
giving a precise dating.
– 31 –
spiritual impulse begins. For example, when the
vernal point entered the sign of Aries in the Bab-
ylonian sidereal zodiac, in 1946 bc (-1945 astro-
nomically), this was the time of Abraham, who
introduced the sacrifice of the Ram as an expres-
sion of the new spiritual influence that began to
stream in at that time from the sign of Aries the
Ram. This was taken up by the Archai and, during
the course of one complete rotation of the Venus
pentagram around the zodiac in 1199 years, was
carried over to become a cultural impulse in 747
bc. At that time, the founding of the city of Rome,
the beginning of the era of Nabonassar, and other
cultural phenomena signified the start of the
fourth cultural epoch associated with the sidereal
sign of Aries.
The age of Aries extended over 2,160 years from
1946 bc (-1945) to ad 215, the birth year of the
prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, who
was the incarnation of “a very high messenger of
Christ.”30 ad 215 was the start of the age of Pisces,
when a new spiritual impulse began to stream in
from the sidereal sign of Pisces—an impulse of
which the great initiate Mani31 was a bearer at the
commencement of the age of Pisces, just as Abra-
ham was a bearer of the new impulse that began
to stream in from the sidereal sign of Aries in
1946 bc. However, it was not until two 600-year
cultural waves had elapsed that the fifth cultural
epoch, corresponding to Pisces, began in 1414,
after a time lag of 1,199 years from the start of the
age of Pisces in ad 215 (215 + 1,199 = 1,414).
As a matter of interest, it can be noted that the
time lag of twelve centuries is 5/9 of a zodiacal
age of 2,160 years. The ratio 5/9 indicates the
more-or-less exact time lag between the start of
an astrological (zodiacal) age and the beginning
of the corresponding cultural epoch. I say "more-
or-less exact" because 1,200/2,160 = 5/9, whereas
1,199/2,160 is slightly off 5/9. The reason for men-
tioning this ration of 5/9 is that the original ques-
tion that prompted this article, concerning how
Rudolf Steiner’s words might be interpreted, was
30 Steiner, The East in the Light of the West (CW 113),
lecture of August 31, 1909.
31 Ibid.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
whether the time lag might in fact be 2/3 of an
epoch of 2,160 years—see footnote 5 referring to
the relevant quote by Rudolf Steiner. As can be
seen from the foregoing, the time lag is 5/9 of an
epoch (not 2/3)—the two-thirds referred to by
Rudolf Steiner in his quote is further elucidated in
section (2).
(2) R ELATING TO THE 720-YEAR
R HYTHM CONNECTED
WITH THE DECANS
When Rudolf Steiner divided up the zodiacal con-
stellations in his Calendar 1912/1913, he indi-
cated that he had not done so precisely:
The following is an excerpt from a letter by
Joachim Schulz, an astronomer who researched
the zodiacal divisions indicated by Rudolf
Steiner. As the astronomer Joachim Schultz
knew, the passage is apparently from Dr. Elisa-
beth Vreede:
The principal correspondence of the monthly
images to various-length time intervals
in the course of the year and correspond-
ing to the present situation of the constel-
lations (vernal point in Pisces and no lon-
ger in Aries) stemmed from Rudolf Steiner.
Here a conscious step differing from the
usual astrological signs of equal length is
taken. On the other hand he had not drawn
exact boundaries of the segments himself,
and when he was later asked about this, he
said that these should be fitted to the astro-
nomical positions of the constellations and,
where necessary, were to be corrected. 32
Thus, Rudolf Steiner indicated that, where nec-
essary, his specification of the boundaries of the
zodiacal constellations—and consequently the
dates determined therefrom—needed to be cor-
rected. He was pressed to meet the publication
deadline for the Calendar 1912/1913, and at that
point in time Elisabeth Vreede was not around to
help him. It also needs to be borne in mind that
32 Robert Powell & Kevin Dann, The Astrological
Revolution (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks,
2010), p. 208. As far as the authors know, this is
the first time that this quote has been published in
English translation.
– 32 –
at that time the equal-division sidereal zodiac was
unknown outside of Assyriological circles (hav-
ing only just been rediscovered from cuneiform
sources); and although the unequal-division astro-
nomical zodiac was standard, its boundaries had
not yet been rigorously defined. The non-rigorously
defined unequal-division astronomical zodiac was
thus used by Rudolf Steiner for his estimates of the
lengths of the zodiacal constellations in the Calen-
dar 1912/1913, because no other alternative was
offered by the astronomical science of that time.
In other words, as emerges from this example,
Rudolf Steiner would sometimes give an indica-
tion that—in the interest of the exactness of spiri-
tual science vis-à-vis natural science—he clearly
expected his students to subsequently correct, if
indeed such correction was needed.
Here it is important to note that Rudolf Steiner’s
“decan lecture” of January 8, 1918, was held after
he brought out the Calendar 1912/1913, in which
he utilized unequal-division astronomical constel-
lations. In contrast, the “decan lecture” is clearly
based on equal-division sidereal signs. That the
sidereal signs are equal length, each thirty degrees
long, is obvious from the fact that the precession
of the equinoxes through these signs gives rise to
equal-length cultural epochs. If the sidereal signs
were in fact unequal-length constellations, the
passage of the vernal point through these constel-
lations would give rise to unequal-length cultural
epochs—and, correspondingly, to unequal-length
zodiacal ages.
The foregoing conclusions underpin the state-
ment made at the beginning of this article that
“Rudolf Steiner can be regarded as a pioneer—if
not THE pioneer—of sidereal star wisdom in the
West,” since his affirmation of the equal-division
sidereal zodiac in his decan lecture of January 8,
1918, was long before Cyril Fagan brought the
sidereal zodiac to the attention of Western astrolo-
gers in 1950. 33
33 Cyril Fagan, Zodiacs Old and New, was the first
book by a Western astrologer to bring the ancient
sidereal zodiac to the attention of astrologers in the
West.
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
The Original Zodiac of the Stars
with Twelve Equal 30° Signs
A further aspect concerning the implicit valida-
tion by Rudolf Steiner of the equal-length side-
real signs in the “decan lecture” is provided by
the decans themselves, since—in the context of
Rudolf Steiner’s lecture—they are defined as ten-
degree sectors of the sidereal signs, three to each
sign. In the words of the (now deceased) foremost
researcher into ancient astronomy, Otto Neuge-
bauer: “The decans, in their last, Hellenistic phase,
became 10° sections of the zodiacal signs.”34
Rudolf Steiner refers to the zodiac as something
“infinitely higher than that which is transformed
in the evolutionary course of our planet from Old
Saturn to Old Sun, and from that to Old Moon
and so on. Planetary existence arises and passes
away, but the zodiac is ever there.”35 Given the
lofty and sublime significance of the zodiac, what
is it actually?
Here it needs to be borne in mind that in the
astronomy and astrology of antiquity there was
only one zodiac: the sidereal zodiac that was first
defined by the Babylonians. At that time it was
universally referred to simply as the zodiac. 36 Now,
with the widespread of acceptance of something
else—the tropical zodiac of Greek astronomy—as
the zodiac for astrology, and of the astronomical
zodiac comprising unequal-length zodiacal con-
stellations as the zodiac for astronomy, it is neces-
sary to refer to the original zodiac of twelve 30°
signs, coinciding more or less with the constella-
tions of the same names, as the sidereal zodiac
34 Powell, History of the Zodiac, chapter 4, goes
into the history of the decans in the context of
the history of the sidereal zodiac in ancient Egypt,
with extensive quotes from the foremost researcher,
Otto Neugebauer, into the history of ancient
astronomy and astrology, who shows conclusively
that the signs of the zodiac used in ancient Egypt
were those of the sidereal zodiac, transmitted from
Babylon to Alexandria in the fourth/third/second
centuries bc.
35 Steiner, The East in the Light of the West, lecture
of August 31, 1909.
36 Universally does not signify the whole world, but it
does signify a large part of the world, as the zodiac
was transmitted from Babylon to Greece, Egypt,
the Roman Empire, and India.
– 33 –
(sidereal meaning “of the stars”). This original,
scientifically-defined zodiac of the Babylonians
can be traced back to the early fifth century bc.
Prior to the Greek astronomer Ptolemy (second
century ad)—with the exception, as discussed in
History of the Zodiac, chapter 2, of the second
century bc specification by the Greek astrono-
mer Hipparchus that was acknowledged only by
relatively few people—there was no knowledge
of any zodiac other than the Babylonian sidereal
zodiac. There was, however, knowledge on the
part of some Greeks of Euctemon’s tropical calen-
dar, which divides the cycle of the year into twelve
solar months named after the signs of the zodiac.
This calendar—a division of time (not a division of
space such as the sidereal zodiac)—was a forerun-
ner of the tropical zodiac, which is nothing other
than a spatial projection of Euctemon’s seasonal
calendar. 37
Further, it should be noted that while Ptolemy—
through his astrological textbook, the Tetrabib-
los—can rightly be credited with the introduction
of the tropical zodiac into astrology, Ptolemy him-
self referred consistently in the Tetrabiblos to the
signs of the sidereal zodiac. 38
Yet how can we be sure that in his “decan lecture”
of January 8, 1918, Rudolf Steiner was validating
the equal 10° decans embedded in the Babylonian
sidereal zodiac—three in each sign? The answer is
given—albeit indirectly—by way of the following
excerpt from a lecture held just over six months
after he discussed the decans on January 8, 1918,
this being his lecture of July 30, 1918.
37 Powell, History of the Zodiac, chapters 2 and 3
discuss at length the origin of the tropical zodiac as
a spatial projection of the tropical calendar.
38 Powell, Astrogeographia, chapters 2 and 3 provide
an extensive analysis of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos,
showing conclusively that this work was a manual
of sidereal astrology, even though, later, it came to
be seen as the “bible” of tropical astrology. What is
also shown conclusively is that the introduction by
Ptolemy of the tropical zodiac into astrology was
an historical error.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
The 720-Year Historical Rhythm
Subdividing the Cultural Epochs
Let us look back, as students of spiritual sci-
ence, at the so-called fourth post-Atlantean
period. This begins, as we know, somewhere
about the year 747 before the Mystery of Golo-
tha, and closes with the beginning of the fif-
teenth century, about ad 1413. (The figures are
of course to be taken approximately, as always
in matters of this kind.) Within this period, as
we observe it, we can perceive certain forces,
connected with and related to each other, but
differing fundamentally from all others work-
ing in previous and subsequent epochs. This
period, in which the development of the intel-
lectual or mind soul in the human being took
place, can be divided into three smaller ones:
the first, beginning in the year 747 bc (which
is the real date of the founding of Rome) ends
about 27 bc; the second runs from 27 bc until
about the end of the seventh century (ad 693);
the third and last, from 693 to 1413. Since this
date, since about 1413, we have the time which
brings forth, in its own characteristic way, soul
forces already known to you to some extent.
Just as this fourth post-Atlantean epoch can be
clearly distinguished from the three preceding
ones (the ancient Indian, Persian, and Egypto-
Chaldean) and must also be sharply distin-
guished from what followed it and what is still
to come, so—within it—the growth is marked
by noticeable moments, if we consider its prog-
ress through these three shorter periods. 39
It is clear that here Rudolf Steiner divides up the
fourth cultural epoch into three 720-year periods.
What is the background to this? Relating this to
the “decan lecture,” it emerges that each 720-year
period is the time required for the vernal point to
retrogress through one 10° decan, moving back at
a rate of one degree in seventy-two years. In rela-
tion to the fourth cultural epoch, corresponding to
the zodiacal age of Aries and arising by virtue of
the 1,199-year time lag (two cultural waves) vis-
à-vis the precession of the equinoxes through the
sidereal sign of Aries, the three decans referred to
39 Steiner, A Sound Outlook for Today and a
Genuine Hope for the Future, lecture of July 30,
1918.)
– 34 –
by Rudolf Steiner for that epoch are each ruled
by a planet. Thereby the three decans of the side-
real sign of Aries—according to Rudolf Steiner
and in agreement with some ancient astrologi-
cal texts concerning the decans—are associated
with Mars, the Sun, and Venus. He says: “These
three decans represent those planets, which have
the mission, during a particular constellation [in
this case: Aries] of quite specially intervening in
destiny, while the others [other planets] are less
active.”40 Here, Rudolf Steiner points to the his-
torical rhythm of 720 years associated with the
thirty-six decans as 10° subdivisions of the sidereal
zodiac. Clearly, however, in this example Rudolf
Steiner applies the 720-year rhythm not to the pre-
cession of the vernal point moving back through
the actual decans of the sidereal zodiac, but to the
“decans” arising within the fourth cultural epoch
1,199 years after the passage of the vernal point
moving backwards through the actual decans.
How do we know this? We shall see the answer to
this question emerge in the discussion below.
For Rudolf Steiner the decans as 10° subdivi-
sions of the sidereal signs were a definite reality,
and the 720-year rhythm associated with the rate
of movement of the vernal point retrogressing
through each decan—at least, when applied via
the 1,199-year time lag to the “decans” arising as
three equal-time divisions of the cultural epochs,
each 720 years long—is an important historical
rhythm. While this rhythm arises in relation to the
precession of the equinoxes through the decans of
the sidereal zodiac, it must be distinguished from
the 600-year cultural wave associated with the
planet Venus and with the Archai, as discussed
above.
The Decan Rhythm of 720 Years and
the Cultural Wave Rhythm of 600 Years
We are now in a position to answer the question
posed at the outset of this article, which hinges
around the quote from Rudolf Steiner’s lecture of
July 11, 1919, almost a full year after the lecture of
July 30, 1918, quoted from above. The following
passage is the relevant quote from Rudolf Steiner’s
40 Steiner, Ancient Myths, lecture of January 8, 1918.
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
lecture of July 30, 1918, that was referred to at the
very start of this article:
Initially the Event of Golgotha, the Incarnation
of Christ as Man, met with a way of think-
ing and feeling that was still of an instinctive
nature.  It took the next two-thirds of this
epoch for these forces emanating from the
Event of Golgotha to flow into the human
being's more-or-less unconscious instinctive
forces of intelligence and feeling.41
Against the background depicted in the forego-
ing, it is clear that Rudolf Steiner, in using the
word “epoch,” is here referring to the fourth cul-
tural epoch. The first third of that epoch lasted
until around 27 bc, at which time the Christ events
started to unfold. For example, as shown in my
book Chronicle of the Living Christ, the Virgin
Mary [Solomon Mary] was born in the year 21 bc,
and other figures such as her husband Joseph were
perhaps born around 27 bc or even earlier. In the
case of the prophetess Anna referred to in Luke
2:36, she was eighty-four years old when, early in
the year 1 bc, the new-born—merely forty days
old—child Jesus (Nathan Jesus) was presented in
the temple.42 In other words, Anna was some fifty-
eight years of age in 27 bc.
Rudolf Steiner then indicates that “it took the
next two-thirds of this epoch for these forces ema-
nating from the Event of Golgotha to flow into the
human being’s more-or-less unconscious instinc-
tive forces of intelligence and feeling.” This cor-
responds approximately to the next two decan
periods, each 720 years long, amounting to 1,440
years, or two-thirds of that cultural epoch, since
1,440/2,160 = 2/3. In other words, here Rudolf
Steiner was looking at the latter two-thirds of the
fourth cultural epoch, corresponding to Aries, as
the time of assimilation of forces flowing from
the Mystery of Golgotha, whereby it is clear that
“two-thirds” is an approximate indication, since
the actual time period from the Mystery of Gol-
gotha in ad 33 to the end of the fourth cultural
41 This lecture, translated from CW 330, was
published in The Anthroposophical Review, vol. 2,
no. 3 (1980).
42 Powell, Chronicle of the Living Christ, p. 102.
– 35 –
epoch in 1414 was 1,381 years. And 1,381/2,160 =
0.64, which is an approximation to 0.66666…(2/3),
implied by the expression “two-thirds.”
The quotes from the two lectures previously
referred to—the “decan” lecture of January 8,
1918, and the “Problems of the Time” lecture of
July 30, 1918—make it clear that in his lecture
of July 11, 1919, Rudolf Steiner was indeed refer-
ring implicitly to the decan rhythm of 720 years
unfolding within the context of a cultural epoch
(in this case, the fourth cultural epoch correspond-
ing to Aries) and was not pointing to the time lag
between the start of a zodiacal age and the begin-
ning of the corresponding cultural epoch.
It would be interesting to further explore the sig-
nificance of the unfolding of the decan rhythm of
720 years in world history. The rhythm of 720 years
is zodiacally-based, as the decan rhythm or time
taken for the vernal point to retrogress through
one 10° decan, whereas the 600-year “cultural
wave” is a planetary-based rhythm, associated
with the planet Venus. These two rhythms—the
600-year rhythm and the 720-year rhythm—are
clearly both important for a deeper understanding
of history.
Understood spiritually, as already indicated, the
600-year “cultural wave” rhythm is related to the
Archai (Time Spirits), who are connected with
the Venus sphere.43 On the other hand, the decan
rhythm, which is related to the level of the side-
real zodiac—the decans being a subdivision of the
twelve signs of the sidereal zodiac—has to do with
the beings of the first hierarchy: Seraphim, Cheru-
bim, Thrones.
Suppose you . . . wanted to point in the direc-
tion of certain Thrones, Cherubim, and Sera-
phim. Remember, these beings are by no
means the same, like a group of twelve iden-
tical soldiers. They differ considerably from
one another. Each bears its individual stamp
so that, depending on where one’s attention is
43 Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical
World (CW 110), lecture of Apr. 15, 1909. In this
lecture Rudolf Steiner refers on the one hand to
the Archai in connection with Venus, and on the
other hand to the Archangels in connection with
Mercury (see the related discussion in footnote 26
of this article).
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
directed, one sees quite different beings. So, to
point out a particular group of Thrones, Cher-
ubim, and Seraphim, one denotes them as a
particular constellation. The constellations are
like signposts. In one direction, over there, are
the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim known
as Gemini, the Twins; over there, Leo, the
Lion; and so on. They are, so to speak, guide-
posts that indicate the direction where partic-
ular beings may be found. So we conceive of
the constellations as guideposts, or boundar-
ies between these regions of beings. The con-
stellations of the zodiac are more than mere
signposts, but we must make it clear that, as a
first stage, when we speak of the zodiac, we are
referring to spiritual beings.44
From these words it is clear that the 720-year
decan rhythm referred to by Rudolf Steiner is
related to the activity of the lofty spirits known
as Seraphim (Spirits of Love), Cherubim (Spirits of
Wisdom and Harmony), and Thrones (Spirits of
Will), who comprise the spiritual reality underly-
ing the twelve sidereal signs of the zodiac. This is
a completely different spiritual level to that of the
Archai (Time Spirits), who are working from the
planetary level associated with Venus.
Now we come to the deeper purpose of this
article, which is to stimulate a more conscious
understanding of cosmic influences in the unfold-
ing of our present-day realities. The first thing
to note is that there is a striking juxtaposition of
these two rhythms 45 in our time, with the start of
the new cultural wave in 2014 closely coinciding
with the midpoint of the current 720-year decan
rhythm in 2015.
The interesting example of the end of the first
600-year cultural wave of the fifth cultural epoch
(Pisces)—1,414 +600 = 2,014—signifying the start
of a new cultural wave in the year 2014, is explored
in the article “2014 and the Coming of the Kalki
Avatar” in the 2014 issue of the Journal for Star
Wisdom and is elaborated upon in much greater
detail in the book Gautama Buddha’s Successor:
44 Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical
World (CW 110), lecture of Apr. 17, 1909.
45 The 600-year cultural wave rhythm and the 720-
year decan rhythm.
– 36 –
A Force for Good in Our Time (coauthored with
Estelle Isaacson).
The 720-Year Decan Rhythm
and the Present Time
It would be interesting to explore the application
of the 720-year decan rhythm to the unfolding of
the age of Pisces from ad 215 to 2375, when the
age of Aquarius starts. The time period relating
to the third decan (Mars) extending from 20° to
30° Pisces—now considering the actual 10° decan
divisions within the sidereal sign of Pisces—when
historically the vernal point retrogressed through
this decan of Pisces, extended from ad 215 to
935—this being the first 720-year period in the age
of Pisces. The vernal point moved back through
the second decan (Jupiter) extending from 10° to
20° Pisces during the time period from 935 to
1655—the second 720-year period during the age
of Pisces. And the vernal point is currently retro-
gressing through the first decan (Saturn) extend-
ing from 0° to 10° Pisces during the period from
1655 to 2375, reaching the middle of this decan in
the year 2015, since half of the 720-year period is
360 years, and 360 + 1,655 = 2,015. It would go
beyond the scope of this article to explore in any
detail these three phases within the age of Pisces
(215 to 935, 935 to 1655, and 1655 to 2375) other
than to point out the planetary rulers of these
three decans:
Third decan (vernal point moved from 30° to
20° Pisces: 215–935)—Mars
Second decan (vernal point moved from 20° to
10° Pisces: 935–1655)—Jupiter
First decan (vernal point moves from 10° to 0°
Pisces: 1655–2375)—Saturn
Here we need to bear in mind that as these 720-
year periods relate directly to the sublime level of
the sidereal zodiac, associated—as Rudolf Steiner
indicates—with the activity of the Seraphim,
Cherubim, and Thrones, this influence is on a
lofty spiritual level and does not make itself felt so
much outwardly, but more in terms of the unfold-
ing metahistory of the world.46
46 Andreev, The Rose of the World, p. 73: “The term
 Zodiacal Ages and Cultural Epochs
However, in the same way that Rudolf Steiner in
his July 30, 1918, lecture, quoted early in this arti-
cle, applied the three 720-year decan periods to
the fourth (Aries) cultural epoch, let us now apply
the three 720-year decan periods to the current
fifth (Pisces) cultural epoch. To do this, all that
is necessary is to add 1,199 years (time lag) to the
dates in the above tabulation. Whereas the above
tabulation applies to the three decans of the zodia-
cal age of Pisces, the following tabulation applies
to three “decans” (720-year periods) belonging to
the fifth cultural epoch corresponding to Pisces:
Third “decan” (720-year period) of the fifth
cultural epoch: 1414–2134—Mars
Second “decan” (720-year period) of the fifth
cultural epoch: 2134–2854—Jupiter
First “decan” (720-year period) of the fifth
cultural epoch: 2854–3574—Saturn
Knowing that the planet Mars is the “ruler”
of the current 720-year historical period (1414–
2134) of the fifth cultural epoch helps to give a
background to the devastating history of wars that
have unfolded during this period of time: includ-
ing the Great Turkish War (1683–1689), the Seven
Years War (1756–1763), the French Revolution
(1793–1794), the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815),
the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), the American
Civil War (1861–1865), the Philippine-American
War (1899–1912), the Mexican Revolution (1910–
1920), World War I (1914–1918), the Russian Civil
War (1917–1922), the Chinese Civil War (1927–
1949), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Sino-
Japanese War (1937–1945), World War II (1939–
1945), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Algerian
war of Independence (1954–1962), the Vietnam
War (1955–1975), the Soviet war in Afghanistan
(1979–1989), the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the
civil war in Afghanistan (1989–2001), the Alge-
rian Civil War (1991–2002), the Second Congo
War (1998–2003), the war in Afghanistan (2001
metahistory…[applies to] the sum of processes—
as yet outside the field of vision, interest, and
methodology of science—that takes place on planes
of variobeing existing in other time streams and
other dimensions and are sometimes discernible
through the process we perceive as history.”
– 37 –
to present), the Iraq War (2003–2011), the war in
Darfur (2003–present), the Syrian Civil War (2011
to present), and the Ukrainian civil war (2014–
present). Only the most devastating wars are listed
here. An estimated 200 million people died in
these wars.
Transformation of the Cosmic
Influence of Mars
Clearly, in light of all these devastating wars,
traditionally associated with the cosmic influence
of Mars, it is important during the last part of this
720-year Mars period (1414–2134) that a trans-
formed Mars impulse begins to shine in—revealed
in the striving for peace and social justice that is
exemplified in figures such as Mahatma Gandhi
and Martin Luther King. Interestingly, the impulse
of the Maitreya-Kalki individuality discussed in
Gautama Buddha’s Successor: A Force for Good
in Our Time, now arising in connection with the
new 600-year cultural wave (2014–2614),47 can be
seen in this light of the transformed Mars impulse.
It is precisely in the juxtaposition of the two cos-
mic rhythms discussed in this article that one can
see how a positive, upward-leading impulse could
be given in our time to transform the decadent
war impulse of Mars that is wreaking death and
destruction in our world during this Mars period
of 720 years (1414–2134)—and how much such
a positive, uplifting, transformed Mars impulse is
needed now, at this point in time, with some one
hundred and twenty years still to elapse before the
end of this Mars period. And it is the Maitreya-
Kalki individuality, the bearer of a transformed
Mars impulse, that of the “majestic power of the
47 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
focuses upon the cultural wave beginning in 2014
in connection with the Maitreya individuality
awaited by Buddhists as the next Buddha, who
is the same as the Kalki individuality awaited by
Hindus as the next Avatar. The mission of the
Maitreya individuality, according to Rudolf Steiner,
is to transmit the power of morality (i.e. the
Good) through the word. As indicated by Rudolf
Steiner, the planet Mars is connected with the
throat/larynx chakra, whence stems the power of
the word. Hence the Maitreya-Kalki individuality
can be seen as a bearer of the transformed Mars
impulse, bringing peace and social justice instead
of war.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
word” (bearing in mind Rudolf Steiner’s indica-
tion that the Mars forces are connected with the
larynx and thus with the power of the word48)
who can pioneer a new and positive Mars impulse
in our time—at the start of this new 600-year cul-
tural wave (2014–2614).
What is special about the Maitreya
Buddha is that he will in a certain sense
imitate what took place at the event of
Golgotha. . . . [With him] is given to us the
greatest teacher who has appeared in order
to reveal to human beings the fullness of
the Christ Event. Most remarkable with
him will be that, as the greatest teacher,
he will bring the most majestic [power of
the] word, the highest word.49
Aside from this example of the current Mars
phase (720-year period) of the fifth cultural epoch,
which we are now in and are approaching the end
of historically (in about one hundred and twenty
years time), the application of the 720-year decan
rhythm to the unfolding of the age of Pisces as
a whole—considered in detail—remains to be
undertaken in a future article.
Final reflection
One final reflection here: It is my conviction that
if Rudolf Steiner had known of the original side-
real zodiac of the Babylonians as the first scien-
tifically-defined zodiac, he would have been able
to work out the dates of the zodiacal ages: Aries
(1946 bc–ad 215), Pisces (ad 215–2375), Aquarius
(2375–4535), and so on. 50 He would then have been
48 Steiner, True and False Paths of Spiritual
Investigation, lecture of Aug. 13, 1924, discusses
the connection of the larynx with Mars.
49 Steiner, Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of
Christian Rosenkreutz, lecture of Sept. 19, 1911.
50 Powell, Hermetic Astrology, vol. 1, figure 11, gives
– 38 –
able to give historical indications in terms of the
zodiacal ages—for example, pointing to the birth
of Abraham around 1946 bc, ushering in the age
of Aries, the birth of the prophet Mani in ad 215,
initiating the age of Pisces, and other interesting
examples. Because he did not know these dates,
he was limited to working with the dates of the
cultural epochs, taking his starting point as 747
bc—the date of the founding of Rome—as the
beginning of the fourth cultural epoch, the time
when the Greco-Roman culture began to flourish.
In other words, Rudolf Steiner’s primary histori-
cal dates were formulated in terms of the cultural
epochs, because he had a secure dating (confirmed
by Hugo Winckler), and he knew that the fourth
cultural epoch (747 bc onward for 2,160 years)
corresponded to the sidereal sign of Aries. How-
ever, if in addition he had known of the dates of
the age of Aries and the other zodiacal ages—
knowing also of the constant time lag of 1,199
years between the start of a zodiacal age and the
beginning of the corresponding cultural epoch—
he could have furthered his spiritual research in
relation to the dates of the zodiacal ages as well as
those of the cultural epochs. Now that we know
the exact dates of the zodiacal ages, research into
these dates—and also into the associated decan
dates—is possible. Hopefully this article can serve
as a stimulus for further research into these mys-
teries connecting heaven and earth in the unfold-
ing of history, underlying which is the hermetic
axiom “as above, so below.”
•
an overview of the precise dates of the zodiacal
ages and the dates of the corresponding cultural
epochs, each arising 1,199 years after the start of a
new zodiacal age.
 ASCENSION VISIONS
Estelle Isaacson
Introduction by Robert Powell: the fol-
lowing three visions of Estelle Isaacson can be
thought of in connection with the Grail mys-
tery addressed just over one hundred years ago
(1913/1914) by Rudolf Steiner in his lectures
Christ in the Spiritual World: The Search for
the Holy Grail (London: Rudolf Steiner Press,
2008). In lecture 6 of this cycle of Grail lec-
tures Rudolf Steiner points out: “There is no
way of approach to the Grail through words
of any kind, or through philosophical specu-
lations. The only way is by changing all these
words into feeling, by becoming able to feel in
the Grail the sum of all that is holy . . . ” These
three visions of Estelle Isaacson are offered in
this issue of the Journal for Star Wisdom in
the spirit of these words from the Grail cycle of
lectures. These visions unveil part of the mys-
tery of “Christ in the Spiritual World” in the
early stages of his Ascension, beginning with
his Ascension from the Mount of Olives. These
are Grail mysteries of the deepest kind, which,
as Rudolf Steiner indicated, would gradually
become unveiled in the course of time. If they
are read from the heart, they open us to some-
thing of “the sum of all that is holy.” At the
same time, they are a contribution to the new
star wisdom, offering a glimpse into the pas-
sage of Christ’s Ascension through the Moon
sphere, the realm of the Angels, and the Mer-
cury sphere, the realm of the Archangels.
PART I: CHRIST’S ASCENSION FROM THE
MOUNT OF OLIVES, FEBRUARY 15, 2014
Israel! The land that I love! On February 14,
2014, I arrived in Jerusalem with a small group
of friends. Throughout this trip I experienced
visions, of which the following occurred at
– 39 –
the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of
Olives. The Chapel of the Ascension is a place
holy to both Christians and Muslims, and is
currently under the care of Muslim authorities.
Inside the small edifice is a stone imprinted
with what many believe to be a footprint of
Jesus. I had already seen this imprinted stone
in a prior vision.1 Anne Catherine Emmerich
saw it in vision also. Previously I had never
heard of such a thing—that Jesus left his foot-
print on a stone at the Mount of Olives just
before ascending to heaven! Now here I was,
at the highest point on the Mount, and nothing
could hold back my heart from going to that
very moment! Thus do I bring you this vision,
which was scribed the same evening.
I
saw the upper levels of the living Akashic
record as though hovering over Jerusalem. The
Akashic record is eternal. And there are portals
to this record in the etheric body of Jerusalem.
The records contained therein are like a spiritual
“library” overseen by angelic beings, and also by
some saintly souls that are able to perform a kind
of service there as record keepers.
Then I saw in vision the Ascension:
In the room of the Last Supper, Jesus had
appeared to his community for the last time. He
told them it was time for him to ascend to his
Father’s house. The disciples had known this had
to be, but even so, they were not prepared for
what would come when Jesus left them. He led
them forth from the Cenacle, and together they
ascended the Mount of Olives. Higher and higher
they went, treading with heavy step, their eyes
fixed upon the luminous figure before them. Jesus
1 This vision will appear in the third book of the
trilogy, Through the Eyes of Mary Magdalene.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
was growing brighter and brighter, his body grow-
ing ever more radiant. When finally they reached
the top, he stood in the center and all gathered
around him. His mother Mary, Magdalene, John,
and Peter stood closest by him. He told them
that he would leave his Peace with them—that he
would send to them the Second Comforter. Mag-
dalene in particular, having realized that he was
truly leaving, was in a state of overwhelming grief.
She knew she could not ask him to stay, but he
wished she could go with him. As Jesus held her
gaze for the last time on Earth, she felt his love
streaming to her.
To those foregathered there, the heavens
appeared to open: they saw veils of light drawing
apart, like a great curtain, and lustrous clouds
gathering and swelling. Every level of heaven was
beginning to open! If Jacob had been there to
watch the Ascension (and I am sure that in some
form he was!), he surely would have again seen the
“ladder” going into heaven, upon which the angels
ascend and descend. This ladder is symbolic of the
various levels of heaven that one must attain and
surpass as one ascends to heaven. Christ was to
ascend through the hierarchies as he went to the
Father, and at each stage of his Ascension there
was an important work to be done. 2
And so, there Christ Jesus stood upon the high-
est point of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the
great city. After speaking briefly to his friends
and disciples, he began to ascend, as angels also
descended, passing by him as they drew near to
the Earth. Magdalene was nearly beside herself
with grief as she watched him go, never letting him
out of her sight. He was effulgent beyond measure;
yet as he rose ever higher, still she could make out
his eyes and the radiance of his wounds.
Two angels alighted upon the ground and gave
comfort and hope to the struggling, bereaved
2 See the two visions in the previous issue of the
newsletter of the Sophia Foundation, Starlight, vol.
13, no. 2, Advent 2013), pp. 25–29—available as
a download (PDF) from www.sophiafoundation.
org > Newsletter. Note that these two visions
comprise part 2 of this article, just as this vision of
Feb. 15, 2014, comprising part 1 of this article, first
appeared in Starlight, vol. 14, no. 1, (Easter 2014),
pp. 40–43.
– 40 –
apostles, holy women, and disciples. They
announced the Second Coming: Just as you have
seen him taken up into the clouds, so shall you see
him in like manner come again. For, the Ascension
is eternally linked to the Second Coming: even as
Christ left, so shall he return—to those hearts pre-
pared to receive him. He has come again to dwell
in the etheric realm of the Earth. He appears there
now to those who need his assistance, and to those
ready to know him and accept him. Yet a mystery
remains to be revealed—that of the connection
between the Resurrection and the Ascension, for
the two are indeed connected.
The hearts of all who witnessed the Ascension
have become the potential hearts that may wel-
come Christ at his Second Coming—for this mys-
tery was indelibly inscribed in their hearts at that
time. Yes, the words of the two angels—Just as
you have seen him taken up into the clouds, so
shall you see him come again in like manner—
were imprinted in their hearts; and every heart
that has ever truly been imprinted with these say-
ings is also prepared to welcome Christ’s return.
These individuals are at the forefront; each will
be called in a particular way to prepare for the
Second Coming. New talents and gifts will open
to them as their time draws near. They will bear in
their hearts also an impulse for community—true,
loving community—for they were among those
able to abide in Christ’s Love, and to form a com-
munity where love was the highest principle at the
time of the Ascension. Even now, at this time of
the Second Coming, they are preparing the way
for him, assisting in the work of awakening others
to his presence within the Earth.
The Most Holy Name of Christ was inscribed in
the hearts of those present at the Ascension. For
this was the final thing they heard: his Holy Name
streaming toward them, filling the full measure of
their being! Yes, each will awaken to an aware-
ness of this; each will hear his Name resounding
in their heart, even at the time of the Second Com-
ing. And the mystery of his coming into the ethe-
ric realm—and how this has happened through
the collaboration of the hierarchies—will also be
revealed in due season. It is a truth that the way
 Ascension Visions
by which Christ left is the way he comes again. He
has descended through the hierarchies and resides
even now in the etheric realm of our Earth.
Yes, the apostles and disciples and holy women—
and all others who were closest to Christ—expe-
rienced the deepest grief and sorrow at his Ascen-
sion. Most did not understand that he could still
touch their hearts and greet them through the
power of the Holy Spirit. This deep grief, how-
ever, becomes now the impulse to find him again.
Indeed, in every subsequent lifetime, those present
at the Ascension have looked for Christ to come
again, and have worked to prepare the world for
his coming. They will be—they are—among the
apostles of the Second Coming. For they shall be
witnesses thereof.
And these same shall again come to know one
another. They shall find each other, for the bond
that unites them is the Messiah, the Promise of
Redemption. This bond is victory over death. And
so do they await Redemption.
As Christ passed through the gates during his
ascent to heaven, a great throng of souls and
angels greeted him, encircled him, and rejoiced.
They received him into their kingdom. And some
of those present at that time on the Mount of
Olives saw this in vision also.
The Entombment
Now I want to say something about what I was
shown regarding entombment. The manner in
which the Jews entombed their people is like unto
what the Risen One has done for all humanity. I
will try to explain this.
The Jews buried their dead in tombs. Then, after
decomposition was complete, the bones would be
removed, and the tomb made available for another
family member. Just so was Christ’s body prepared
for burial and then laid in the tomb. But then an
unfathomable, mysterious change took place: the
Earth took the physical elements of the body into
herself, rendering the tomb empty. Essentially,
Christ vacated the tomb when the great transfor-
mation took place.
– 41 –
Symbolically, Christ offers his tomb to all
humanity, to all his brothers and sisters. We may
all be laid to rest in his tomb, which has been set
apart for us. His tomb has been consecrated as the
vessel of transformation, to take us from death
into life. Christ shows us that we are not to remain
in death, trapped in an underground chamber; no,
we are to move to a higher station. Indeed, we will
in future be able to shorten our time in death—by
which I mean our time in the process of decom-
position and all else that death entails. We will be
able to shorten the time we spend in dying and
death. We will be able to die consciously, even to
choose our death, as Christ also chose his. And so
shall we also shorten our time of entombment.
Of course, there are many types of death. Yet we
are nonetheless destined to reclaim ourselves from
the tomb. All that is eternal in us, all that lasts
forever, will breathe into our new life. This pro-
cess we take up in each lifetime, working to trans-
form the part of us that is subject to death. The
Entombment is a mystery that has not yet been
penetrated to the depths. This is because, after the
pain of the Crucifixion, most wish to pass imme-
diately on to the joy of the Resurrection. But to
understand the mysteries of entombment, we must
first meditate upon it deeply. Entombment is an
important part of the process of resurrection. And
we must each of us leave our tomb and take on
new life. In manifold ways this helps also the gen-
erations coming after us. More may be said about
this at a future time.
After the Ascension, those present went through
another kind of death—a “resurrection” that came
about in the spiritual fire of the Pentecost. This
was indeed for them like a resurrection, for just as
the Death and Entombment of Christ was spirit
going out, and the Resurrection spirit returning,
so was the Ascension spirit going out and the Pen-
tecost a returning—but with this difference: that
at Pentecost, the resurrection of the spirit hap-
pened in the hearts of those present.
•
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
Chapel of the Ascension
PART II: VISIONS OF CHRIST’S ASCENSION
THROUGH THE P LANETARY R EALMS OF
THE MOON (A NGELS) AND M ERCURY
(A RCHANGELS), JUNE 12 AND 14, 2013.
Christ’s Ascension into the Angelic Realm
In vision I went into the center of the Earth, to
Shambhala, where I was with the Mother. My
heart was overwhelmed with love, and the golden
glow of her warmth imbued my entire soul. I was
overjoyed to see her again!
I arrived just at the point in time when Christ
was preparing to ascend through the layers of the
Earth, on his way to greet Magdalene at the tomb
on Sunday morning.
I went ahead in time to the Ascension. I beheld
the Ascension from the Angelic realm, within the
etheric sphere of the Moon. I was with the Angels,
– 42 –
who were watching and waiting for his ascent into
their realm.
There was a certain breathlessness to the Angels
as they waited. Then he rose into their sphere! I
beheld him as a radiant star. The star of his Resur-
rection body rose into the midst of the billions of
Angels—all the Angels connected to every single
human being! I was hovering before him.
The Angels received the imprint of his Resur-
rection body, as seedlings, into their hearts. The
luster of his Resurrection body commingled with
the atmosphere of the Angelic realm, and it was in
that sphere the light source—like a radiant Sun—
for all the Angels. His Resurrection body merged
with the Angels, such that the imprint took on the
individual aspects of each person to whom the
Angel was connected. All of the Angels underwent
a transformation, a reorganization, when they
received this imprint of the Resurrection body.
There was tremendous rejoicing!
I heard the harmonies of the spheres in his
Resurrection body. Christ turned and beheld the
Earth while raying out loving streams of light to
all the Angels. Threads of luminous rainbow-hued
light rayed from him to the Earth.
Then something new happened to me. I do not
know at this time what form I was in, nor do I
know for sure whether I was in the past, present,
or future. It seemed that it was happening to me in
that very moment. But there I was, and my body
was in its star form. Christ was very near to me,
also in his star form. Christ was acknowledging
me in this body, in this form.
My chakras were open in the front and the back,
as beautiful flowers of color. But then something
happened that I have not experienced before, at
least not quite in this way. There appeared inner
vertical chakras, which bloomed in an upward
manner through the center of my being, beginning
at the root. When this happened in the throat area,
a surge of light occurred, and from there it was as
if a star of light burst from me—as if I had birthed
a star from my throat chakra.
Then, my entire light body unfolded and seemed
to burst open, and I saw every cell of my being
as microcosmic holograms—with the imprint of
 Ascension Visions
Christ’s Resurrection body in each cell, emanating
the most unimaginable, unearthly colors.
Every cell of my being outpoured through space,
out into the Cosmos! I felt myself in every part of
the Cosmos. I could still feel myself as a “being,”
yet I was everywhere in the Earth and simultane-
ously in the Cosmos.
I know this could sound preposterous! And yet
this is what happened to Christ in his Resurrec-
tion body. I am certain that I experienced this only
so that I could tell of this event, although I can
only do so in my limited way.
I saw Christ’s Resurrection body merge with
every star.
I came back into semblance but still felt myself as
single cells with a great amount of space between
them.
I was then taken into the Archangelic realm,
where the Archangels were watching him approach
after he left the Angelic realm. I watched as the
Archangels gathered to receive him.
It was unfathomable what he then did. He was
bearing in his Resurrection body the promise of
the Resurrection for all groups, countries, folks,
and religions. This promise was implanted in the
beings of the Archangels. This would be happen-
ing in divergent ways within the realms of each of
the hierarchies.
I desired to witness the event of the Ascension in
every realm (again, a preposterous notion!), but it
would have been too much for me to take in, and I
was also being called back to Earth.
I saw rainbow streams of light beckoning me
back to my body, as I traveled with all the cells of
my body back to Earth.
Christ’s Ascension into the Archangelic Sphere
As the vision began, I saw Angels gathering
round. Soon I was streaming through time, the
Angels surrounding me on all sides.
I was at the point in time where the last vision
had ended—where the ascending Christ had
reached the Archangelic realm, on his way ascend-
ing to the Father.
I saw the seven preeminent Archangels—they
who are the highest of all the Archangels—stand-
ing in a towering circle, waiting to greet the
– 43 –
ascending Christ. Around these were processions
of all other Archangels in their various ranks and
orders.
As Christ approached the Archangelic realm, my
soul expanded and rejoiced in ineffable awe! He
was like a Sun, rising into their midst. The Arch-
angels, in his presence, were imbued with a new
power and strength they had never known before.
This is truly indescribable! From the depths of
their vast, unfathomable beings, they were illu-
minated to a higher degree—indeed, we could
say that they underwent a most profound change.
They received the gift of the warmth of the light of
human redemption as a new force in their beings,
although I lack words to describe this change.
The Archangels beheld within Christ’s Resur-
rection body the great work he had performed for
all peoples of the Earth. They could also witness
within his Resurrection body the work that they
had been doing for human evolution since the
beginning of time. Thus could they behold their
own deeds on behalf of humanity. This was, for
them, the greatest gift they had ever known! He
was also bringing to them a direct gnosis of what
they would now do for the children of the Earth—
for all nations, tribes, religions, and groups.
Christ bore in his Resurrection body the stream
of the history of all peoples, which he presented
to the Archangelic realm. He chose to incarnate
into the stream of Israel, which is the prototype
for the redemption of all nations. To the Archan-
gels he revealed the promise of Eternal Israel. He
is the highest exemplar of human evolution, and
Israel was his chosen habitation. It is true that all
nations shall flow into the stream of Israel3 —even-
tually all nations and all peoples shall have the
opportunity to be taken into the Christ impulse.
Every group, nation, and religion has within it the
seeds that make it possible for those peoples to
join themselves in the great impulse of the Christ
Being. Everything will eventually be circumscribed
back into the whole, back into Christ’s vast Sacred
Heart. Israel shall claim her people—yes!
There will be the great divide: nations warring
against other nations, religions fighting against
3 See Isaiah 2:2
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
other religions. But the Archangels know what is
to be in the future. Christ bears the Resurrection
of the World in his being, and he showed them this
great Resurrection Day—when all the egregores of
all peoples will finally bow down to the Christ and
say, We accept Thee as our Savior!
And the egregores will be transformed; those
great weaknesses that have entrapped all human-
ity shall be transformed! Then the group, the
religion, the nation will truly be free to choose
Christ’s impulse of Love—which means that all
shall become One.
The Archangels already live and dwell in this
Oneness. They have to know the egregore. They
have to know the division and separation, and at
the same time rise to a higher level of being. They
must stand firmly in the knowing of all of this.
Christ gave to them the promise that Israel shall
be redeemed. Israel shall “die to itself,” but it will
be redeemed, will rise up, and give to the world
the vision of the redeemed nation.
Christ shall reign in the midst of Israel, as the
King of Eternal Israel that he was foreordained to
be. We cannot imagine how this shall be—when
the King of Eternal Israel takes up his crown on
Earth!
Sophia, the Bride of the Lamb, descends to join
herself with Eternal Israel. And she brings with her
the heavenly hosts—all Angels who have served
and are serving Israel. Together, the Bride and the
Lamb are the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem, the Holy City, is the gate
between Heaven and Earth. The seven great Arch-
angels who stand as the sentinels of this City shall
usher in all of the peoples whose names are writ-
ten on its gates. They shall see their names written
thereon, and the gates shall open, and they will be
escorted into the Holy of Holies.
There they shall witness the Lamb of God sur-
rounded by the ancient fathers: Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph, Moses—and all the others. This is
the Ancient of Days!
This is the vision that lives even now in the Arch-
angelic realm!
Let us turn our gaze to Israel in its current state.
Its people are scattered throughout the world.
– 44 –
Most of Israel’s children no longer believe in God
because of the great dragon that ravaged her peo-
ple and snuffed out the promise of the Messiah
from their hearts. This happened when the Führer
and Stalin carried out their dark deeds. Israel scat-
tered throughout the world, and her people have
shut their ears and closed their eyes while the great
dragon sits on his nest.
How we must pray! We must pray and hold to
the vision of what Israel is to become! Let us call to
the Angels of the people and pray that the people
awaken—lest they be lost in the fight. They plan
to do the work of evil against other nations. This
horror does not need to happen! Mighty prayers,
offered by awakened individuals can help to turn
the tides. Let us love the people of Israel.
Let us remember that there is a Messiah for
Israel—let us remember this for them. The Mes-
siah is aware of them. They rejected the Messiah
before and there is the danger that they may not
recognize him now. We can assist them. We can
reach to them in their unconsciousness and dis-
tress. Let us visualize them returning to the ancient
fold—when their fathers carried them out of cap-
tivity, when the burning bush spoke. This we can
truly do—we can hold this promise of redemption
in our hearts. Christ is the One who can save them,
but they must turn to him. There are many Jews
who do indeed believe in God, and are holding
strong; yet their numbers are few. They have the
power of faith, and we can unite with them. We
can ask the ancient fathers of Israel to unite with
us in prayer on behalf of Israel. We do have the
power—we truly have the power. The Angels are
willing to assist us.
Christ speaks:
A star is above Israel’s head. Let the soul of
Israel be borne through my strong force. I am
with Israel. I am in Israel. I am for Israel. I
am Israel’s “I.”
I shall cleanse the Temple for the third
time. I shall cast out that dragon that has
taken hold of the Temple. I am coming to
visit the Temple and I shall cleanse it by
the power of my eternal judgment and my
unfathomable mercy. I shall claim my throne,
and every knee shall bow and every tongue
 Ascension Visions
confess that I am the savior and redeemer
of the world. I shall gather my children and
bring them back into the fold, safe-folded
in my eternal Sacred Heart where they shall
find rest. Then my power, my love, my word,
my mercy shall flow to all nations.
These are the words written by the hand
of my beloved. Let them be inscribed in your
hearts and ray them out to the whole world.
Let my mercy be borne in your heart, that
this work of redemption may go forth to all
the world!
You are in me, and I am in you. O my
precious son! O my precious daughter! Look
up and behold me in the clouds! Clouds of
glory!
I will manifest myself to the whole world
and every eye shall behold me. This will be
the World Pentecost. The Holy Spirit shall
fill every heart. This can happen for you on
an individual level. You are blessed, for I am
blessing you. Draw your strength from me,
for I am now freely giving it to you.
Let my strength be your strength.
Let my body be your body.
Let your soul be my soul.
Let your blood be my blood.
Let your spirit be my spirit.
O Spirit of God. . .
Fill the hearts that seek Thee,
Seek Thee in deep longing,
Deep longing for health
For health and strong courage,
– 45 –
Let your heart be my heart, that I may
dwell in you and you may dwell in me, now
and forevermore.
Receive my breath, that your breath may
become the breath of Eternal Life.
There are seven breaths of the Holy Spirit.
Breathe the seven breaths of the Holy Spirit.
They are the seven breaths that restored
Lazarus. Take up the work and practice of
the seven breaths of the Holy Spirit at the
end of your Inner Radiance practice. Do this
that I may breathe through you, for this is to
dispel the seven evils.
Then smile with me. Smile first at your-
self: smile at your body, your life body, soul
and spirit. Then smile at each other, and then
smile at the whole world. Accept my smile
into your heart. Do not walk away with a
heavy heart, with a downturned mouth. This
confuses the Angels. Smile, return to joy. Yes,
you shall see what is happening in the world,
and you may even weep, but then you must
return to joy and smile with me. Only then
may we truly be one, for all of my saints bear
the Eternal Smile.
•
Strong courage that flows
within our limbs,
Flows as a precious divine gift,
Divine gift from Thee,
O Spirit of God.
—Rudolf Steiner
 AT THE GATES OF DAMASCUS
T H E U RG E N T N E C E S S I T Y OF AWA K E N I N G
T O T H E S U F F E R I N G OF OU R MO T H E R
Claudia Mclaren Lainson and Robert Powell
Nature awaits redemption when humanity is
once more united in love with nature, and, thus
united, rises along with nature to that place
from which, because of its love for humanity,
nature once fell. Nature is now waiting for
human beings to requite her former love for
humankind; but thousands upon thousands of
years have passed, and the nature beings still
see no indication that human beings are willing
to bring them redemption.1
P
luto this year moves away from its exact
square with Uranus, and it also moves away
from the zodiacal degrees in Sagittarius remem-
bering its position during the life of Christ. At 18º
Sagittarius, Pluto is where it was at the death of
Stephen and shortly thereafter when the Pharisee
Saul reached the gates of Damascus. For the next
two years Pluto will be close to this degree of the
zodiac. Nature waits for the light of Damascus to
shine into her kingdom from awakened human
hearts, so that her beings can again believe in their
redemption on the part of enlightened and lov-
ing human beings. For at the gates of Damascus
Saul experienced Christ supersensibly. As a result
of this powerful and enlightening experience, he
recanted his former ways as a fanatical Pharisee
bent on persecuting the Christians. Given that the
position of Pluto is recalling this powerful expe-
rience, a question for this year, as we remember
Paul’s conversion, is: Will we continue to work as
persecutors of the Earth and all her creatures, or
will we awaken?
As some background to our considerations, let us
recall that at the very beginning of the Earth’s evo-
lution, evil beings wrested mineral substantiality
1 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, p. 96.
– 46 –
away, just as it was coming into being. This stolen
substance was the beginning of the formation of a
sphere of evil known as the “Eighth Sphere”—not
to be confused with the eighth subearthly sphere,
which we shall come to consider later in this arti-
cle. From the influence of the Eighth Sphere, ghost-
like imaginations have always inspired unholy
thoughts.
The stream of cosmic evolution flows through
seven phases . . . Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupi-
ter, Venus, and Vulcan phases. . . . It is always
possible, however, for cosmic history to stray
from the path of normal evolution because of
the activities of the three hierarchies of “evil,”
which resist the hierarchies of “good.” And inso-
far as such resistance succeeds, another sphere
is formed in the cosmos that does not belong
to the seven normal spheres of evolution. . . .
It is called the “Eighth Sphere”. . . .Besides
organic and inorganic substance, there is still
the possibility of a third kind of substance. In
addition to life (organic substance) and death
(inorganic substance), there is also the pos-
sibility of the “phantom.” The substance of
the phantom is neither alive nor dead; it may
be compared to electromagnetic substance. A
phantom does not live, nor is it dead; rather is
it formed of electricity endowed with sensation
and consciousness. The chief characteristic of
this substance is absorbency, which, in contrast
to ether, is inherent in it. Just as everything
etheric tends to radiate, the substance of the
Eighth Sphere tends to absorb. This tendency
to absorb is an external expression of the ahri-
manic principle. For, Ahriman is a being in the
cosmos who strives to absorb into himself all
that exists. Hence the substance of the Eighth
 At the Gates of Damascus
Sphere, Ahriman’s cosmic citadel, exhibits the
same main characteristic. 2
All that exists in this unlawful realm can cap-
ture human beings by luring them into spectral
delusions:
Mark this well: instead of pure Imaginations
being there [in the Eighth Sphere], the Imagina-
tions are densified by the infusion of a mineral
element that has been wrested from the Earth.
Densified Imaginations are thus created. We
are therefore drawn into a world of densified
Imaginations that are not lunar in character,
because they have been densified by material-
ity belonging to the Earth. They are ghosts,
specters—that is to say, behind our world there
is a world of specters created by Lucifer and
Ahriman. 3
Sorrowful as it is, the adversaries’ battle for the
Earth and the human soul is reaching new heights.
Paul’s experience at the gates of Damascus—a
place representative of etheric vision triumphing
over the ghostly specters of the evil ones—sends a
message of hope.
The fact that the Earth is under grievous attack
at a scale never before encountered in the history
of humanity must be recognized. This is the result
of very intelligent people—unconsciously in some
cases, and consciously in others—working under
the spell of this “other world” of stolen forces;
and the power of these influences is accelerating.
The creation of another Earth is their mission. We
can only pray that those who are under the sway
of malevolent influences will find their way to a
supersensible experience of Christ, as with Paul at
the gates of Damascus.
In ad 34, Saul, who became Paul, was on his
way to Damascus. He was going there to persecute
Christians, having shortly before had a hand in
the stoning to death of Stephen. In Robert Powell’s
as yet unpublished lecture series Great Teachers of
Humanity, he speaks of the fact that Paul—through
his conversion experience—was given the unused
2 Ibid., pp. 18–19.
3 Steiner, The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth
Century, lecture 5, in which Rudolf Steiner further
characterizes the Eighth Sphere.
– 47 –
etheric forces of Christ Jesus. Dr. Powell describes
how St. Paul’s life actually became thereby a kind
of “continuation” of the life of Jesus. He also
states—based on Rudolf Steiner’s implicit indica-
tion—that Paul was a reincarnation of Arjuna, the
charioteer whom Krishna overlighted. 4 The teach-
ings of Krishna, summarized in the Bhagavad
Gita, were presented through Arjuna. It was Paul’s
teacher Krishna, from his life as Arjuna, whom he
recognized through his supersensory experience
outside the gates of Damascus—for Krishna, who
had overlighted Arjuna, was one and the same as
the Jesus being who overlighted Paul. 5 Powell goes
on to explain the great impression Paul made on
people and his extraordinary success in his mis-
sionary activities. As the reincarnated Arjuna, and
as the recipient of Christ’s unused etheric forces,
his profound magnetism—especially exempli-
fied in the profound authority he demonstrated
through the power of his words—becomes clearer
and more understandable. Known as one of the
most erudite and masterful representatives of the
teachings of Christ, Paul died a martyr’s death,
executed in Rome under Nero, around ad 67/68.
Prior to his conversion at the gates of Damas-
cus, he was Saul, a Pharisee, and it was under the
spell of Saul’s pharisaic fervor that Stephen, the
first Christian martyr, was stoned to death. This
was shortly before he left Jerusalem for Damas-
cus with the mission of executing the Christians
he had heard were “rabble rousing” in that city.
Instead of fulfilling his fanatical and destructive
mission, he found Christ.
4 In these lectures Robert Powell speaks of Rudolf
Steiner’s veiled reincarnation indication regarding
Arjuna (the “open secret” underlying these
lectures) in his lectures, The Bhagavad Gita and
the West. We can begin to understand the mystery
that took place with St. Paul when we grasp that
he was the reincarnated Arjuna. In these lectures
Powell also spoke about a further embodiment
of this individuality, as Charlemagne—following
up on Steiner’s indication in his Esoteric Lesson
of Aug. 27, 1909 (in Esoteric Lessons, vol. 1):
“Charlemagne came from the Orient; he was the
reincarnation of an advanced Indian adept.”
5 See Powell and Dann, Christ and the Maya
Calendar, p. 29. See also Powell, Prophecy–
Phenomena–Hope, pp. 105–106.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
H ADES: THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
In its highest manifestation Pluto is Phanes—
the love of the Father. In its lowest mani-
festation it represents Hades—god of the
underworld.
Two seemingly contradictory accounts by Anne
Catherine Emmerich resolve in the understand-
ing that Stephen’s death was on the second New
Moon (Tammuz 1) after Nisan 14 and simultane-
ously about one year after Christ’s death on April
3, ad 33 (Nisan 14). This conclusion puts Stephen’s
death as having taken place about midnight, June
5/6, ad 34 in Jerusalem. At this time Pluto was 18º
Sagittarius, which is also its location in the side-
real zodiac for much of this year.6
Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824) gives an
account of these years after the death of Christ:
About one year after the crucifixion of Our
Lord, Stephen was stoned, though no further
persecution of the Apostles took place at that
time. The rising settlement of new converts
around Jerusalem, however, was dissolved;
the Christians dispersed, and some were mur-
dered. A few years later, a new storm arose
against them. Then it was that the Blessed Vir-
gin, who until that time had dwelt in the small
house near the Coenaculum and in Bethania,
allowed herself to be conducted by John to the
region of Ephesus, where the Christians had
already made settlements. This happened a
short time after the imprisonment of Lazarus
and his sisters by the Jews and their setting
out over the sea.7
Sister Emmerich goes on to describe that spies
were sent out to prevent the Apostles from leaving
Jerusalem. Though the full fervor of persecutions
of the first Christians did not begin until some-
time during the year ad 36 (i.e., in the fourth year
after Christ’s death at Easter ad 33) already just
one year after Christ’s death, in ad 34, Stephen’s
6 Pluto begins on Jan. 1, 2015, at 18¼° Sagittarius
and moves to 20½° Sagittarius by mid-April.
Then it starts to move retrograde, returning to
18° Sagittarius toward the end of Sept. Moving
forward again, it reaches 20° Sagittarius around
the end of the year.
7 Emmerich, Life of Jesus Christ, vol. 4, p. 448.
– 48 –
death and Saul’s rabid desire for persecuting the
Christians nonetheless created a climate of fear
for the followers of Christ, who had been driven
away from the small huts in which they had settled
around Jerusalem.
Pluto has been remembering the life of Christ
since 2009, when it reached the zodiacal degree
that remembers the Baptism in the Jordan River
(6º53’ Sagittarius). This was noted at the eclipse of
that year on July 21/22, where Pluto was at 6º26’
Sagittarius, less than half a degree from its exact
baptismal position. At that time in 2009, the ques-
tion was posed as to what kind of incarnation into
a prepared vessel might be at work, as the eclipse
suggested the possibility of an incarnation of dubi-
ous origin. At the Baptism in the Jordan, Christ
entered into the Nathan Jesus. The close commem-
oration of this event by Pluto, during the longest
solar eclipse of the twenty-first century, asked if
the time of the incarnation of Ahriman—into a
prepared human vessel—had dawned. It is now, in
this year of 2015, six years after the 2009 eclipse.
The end of the year 2016 will mark the completion
of two cycles of three and one-half years (seven
years) following the return in 2009 of Pluto to its
position at the Baptism. Three and one-half years
is the prophesied term in Revelation, chapter 13, of
the reign of the Antichrist.8 In his interpretation
of the prophecy of this term from chapter 12 of
the book of the Old Testament prophet Daniel, Dr.
Powell has indicated that the first three and one-
half years after the July 2009 solar eclipse marked
a period of preparation; and that the following
three and one-half years could indeed mark the
actual period of the rule of the Antichrist, culmi-
nating in late December of 2016 or in January or
February of 2017.9
If we are living in the time of the rule of the Anti-
christ, vigilance is required. As described later in
this article, now until 2040 is the time of influence
8 Powell and Dann, Christ and the Maya Calendar:
2012, p. 22 and p. 79.
9 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
p. 26. Daniel refers to a first period of 1,290 days
and a second period of 1,335 days, both periods
being approximately three and one-half years. See
also Powell, Prophecy–Phenomena–Hope, pp.
62–65.
 At the Gates of Damascus
of the forces rising from the three lowest layers of
the subearthly spheres, referred to as the realm of
the Asuras. The Antichrist is undoubtedly influ-
enced by the forces of the Asuras, and through the
Asuras by the Sun Demon itself.10
What indications are there, that this is the time
of the Antichrist? Robert Powell has pointed to
the present time and identified it on various lev-
els as the time of the Antichrist—as indicated in
the works cited in footnotes 8 and 9. There is,
however, a further indication which he has not
referred to in the works cited there. This has to
do with the prophecy of the popes attributed to
Saint Malachy, the twelfth-century Archbishop
of Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is said that he
was summoned to Rome in the year 1139 by Pope
Innocent II. While in Rome, Malachy purport-
edly experienced a vision of future popes, which
he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases in
Latin. This vision, if authentic, is relevant to
the question about the time of emergence of the
Antichrist, since the final pope in the sequence
of popes was seen by Malachy to be the pope
at the time of the Antichrist. Those who have
studied Saint Malachy’s prophecy of the popes
have focused upon the sequence of cryptic phases
in Latin and sought to correlate them with the
actual sequence of popes.
Most scholars have arrived at consensus that
the 110th pope in the list (of 112) was John Paul
II, who was pope from 1978 to 2005. The Latin
phrase assigned to the 110th pope by Malachy
was De labore solis (“From the labor of the Sun”—
also said to possibly mean “eclipse of the Sun”).
Interestingly, John Paul II was born on May 18,
1920, during a partial solar eclipse over the Indian
Ocean, and he was buried on April 8, 2005, during
a rare “hybrid” eclipse over the Pacific and South
America. Malachy’s phrase for the 111th pope on
his list is Gloria olivae (“glory of the olive”), which
appears to be linked with Pope Benedict XVI, who
was born on April 16, 1927, the feast day of Saint
Benedict. The olive branch is a symbol of the Bene-
dictine order founded by Saint Benedict, and thus
10 Regarding Asuras and Sun Demon, see the glossary
at the end of this journal.
– 49 –
most scholars see Pope Benedict XVI in relation to
Malachy’s phrase Gloria olivae.
This brings us to the final pope in Malachy’s
prophecy of the popes—number 112 on the list.
The Latin phrase associated with this pope is: “In
extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman
Church, will be occupied by Peter the Roman,
who will feed the sheep through many tribula-
tions. When these tribulations are over, the city
of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible
and fearsome Judge will judge his people.” This
vision opens up the vista of the persecution of the
Antichrist, whose world army wages war upon the
countries and peoples of the Earth who resist his
rule in any way, whereby the Vatican and Rome
become targeted in order to eliminate the seat of
the Catholic Church, as the center of the greatest
Christian denomination—with an estimated 1.2
billion Catholics in the world.
According to the consensus view concerning
Malachy’s vision, the current pope, Francis I, as
the successor of John Paul II (number 110) and
Benedict XVI (number 111), is the one who is pope
at the time of the Antichrist.11 As stated by Cris
Putnam, author of the book Petrus Romanus: The
Final Pope is Here:
According to the prophecy of Saint Malachy,
Petrus Romanus has arrived. Pope Francis
I, formerly known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio,
was the son of an Italian railroad worker from
Turin, Italy. While those of shallow vision will
be quick to point out “his name is not Peter,”
prophecy is often fulfilled enigmatically in a
manner not entirely clear until it is resolved. For
example, who could have known that “labor of
the sun” John Paul II would be buried during
an eclipse until his papacy had ended? We have
stated from the beginning that the title “Peter
the Roman” was likely symbolic. All popes
claim apostolic succession from Peter, and for
this reason it is called the Petrine office.12
There are many interesting points in connection
with the arrival of Petrus Romanus on March 13,
11 Horn and Putnam, Petrus Romanus: The Final
Pope is Here.
12 Cris Putnam, “Petrus Romanus Arrives” (http://
www.logosapologia.org/?p=4794).
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
2013, at 8:13 pm, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio
was elected pope. This date falls close to the date
of June 19, 2013, indicated by Robert Powell as
the start of the 3½ years of the Antichrist.13 From
this the possibility emerges that Pope Francis I is
indeed the one prophesied by Saint Malachy to be
pope at the time of the Antichrist.
In this connection, returning to our consider-
ations concerning Pluto—as we see Pluto mov-
ing out of the degrees remembering the Mystery
of Golgotha—we stand ready as Pluto enters the
degrees remembering the times of uncertainty that
forced the early Christians to keep a low profile
and be very careful, for fear of persecution.
At the Mystery of Golgotha, Jesus Christ
became the spirit of the Earth. Just as forces were
working to oppose him at the time of his coming
two thousand years ago, so too are forces oppos-
ing him now at this time of his second coming.
The fact that Jesus Christ became the spirit of
the Earth after his death on the cross means that
he wears the body of the Earth as his mantle.14
Since he is the spirit of the Earth, the Earth has
become his body and humanity is also part of his
body. It is possible, therefore, that even greater
crimes against Mother Nature and all her beings
will unfold in the coming years. To recognize
these crimes as the work of the adversaries is to
expose them. This reduces their effectiveness and
inspires us to recognize what we can do in service
to good works—and especially works that serve
the ennoblement of Nature.
Pluto begins this year at 18º19’ Sagittarius and
next year (2016) it will be 20º to 22º Sagittarius. At
the Mystery of Golgotha and through the Ascen-
sion and Pentecost, Pluto was between 16º and 17º
of Sagittarius. It takes Pluto approximately 250
years to circle the Sun. Therefore, during this year
2015, a rare event is potentially heightened: that of
Pluto moving back and forth over the same degree
13 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
p. 27.
14 This is brought to expression in a beautiful,
inspiring, and powerful way in Valentin Tomberg’s
AMEN meditation on the Etheric Christ;
see Powell, Inner Radiance and the Body of
Immortality, pp. 34, 38–40.
– 50 –
that commemorates the death of Stephen (June 5/6
ad 34) as well as Paul’s supersensory encounter
with Christ outside the gates of Damascus shortly
thereafter. This event of Paul’s conversion is indi-
cated by Rudolf Steiner as an archetype for each
individual’s encounter with Christ in the etheric
realm in our time.15 Then, in 2016, it approaches
the degree that remembers the new storm of per-
secutions that arose against the early Christians
in ad 36; and this draws attention—at this time
of the reign of the Antichrist—to the possibility
of renewed persecutions of Christ’s followers as
prophesied by Daniel Andreev (see pages 15–17 of
this journal).
Remembering Paul’s conversion, Pluto’s posi-
tion this year stands as a potent force supporting
humanity’s awakening to the new culture Sophia
is bearing as she descends towards us now.16 The
light that guides us this year is the promise that,
like Paul, we too can find Christ and Sophia and
become servants of the new cultural influences
streaming towards us from the future. Pluto
approaching the time of the persecutions sends
a warning that there are principalities working
behind the scenes: masters of great delusion are
at work seeking to mold the consciousness of the
masses into sympathy with their long-term agenda.
Historically the square between Uranus and
Pluto will be viewed in the light of the revolutions
that erupted around the world as this square tight-
ened, beginning in late 2011. The last occurrence
of an exact aspect between these two planets will
be March 16th of this year, 2015. Nonetheless,
this aspect will continue to play out, within a 10º
orb, until the year 2020, with diminishing effec-
tiveness. The next major Uranus/Pluto aspect will
be the opposition between these two planets in the
years 2046 to 2048.
The revolutions spawned since the onset of this
square offer ample evidence of the negative side
effects representative of this aspect. Each revolu-
tion left chaos in its wake, and the ongoing effects
resulting from this unrest have not yet run their
15 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
p. 26.
16 See Powell and Isaacson, The Mystery of Sophia.
 At the Gates of Damascus
course. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and the
Ukraine continue their battles for peace, not to
mention Venezuela, Thailand, Syria, Mali, and
other African states. Valentin Tomberg writes of
the inner nature of revolution:
Earthquake is a force that presses in a vertical
direction from below to above. Revolution is
also an earthquake force, working from below
to overthrow that which is above. It is also this
force at work when a people or nation lives solely
through or by way of the blood, from below.
Every vertical force that calls forth con-
vulsion or shock, where that which is below is
thrown above and where that which is above is
cast down, is this force.17
Earthquakes can occur in our subtle bodies as
well. These energies rise through the first chakra—
the Moon chakra—and then come into the sec-
ond and third chakras (the Venus and Mercury
chakras). Having thus entered, they work against
those bearing Christological missions. Those
who actively create divisiveness are often the last
to know that they have become “doors” for the
adversary. In the seven “I AM” sayings of Christ,
the one spoken from the root (Moon) chakra is
“I am the true vine” and the one spoken from the
sacral (Venus) chakra is “I am the way, the truth,
and the life.” The truth of the way of life one fol-
lows is evident in the fruits one produces. Immo-
rality grows a bitter fruit that divides with the
aim of conquering. If immoral inspirations find
their way into one’s being, one will eventually
become a portal for adversarial forces working
through oneself. Judas is the archetypal example
of the betraying spirit of evil. The “I AM” man-
tra for the Mercury chakra is “I am the door,
the entrance and the exit.” We are to vigilantly
stand watch against subversive influences that
seek to splinter “good works” by means of intro-
ducing other works filled with egoism and van-
ity—often-unrecognized as such—whose aim is
to destroy the good works of others.
17 Tomberg, Our Father Course, an esoteric
exploration of the Lord’s Prayer—a twelve-year
course of study in fifty-week installments—is
available through the Sophia Foundation: www.
sophiafoundation.org.
– 51 –
The circle of ceremonial magic—just like that
of science—is closed in principle, but every
individual human soul can leave it by embrac-
ing a more elevated ideal and by renouncing
all the advantages that the circle offers him.
This is an important aspect of the meaning
of the formula of Christ: “I am the door”—
namely, that there is an exit from every closed
circle, from all captivity of the spirit. “I am
the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be
saved, and will go in and out and find pasture”
(John 10: 9), which means to say that if some-
one is moved by love of God and neighbor, he
can enter each closed circle and he can leave it.
Instead of prisons he will “find pasture,” i.e.,
he will move in a spiral.18
THE CULTURAL SHIFT
As we turn our thoughts to 2015 we continue to
follow the themes set in motion during the past
two years and also look ahead to what is devel-
oping in the future. The year 2014 presented the
prophesied beginning of a new instreaming of the
inspiration of the Kalki/Maitreya individuality.19
This same year also denoted the beginning of a
new 600-year cultural rhythm in the history of
humanity. Last but not least, June of the previous
year (2013) marked the possible beginning of the
three and one-half years of trial that culminates at
the close of 2016 or early in 2017. 20 It is prudent
to keep these major themes in the forefront of our
consciousness so that we do not fall asleep to their
effects in the unfolding of history.
By way of analogy, there is a similarity between
the beginning of the new 600-year cultural
rhythm in 2014 and the plight of the Israelites
wandering in the desert for forty years. Moses
took his people out of Egypt and founded a new
spiritual community, one that could not come
into being within the decadent culture of Egypt;
18 Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot, pp. 482–483.
19 See Powell and Harris “The Transition,” in
the Easter 2014 newsletter Starlight of the
Sophia Foundation, (free download at www.
sophiafoundation.org > Activities > Newsletter.
See also Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s
Successor.
20 Ibid.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
it needed a free space, a cultural vacuum in which
it could rightly develop.
Egypt, Babylon, and Phoenicia had old, obso-
lescent cultures; their traditions would have
overwhelmed the tender seed of a new culture.
This is why it was necessary to wander so long
in the wilderness, away from the great civili-
zations, until the Israelites’ revelation culture
had reached a certain degree of maturity. That
maturity would be impossible until the genera-
tions that left Egypt had died out. Once those
who had lived in Egypt had all died, the new
current would be clear of Egypt’s influence. 21
This same challenge meets every cultural shift.
We can no longer go into the wilderness to let die
what is outworn. We must live in the culture and
yet keep ourselves separate from the decadent influ-
ences a culture bears when it is in decline. Mate-
rialism is the keynote of our western culture, yet
there dawns on the horizon the work of both the
Elijah-John being 22 and the Kalki-Maitreya indi-
viduality. 23 The stream moving towards us from
the Aquarian Age is bearing new revelation, call-
ing for the uniting of all people, all religions, and
for all to work together in protecting the Earth
and her elemental beings. It is also a sign of our
time that Sophia is descending towards our Sun,
and she is bearing a new culture—The Rose of the
World. 24
One of the more ominous threats to the inflow-
ing Sophianic influence is the deceitful propa-
ganda coming out of the western world. This is
witnessed most recently (as of this writing in April
of 2014) in the Ukrainian conflict. 25 Vladimir
21 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, p. 102.
22 See Powell, Elijah Come Again.
23 See Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s
Successor.
24 See Powell and Isaacson, The Mystery of Sophia.
25 In Prophecy—Phenomena—Hope, Robert
Powell characterizes this deceitful propaganda
as “Ahrimanic maya” (Satanic illusion), actively
shaping the thought content of human beings. The
propaganda of the Western mass media in relation
to what is taking place in Russia and Ukraine has
reached new levels of lying and deceiving, revealing
the total grip that Ahriman now has on virtually
all the Western mainstream media outlets. This
raises the question as to how we can come to know
– 52 –
Putin is a practicing Orthodox Christian who
openly declares Russia to be a nation centered on
upholding Christian values and moral standards. 26
This is not meant merely as a commentary on this
individual; it is also an indication about the forces
of love—the Christ forces—seeking to shape the
future of the next epoch, the sixth cultural epoch.
Something is developing out of the ashes of the
Bolshevik/communist revolution, which, under
Stalin, destroyed churches and mocked Christian
culture and beliefs. Under Putin, however, large
Christian congregations are springing up again
throughout Russia. Another interesting fact is Rus-
sia’s stance against GMO seeds. Russian law pres-
ently requires the labeling of all foods containing
GMO’s, and the country is principally considered
to be GMO-free. America—with the exception of
one state—is still fighting simply to institute a law
that requires labeling of GMO foods. 27
In remembering that the sixth cultural epoch—
known as Philadelphia in Revelation (3:7-12)—is
forming etherically over the Slavic countries, we
have a clue as to where the Beast would of course
be directing his attention. Evil always seeks to
thwart the possibility of the future’s potentially
positive manifestations: to hinder the rightful
flowering of the next epoch is imperative for the
ahrimanic mission. The tender seed of the future
culture of Sophia (the sixth cultural epoch) would
naturally come under attack. We can witness the
the truth. Anyone who wishes to find out the truth
regarding the Russia/Ukraine situation can easily
do so from several channels, one of the best being
the Russia Today TV channel—www.rt.com—and
from excellent websites such as the Vineyard of the
Saker (http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/).
26 “Vladimir Putin’s Christian faith in his own
words” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3d_
yxJhmjk/); “Vladimir Putin vows to defend
Christianity worldwide” ( http://www.trunews.
com/vladimir-putin-vows-defend-christianity-
worldwide/).
27 “Vermont has raised the stakes in the debate
over genetically modified foods by becoming
the first state to pass a bill requiring that they
be labeled as such in the grocery aisle, making
the move despite the opposition of the powerful
U.S. food industry” (http://www.huffingtonpost.
com/2014/04/24/vermont-lawmakers-pass-gmo-
labeling-bill_n_5203569.html).
 At the Gates of Damascus
Christo-Sophianic impulses that are quickening as
an indication of the future of Russia, in the sympa-
thy between Church and State towards which Rus-
sia under Putin seems to be moving. 28 We would
be wise to be extremely wary of the talk of the
Western media that “spins” opinions regarding
Russia and her developing ideologies. 29 Behind the
scenes great influences are in movement. What do
we not know? What are we not allowed to know?
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians
6:12).
The current flowering of an openly Christian
culture in Russia is juxtaposed to the ever-increas-
ing agnosticism and outright atheism in the West.
Simply following the guidance Rudolf Steiner
presented in his Outline of Esoteric Science tells
us that the West is—at least temporarily—in
a “sunset phase,” whereas the Slavic countries
are approaching their sunrise. We can therefore
expect tension between the East and West, repre-
sentative of past and future. 30 It may be seen his-
torically that towards the end of one culture and
the rising of the next, tensions are inevitable. We
are called upon to witness these conflicts with an
acute sensitivity towards the hidden dynamics in
motion behind events.
Looking even further ahead, beyond the sixth
(Russian/Slavic) and seventh (American) cultural
epochs belonging to the current fifth Great Epoch,
it is the crushing of the sixth Great Epoch and its
seven cultural periods that are most assuredly, in
28 The flowering of an openly Christian culture in
Russia is, by and large, completely ignored in the
Western media, which is engaged in a continuous
and relentless campaign of demonization of Putin
and everything Russian, invariably conjuring up
the specter from the past of the Soviet Union.
29 Anyone who wishes to find out the truth regarding
the Russia/Ukraine situation can easily do so from
several channels, one of the best being the Russia
Today TV channel—www.rt.com—and from
excellent websites such as the Vineyard of the Saker
(http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/).
30 See An Outline of Esoteric Science, chapter
4, “Cosmic Evolution and the Human Being”
(especially pp. 268ff)
– 53 –
the long term, in the Beast’s sights. 31 According
to esoteric teaching, the seed impulse of the sixth
Great Epoch is dependent on the flourishing of
the realization of the Christ impulse in the sixth
cultural epoch—during the approaching Aquar-
ian Age of brotherly/sisterly love. 32 Once we grasp
the esoteric law that the seed for the flowering of
the whole of the sixth Great Epoch is sown dur-
ing the sixth culture of the fifth Great Epoch, it is
easy to understand that the present-day onslaught
of the West against Russia is aimed at slaughtering
the sixth cultural epoch in its present embryonic
condition and thus delivering a death blow to the
future sixth Great Epoch.
It is incumbent on each of us to rise above the
political spectrum of deception to understand
wisely the real history that is unfolding each day
in our contemporary world. Things are not neces-
sarily as they appear to be, and we are often far
too willing to accept the propaganda of the west-
ern media because we harbor a conviction—as
though by necessity—that we in the West are in
the right and all those who oppose us are in the
wrong. In the past, nationalistic assumptions have
proven to be extremely dangerous. We need only
look back to Stalin and Hitler to observe the dan-
gerous nature of nationalistic mania.
If, today, thoughts are merely accepted without
being honestly worked out to their final conse-
quences by the individual power of judgment,
then a false thought life is the result. Such indi-
viduals are then filled with thoughts that they
hold in memory as perceptions of the thought
sense, but they are actually without thought.
They might feel very satisfied with themselves
31 The current fifth Great Epoch comprises seven
cultural epochs, each 2,160 years long and
corresponding to the ages of Cancer (Ancient
India), Gemini (Ancient Persia), Taurus (Ancient
Egypt and Babylon), Aries (Ancient Greece and
Rome), Pisces (Present-day culture), Aquarius
(Future Russian/Slavic culture), and Capricorn
(Future American culture). The sixth Great
Epoch will also comprise seven cultural epochs,
corresponding to the future ages of Sagittarius,
Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, and Gemini.
32 In chapter 6 of Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
Estelle Isaacson shares a vision that especially
addresses this coming age.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
for such a comfortable state of mind; but if
they find themselves in situations that involve
the need for initiative of judgment, they are
more helpless than others who “know” less but
take the trouble to think independently. In gen-
eral such people become the victims of mass
suggestion. 33
If we in the West were to let go of our assump-
tions, we would have to do something—we would
have to think; and, quite frankly, we do not seem
to want to take the time for this. Too many of us,
therefore, continue to passively allow our thoughts
to be determined by strong personalities in high
places; and often, all too late, we realize subse-
quently that we have succumbed to the tempta-
tions of our time.
AT THE TIME OF MOSES,
BY WAY OF A NALOGY
Disease is the result of decadence. In the time
of Moses, disease born of the old atavistic clair-
voyance hounded his people. Three temptations
approached the Israelites in the desert: the hunger-
effect brought on by the lack of external images
in the arid landscape; the thirst-effect caused by
the dwindling of life forces within the soul, due
to the lifelessness of the desert; and the bite of the
luciferic poisonous snakes that rose from within
the will-life, causing madness to those so affected.
In addition, the black occultism of Baal wor-
ship stalked them. Fortunately, however, Moses’
bronze serpent powerfully protected those who
were choosing to move into the future. This bronze
serpent was the sign of the coming ego-hood (sense
of the “I”) which was awakening within them. It
caused the activation of a descending force within
the soul that tamed the rising fever caused by the
bite of the poisonous snake.
Just as the ancient Israelites were tormented by
diseases born of atavism, so our current material-
istic culture is also the cause of new diseases; for
it has tragically turned its back on spiritual guid-
ance—having come under the sway of technologi-
cal influences. However, for those who open them-
selves to it, an awareness is growing that spiritual
33 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, p. 94.
– 54 –
guidance is leading us toward the Sophia culture
of the sixth cultural epoch, which is destined to
flourish during the Aquarian Age—an age that
will commence in the year 2375—i.e., in about
three hundred and sixty years’ time, which is not
long on the grand scale of cosmic evolution.
And just as Moses and his people were presented
with three temptations, so too do the inversions of
these temptations comprise forces confronting us
in this New Age. 34 For us it is not the emptiness
of images presented by the desert, but rather the
flood of virtual images that are creating realities
which are leading us far afield from the intended
unfolding during the New Age of a culture in the
process of developing, through Christ, the rudi-
ments of cosmic imagination. Similarly, it is not
the absence of life-forces in the flora of Nature, but
the absence of life-forces in our etheric bodies—
thin as they are, due to the effects of materialistic
life-styles. Lastly, it is not the bite of the luciferic
poisonous snakes that brings us to madness, but
rather the infiltration of ahrimanic influences into
the human will, causing the cold and calculating
cynicism that drives the pseudo-religion of mate-
rialism—and can end in absorption into national-
istic delusions. We are the new “choosing” people.
It is not the Judges of old, like Moses, to whom
we need turn, but the inner judge—our sovereign
“I”— who knows the way we are to travel to find
our way out of the madness of our time.
The scope of the differential between the will of
the spiritual worlds and the self-will directing ego-
istic human beings indicates the size of the door
through which evil can enter a culture. When
the Israelites, led on by Aaron, turned away from
Moses’ guidance while he was on the summit of
34 It should be noted that the New Age is not identical
with the Aquarian Age. According to Rudolf
Steiner, the New Age began already in 1899 and
will last some 2,500 years until around 4399. The
New Age is the age of Christ’s second coming (the
time of his reign in the etheric realm), which leads
from the Age of Pisces (215–2375) into the Age
of Aquarius (2375–4535). Thus the individuality
known in Buddhist tradition as the bearer of
goodness, the Maitreya, will attain Buddhahood
(see Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s
Successor) and will guide us spiritually into the
Age of Capricorn (4535–6695).
 At the Gates of Damascus
Mount Sinai receiving the great revelation of the
Law from Yahweh, they opened a door through
which the later cults of Moloch and Baal could
establish their footing among the Israelites. In pur-
suit of money and power, our culture has likewise
forsaken morality, conscience, compassion, and
brotherhood/sisterhood. This will undoubtedly
persist into the future, and will be the cause of an
increasing splintering between all nations and indi-
viduals. Yet there are those who are working for
what the new cultural current is bringing, aligned
with the spiritual guidance of humanity. They are
seeding the far-distant future and making it pos-
sible for the new 600-year cultural rhythm that
began in 2014 to bring forth its gifts in the Age of
Aquarius. 35 Eventually, all that stands in opposi-
tion to the new revelation will fall. The activity
of Moses in the past was in order to prepare a
people for the coming of the Messiah: the com-
ing of Christ in a physical body. Now, however, it
is a matter of Christ’s coming in an etheric body.
The awakening of more and more human beings to
the reality of the Parousia, the presence of Christ
in the etheric realm, is the promise of the future.
It is this promise that awakens individual human
beings to serve the necessities now upon us as the
spiritual mandate of the second coming (Parousia)
of Christ.
The current escalation of anxiety, fear, depres-
sion, insomnia, adHD, OCD, ODD, bi-polar dis-
order, PTSD, random acts of violence, and the
like, is a sign of our times. If we add to this the
incessant wars and threats of wars by the U.S.
government, rebellion, economic stress, increas-
ingly vehement political discord, nuclear threat,
nuclear leaks, and unprecedented deceits through
the engines of the Western mass media’s “propa-
ganda machine,” combined with the invasion of
privacy by the global surveillance system, and we
do not have to wonder why the human psyche
can hardly resist falling into despair . . . and yet
35 Concerning the new 600-year cultural rhythm that
began in 2014, see Powell “2014 and the Coming
of the Kalki Avatar,” in Journal for Star Wisdom
2014. See also Powell and Isaacson, Gautama
Buddha’s Successor, chapter 1, for a fuller and
more comprehensive version of the article.
– 55 –
must resist falling into despair! Unpredictability
on the one hand and growing symptoms of psy-
chic disharmony on the other, are changing our
understanding of what is normal. It is often the
case that human beings adapt to dysfunction by
lowering their expectations for cultural standards.
This lowering of the bar for what is regarded as
acceptable is a form of avoidance; for if the bar
is kept high, then one must suffer the differential
between what is optimally normal and that which
has become the new normal. It is easier by far to
lower expectations and find peace with discordant
reality than it is to create goodness in the face of
cultural indecency and malaise.
Moreover, we are faced with weather anomalies,
weather modification technologies and the delib-
erate creation and sowing of new diseases36 —and
new forms of warfare escalate in their sophis-
tication on a yearly basis (or even on a monthly
basis). 37 Meanwhile, year by year, an ever greater
number of people are left to run ever faster on the
hamster wheels of survival. Though the square
between Uranus and Pluto is about to pass by, we
are soon to enter the middle year of the three and
one-half years, as well as the early years of the new
cultural wave. 38 New beginnings are not known to
be calm. Often they are dynamic and challenging.
Our ability to maintain our equilibrium, despite
the challenges of changing times, will determine
our spiritual maturity. Furthermore, the presence
of spiritual teachers and guides—incarnate or
not—are with us to lead us through the trials now
upon us. Those who have not lost faith in the fact
that the necessities of evolution often appear as a
tragedy, will show resiliency. Therefore we are not
to be distracted by the chaos of change, for change
is the only option we have.
36 See http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=c34U0Pwz4_c. 
37 See http://www.policymic.com/articles/22214/x-
37b-and-the-5-scariest-super-weapons-the-military-
is-developing-in-2013.
38 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
chapter 1. The significance of the three and
one-half years—mid-2013 to the end of 2016—is
elucidated, as is the meaning of the new 600-year
cultural wave that began in 2014.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
THE AWAKENING OF SHAMBHALA
If we maintain our vertical self-awareness through
these trying times, we will find a plenitude of pro-
tection, sources of strength, and gifts from realms
of spirit. Moses made use of the bronze serpent to
bring healing to his people if they were bit by the
poisonous snake of the inflamed will. The bronze
serpent in our time is the force that opens us con-
sciously to the manna from heaven that fed the
people of Moses so long ago. And the new manna
of the cosmic imaginations awakening within us
through the activity of the Etheric Christ and his
servants, the great teachers of humanity, is what
we need now.
It is also we, who are in the desert of the pres-
ent day, who have need of the bronze serpent
set on a pole, in order to look at it and thus
save our spiritual life. The synthesis of sci-
ence and religion is not a theory, but rather
the inner act of consciousness of adding the
spiritual vertical to the scientific horizontal or,
in other words, the act of erecting the bronze
serpent. 39
There are many who now are able to gaze upon
the bronze serpent and who thereby conserve
Truth. This is the good news! For the intense
activity of Christ, now penetrating the inner
life of the Earth, brings the illumining power of
higher knowledge that overcomes the darkness
of ignorance, passivity, and laziness. His light
shines into both the collective and the individual
darkness that has grown over many millennia.40
As Christ enters each of the nine different sub-
earthly spheres, his presence causes demons to
flee from him, in the hopes of finding refuge in
human beings living in the framework of terres-
trial existence. Though at first glance this may
seem dire, it need not be so. For the bronze ser-
pent has been raised also in our time, allowing
39 Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot, p. 216.
40 See Powell, The Christ Mystery, chapter four. For
an updated version of this chapter, see Powell,
“Subnature and the Second Coming,” an account of
the subearthly layers and their significance in our
time in relation to Christ’s descent through these
layers (in O’Leary, ed., The Inner Life of the Earth,
pp. 69–141).
– 56 –
protection against the fleeing of evil from the
subearthly realms.41 This flight of demonic forces
from the depths to take up their abode upon the
Earth and within human beings upon the Earth
has a deeper significance in that it clears the way
for the ascent of forces originating in the heart
of the Earth, streaming up from Shambhala,
through the subearthly realms.
This realm—known in the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition as Shambhala and in the Western tra-
dition as the “lost Paradise”—was created as a
consequence of the Fall. Before the Fall, Para-
dise existed in the spiritual spheres surround-
ing the Earth. Human beings dwelled within the
etheric blessedness of the Garden of Eden, as
Paradise was known. There, all that the human
being needed was freely and effortlessly given,
bestowed by the Great One known as the Mother,
whose golden heart is located in Shambhala. At
the time of the Fall of humanity, Paradise fell too.
In the course of time Paradise sank down to the
heart of the Earth to become the golden land of
Shambhala (“Paradise lost”) at the Earth’s cen-
ter. With the event of the Fall, the Mother fol-
lowed fallen humanity down to the Earth as a
blessed presence enveloping the Earth. Later
she retreated into the depths of the Earth. Her
retreat began when Cain slew Abel and human
blood fell upon the ground for the first time. The
withdrawal of the Mother into the depths was a
tragedy not only for humanity but also for the
elemental beings of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth
who serve the creative activity of the Mother
on behalf of the Earth. From this point in time
onward the elemental beings have grown increas-
ingly untrusting of human beings. One can only
imagine how these beings feel now in light of the
41 The “bronze serpent” here refers to the power
of the “I,” when Christ permeated, to cast out
all forms of evil resulting from ensnarement in
subearthly influences. As attention is directed
toward spiritual worlds and spiritual beings, the
light of truth becomes the power to overcome all
falsehood; thus is the human being freed from the
anxiety of divisiveness that now threatens to tear
asunder the soul of the individual and the collective
soul of nations.
 At the Gates of Damascus
destruction humanity is delivering upon the king-
doms of Nature through the “machine assault”
upon the Earth.42
The sphere we now enter after death, called
kamaloca, is the place where Paradise once pulsed
as a spiritual organism that prior to the Fall
embraced the pure and chaste human souls who
had not yet descended to Earth. Now, however, in
this sphere human beings each make their karmic
entry into their personal book of life, for good or
ill. All of this is recorded by those guardians of the
karmic records denoted by Rudolf Steiner as Moon
beings. In kamaloca, after death, our individual
karmic book, comprising our negative karma, also
known as our karmic cross,43 of which we are the
authors, is inscribed. After having shed our physi-
cal bodies, it is here that we encounter the deeds
of our life as a hidden spiritual schooling that we
undergo in what Dante depicts as an initial cos-
mic stage of the “journey of ascent into heavenly
realms.”44 Through this encounter with the entries
we each have made in our book of life, we learn
in the course of time how to work upon redeem-
ing our fallen self so as to pursue the regaining of
the purity that was ours before the Fall. The aim
of humanity is—together with Christ—to rebuild
this Paradise. As we return to this paradisiacal
state, however, we return as free and independent
individuals who are no longer unconscious of our
deeper mission; we become beings who, through
Christ, form the tenth spiritual hierarchy—the
truly human kingdom.
42 In the words of Daniel Andreev quoted on page 16
of the Journal for Star Wisdom: “[during the reign
of the Antichrist] the machine civilization begins its
total assault on Nature.”
43 Valentin Tomberg, in connection with the karmic
cross, draws attention to the words of Christ “Take
up your bed and walk” (John 5:8), which could
also be thought of as “Take up your cross and
walk.”
44 Dante’s great work The Divine Comedy describes
the various stages of the human being’s “journey
of ascent into heavenly realms.” Early on in this
journey, while traversing the Moon sphere, the
closest cosmic sphere to the Earth, we recognize
the trials of kamaloca that the human being passes
through before ascending to higher cosmic levels of
existence.
– 57 –
Christ goes before us into the darkness of the
inner Earth to prepare the way. We stand between
his cosmic presence in the etheric aura of the Earth
above and his growing presence in the underworld
below. From above he sends light from the king-
dom of the Father, all the way from the Central
Sun at the heart of our galaxy;45 from below he
helps to facilitate the way for the healing forces of
the Mother to ascend towards us as the reviving
life force needed for the creation of the resurrec-
tion body.46
Rudolf Steiner knew that humanity during the
twentieth century—and this is continuing in the
twenty-first century—is collectively crossing the
threshold into spiritual worlds. This development
gives us the opportunity through initiation to meet
our “double” during earthly life and not only at
the onset to our life after death. The double is the
composite being we have created over all our dif-
ferent lives, a being that is the part of us hidden
in our subconscious. At the appropriate time in
our lives, it is Michael as the Lesser Guardian of
the Threshold who holds the image of our double
before us. If we can bear what this image reflects,
our task is to suffer it into good; and if we are
successful in doing this to a certain degree, then,
at some time while “standing at the threshold,” a
curtain parts. For, after the meeting with Michael
as the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold, there is
the possibility that subsequently standing there
before us is Christ as the Greater Guardian of the
Threshold.
Simultaneously, as the intuition of the creative
light approaches from Christ, so too do we free an
equal measure of the Mother’s substance of pure
life force from below. With this light and life force,
we participate with Christ in rebuilding anew the
Garden of Eden, the Paradise in which we dwelt
long ago, now creating its metamorphosis—the
New Paradise, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Holy
City of the Lamb and his Bride. We began in a
45 See Powell and Dann, Christ and the Maya
Calendar, appendix 2, on the Central Sun, the
galactic center, as the Divine Heart manifesting at
the core of our galaxy.
46 See Powell, Cultivating Inner Radiance and the
Body of Immortality.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
garden, as Paradise is depicted in Genesis at the
start of the Bible, and we end with a city, the
Heavenly Jerusalem as depicted in the last two
chapters of the Apocalypse at the end of the Bible.
Sophia, the Bride of the Lamb spoken of in Rev-
elation, also serves as a Guardian of the Thresh-
old.47 Moreover, she offers the understanding
that allows us to comprehend the truth of the
ever-present blessedness bestowed upon us from
heavenly and earthly regions—for she is “clothed
in the Sun” (Revelation 12:1). This understand-
ing is the spiritual response to the creative power
of her beloved Bridegroom, Christ. At Pentecost
an emanation of Sophia united with the Virgin
Mary, and since then it is possible to refer to
Mary Sophia.48 For humanity, Mary Sophia is the
wisdom of understanding that dwells within the
light of creation. Sophia understands the Mother’s
withdrawal into the interior of the Earth, thereby
creating the lost paradise, Shambhala, in the heart
of the Earth. Sophia, the Heavenly Daughter—the
Bride of Christ the Heavenly Son—longs to reunite
with the Mother, as does Christ, who is now open-
ing the path to her realm, Shambhala. As human
souls receive the fire of Christ in their “I,” they find
the will to restore Sophia in human hearts to her
rightful place as the World Soul, not just for them-
selves but for all humanity.49 Thus human beings
receive the impulse through Sophia to redeem their
soul, and while in the process draw ever nearer to
the light of Sophia as the World Soul. In this they
find the intrinsic unity of the World Soul with the
Earth Mother.
Estelle Isaacson, in the sequel to Gautama Bud-
dha’s Successor titled The Mystery of Sophia, wit-
nesses the following:
This is the time of the second coming of Christ.
And the second coming of Christ is announced
from Shambhala, which has been issuing forth
this great announcement for almost a century.
47 Tomberg, Inner Development, p. 25.
48 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, pp. 303–308.
49 See Rudolf Steiner’s meditation “Isis-Sophia,
Wisdom of God” in his lectures “The Search for
the New Isis, Divine Sophia” in Isis Mary Sophia,
particularly the line that begins: “Christ will,
working in the human being . . . ”
– 58 –
The beings that serve the Mother carry this
message forth from the mineral kingdom to the
plant kingdom, to the animal kingdom, and to
humankind—to all who can hear the news: that
He comes again in clouds of glory! He is here!
His body is the Earth. His breath is the wind.
He is holding the Earth in His loving embrace.
Shambhala is awakening. Beings that have
had to hold their silence may now speak and
act. There is a great stirring and awakening
in Shambhala. Shambhala has been in a time
of winter, as it were, a time of holding in, a
time of withdrawal. But because more human
beings are awakening to the Divine Mother,
the beings at the center of the Earth are stir-
ring and are beginning to rise up and prepare
for the descent of Holy Sophia—the Heavenly
Daughter; and Christ is preparing the way for
Her in his second coming.
His first coming was to prepare hearts
to attune to the Father. His second coming is
to prepare hearts to receive Sophia. He will
bring Mother and Daughter together on Earth,
thereby reuniting the Earth Mother and the
Divine Daughter.
A great awakening is on the horizon for
humanity as Sophia draws ever nearer to the
spiritual sphere of the Sun. And through our
Sun, She will ray out to the world a new sus-
taining life force. This is a life force that has
been present in this world mostly within a very
small number of mystics, prophets, and seers
who have been able to find Sophia in the heav-
ens; they have embodied this life force energy
and rayed it out to others. With the descent of
Sophia and Her entrance into the Sun sphere,
this life force energy will ray out to the whole
world. A great healing will occur; just as mys-
tics ray out healing, so shall Sophia emanate
healing to the entire world—even through the
rays of the Sun. 50
This vision helps us to understand that as Sophia
descends towards the sphere of the Sun, a quick-
ening simultaneously occurs in the depths of the
Earth. For Shambhala is the inner Sun at the cen-
ter of the Earth. Through Christ’s sacrifice, with
his return in the etheric realm, Shambhala is an
ever-growing sphere of love, increasingly imbued
50 Powell and Isaacson, The Mystery of Sophia.
 At the Gates of Damascus
with Christ’s love. It is humanity’s destiny with
the help of Christ to connect with Shambhala and
to manifest this love during their sojourn in ter-
restrial realms. As the Daughter nears the Sun, the
Mother responds from the depths. The parousia is
coming to expression in the collaboration between
Christ and Sophia. As Christ’s “I” enters into a
deeper layer of the Earth in 2016, 51 the Antichrist
(Ahriman incarnated) and the Antisophia (the
great whore of Babylon) will use every means
at their disposal, including various means now
becoming available, to distract humanity from
exactly the truths that will set them free in these
times of trial. The dragon seeks to sweep human-
ity away in the mud of the serpent’s waters. Christ
and Sophia, on the other hand, are here to offer
us refuge from the flood of the dragon’s wrath.
Through the ahrimanic layers of the inner Earth,
the Asuras find entrance to human worlds and
human beings. The “machine assault” on Nature
is leading to the destruction of our Earth. This is
evident in fracking, in seed manipulations, in geo-
engineering, and in the use of weather modifica-
tion technology, which, although operating within
the physical realm, has an effect also upon the
activity of elemental beings in the etheric realm.
The machine assault on Nature is also evident in
the tragic death of animals and sea life due pri-
marily to the military application of sonar devices
deep within the Earth’s oceans and seas. 52 Also
here it is appropriate to mention the animalistic
nature arising in the souls of wayward human
beings. In all this we see the signature of influences
from the subearthly spheres—among which, quite
pronounced, are those of the beings who reside
in the three deepest layers of the Earth. Yet our
spiritual gaze can take comfort on the one hand
in beholding the descent of Christ down through
the subearthly spheres toward Shambhala and on
the other hand in Sophia in cosmic heights, above
the fray of the subearthly influences, gradually
approaching our Sun.
51 See Powell, “Subnature and the Second Coming,”
in O’Leary (ed.), The Inner Life of the Earth, pp.
69–141.
52 Cori, Before We Leave You.
– 59 –
Sophia’s raying out of solar forces can remind
us of Paul’s conversion (from Saul to Paul) at the
gates of Damascus. For, when human hearts begin
to connect to Christ, hearts radiate goodness, and
this is what opens the soul to receive the inflow-
ing grace and blessing, not only of Christ but also
of Sophia—through which we can learn how to
illumine the world.
•
The complexity of Christ’s working from both
above and below was originally outlined in Rob-
ert Powell’s book The Christ Mystery, in the chap-
ter titled “Sub-Nature and the Second Coming.”53
We can imagine a ray of light from the Christ “I”
(originating from the Central Sun at the heart of
the Milky Way) streaming into the depths of the
Earth, his presence in the aura of the Earth having
been made possible through yet another sacrificial
act of the Jesus Being. 54 It is the Jesus Being who
sacrifices himself so that Christ may work into
earthly and subearthly realms. The Jesus Being is a
composite being, comprising the Nathan Jesus on
the one hand and the Archangel Jesus on the other.
The pure human entelechy of the Nathan Jesus is
now manifesting as an Angelic Being in the ethe-
ric realm, and is united with the Archangel Jesus,
whose usual realm of activity is in the astral realm.
The Jesus Being incorporates the pure substance
of the Divine in all human beings and wields the
power of an archangelic being. He has sacrificed
his manas consciousness in order that Christ may
work in the etheric. Through the sacrificed manas
consciousness of the Jesus Being, Christ is radi-
ating the “moral ether”—the “fifth ether”—at
this time. This is the ether that builds the bridge
between our “I” and our Spirit Self. Our Spirit Self
is awakened as we purify our astral bodies. As we
connect to Christ in the etheric, in consequence
of his second coming, it is the Jesus Being who
53 For an updated version of this chapter, see Powell,
“Subnature and the Second Coming,” in O’Leary
(ed.), The Inner Life of the Earth.
54 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, pp. 388–401;
described here as the “fifth sacrifice,” enabling
Christ’s reappearance in the etheric realm in our
time.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
assists in the resurrection of our consciousness in
guiding us as we cross, via this bridge, into higher
realms of consciousness.
An Angel loses consciousness in the world of
spirit; in selflessness, he sacrifices himself to
humankind in such a way that his conscious-
ness can be rekindled only when it lights up
in the inner human being, in the conscience.
It lights up in human beings when the Angel’s
astral body, streaming down to Earth, is
received. This Angel’s ether body will remain
an empty cup and able to receive the Christ,
who will move through space in the form of
that Angel—the same Angel with whom he
was already connected four times before dur-
ing his previous sacrifices. Thus, first, the con-
sciousness of the Angel is lost, somewhat like
fainting spiritually. And on Earth, human-
kind’s moral life must be quickened as a means
of preparation. There must be awareness of
this moral stream that flows down. It will res-
urrect in human consciousness only when the
deep-seated moral questions of human beings
come to meet it. 55
Just as there is one flame of which we are each a
spark, and one soul of which we are each a drop,
so too there is one plane of manas consciousness
into which we enter through the resurrection of
the Jesus Being within our own selfhood. The
Jesus Being is the door through which we enter
into the world of cosmic imagination and become
participants in the creative light of the world’s
becoming.
In reaching toward the higher, we must not lose
sight of the lower. This dual aspect of “I” activity
is what keeps our compass properly aligned. To
sway in either direction, even the smallest bit, will
eventuate in our trajectory going off course. To
this end we are to keep awake as we traverse the
complexities of life in these early beginnings of the
twenty-first century. In the year 2016 Christ will
enter yet another level of the subearthly realms,
and correspondingly new adversarial forces will
be released from the Earth’s interior.
55 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, p. 400.
– 60 –
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO ARE
PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE
Looking into the future, to 2016, we face the con-
sequences of new forces being created on behalf of
both good and evil powers. This year, 2015, is the
last year of a twelve-year Jupiter cycle that began
in 2004. This twelve-year rhythm marks the con-
tinuous descent of Christ into the depths of the
interior of the Earth. This is one of the deeds he
is accomplishing as a consequence of his second
coming. At the time of his first coming, when he
descended into the Earth’s interior (“hell”) after
his death as Christ Jesus on the cross, he did not
penetrate into all nine subearthly spheres. 56 At
that time Christ Jesus descended into the interior
of the Earth all the way down through the sixth
subearthly sphere. 57 It is now, at this time of his
second coming, that he is penetrating through all
nine subearthly layers, right into the heart of the
Mother—into the golden realm of the lost land of
Shambhala resting at the center of the Earth.
In Robert Powell’s characterization of the descent
of Christ through the nine subearthly spheres, he
outlines the twelve-year cycle that indicates this
descent. The descent is marked by Jupiter’s helio-
centric ingress into sidereal Virgo. Each time Jupi-
ter hermetically (from the perspective of the Sun,
i.e., heliocentrically) enters sidereal Virgo, a new
layer of the interior of the Earth begins to be pen-
etrated by the Christ consciousness. The transition
from the seventh subearthly sphere to the eighth
subearthly realm will commence in June 2016. It is
the “I” of Christ that shines its fire into the dark-
ness of the subearthly realms, and the fire’s light
56 Here a distinction has to be made between Christ
Jesus and the Christ Spirit. Two thousand years
ago, Christ Jesus descended down through six of
the nine subearthly spheres. At that time, however,
the Christ Spirit penetrated down through all nine
of the subearthly layers, all the way to Shambhala,
and drew from the golden realm of the Mother at
the heart of the Earth the power of resurrection.
57 This is according to Valentin Tomberg in his
meditation study, the Our Father Course (see
footnote 12). Here he speaks of three revelations
yet to come: one from each of the three lower
spheres that Christ is penetrating as part of his
second coming.
 At the Gates of Damascus
is illumined by Sophia, who understands the ema-
nations Christ is bringing. Light without under-
standing only blinds. Understanding without light
only betrays. For the past eleven years Christ has
been in the seventh subearthly realm know as
the “mirror Earth.” The antidote to this sphere
is contained in the seventh beatitude: Blessed are
the peacemakers for they shall be called children
of God. In 2016 the “I” of Christ will enter the
eighth subearthly sphere, which finds its antidote
in the eighth beatitude: Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. This new twelve-year cycle
will be active until 2028.
At this time of his second coming, Christ is
reaching into these three deepest layers of the inte-
rior of the Earth. These are the most evil layers.
As referred to earlier, from one perspective the
seventh, eighth, and ninth subearthly realms are
under the influence of the Asuras. Christ’s passage
through these three subearthly spheres extends
over three twelve-year periods during the twenty-
first century: from 2004 to 2040. His entry into the
first of these three deepest layers, the seventh sub-
earthly realm, began in July of 2004. His entrance
into the eighth subearthly realm will commence in
June 2016. And his penetration through the ninth
subearthly layer will begin in April 2028 and will
continue through February of 2040.
The three twelve-year cycles that occurred prior
to the period 2004 to 2040—i.e., the three periods
which extended from 1969 to 2004, were marked
by Christ passing through the three middle layers
of the Earth’s interior, specified as the domain of
ahrimanic forces; and the three twelve-year Jupiter
periods previous to this were the time of Christ’s
descent through realms under the influence of the
luciferic forces (1933-1969). This descent began
in 1933—the year Rudolf Steiner prophesied
as a time the Beast would rise. He predicted in
his lectures on the Book of Revelation in 1924,
“Before the Etheric Christ can be comprehended
by human beings in the right way, humanity must
first cope with encountering the Beast, who will
arise in 1933.”58 With these words Rudolf Steiner
58 Steiner, The Book of Revelation and the Work of
– 61 –
was proclaiming the beginning of the Apocalyptic
Age in 1933—comprising the arising of the Beast
(Antichrist) on the one hand, and the polar oppo-
site movement of the descent of Christ through the
subearthly realms, on the other hand: opening the
path to Shambhala. Looking back to 1933, it is
now evident that at that time Stalin and Hitler had
been puppets of the Beast—each of them compet-
ing with one another as to who could perpetrate
the most evil and thus be chosen by Ahriman as
the vessel for his incarnation as the Antichrist.
The victor in this competition had to quickly rein-
carnate to be the vehicle of the Beast (the incar-
nated Ahriman) during the present crisis years of
the twenty-first century. 59
As demons are released into terrestrial regions,
they gain power to imitate creation by inspiring
materialistic thoughts, feelings, and deeds that are
caricatures or even inversions of divine impulses.
Ahriman’s aim is to create a machine-like human
being. Just as there are nine cosmic-spiritual
realms in which the hierarchies dwell (“above”),
so too are there nine subearthly planes in which
demonic beings dwell (“below”). Christ bears the
archetype of the spiritualized human being reflect-
ing the nine ranks of the spiritual hierarchies
above. His arch-enemy, Ahriman, is in the process
of using modern technology to create another kind
of human being—indeed, a sub-human being—
out of the forces of the nine subearthly planes.60
the Priest, p. 231.
59 Powell, Prophecy–Phenomena–Hope: The Real
Meaning of 2012. See also Powell and Isaacson,
Gautama Buddha’s Successor: A Force for Good in
Our Time.
60 For an in-depth description of the forces indwelling
the nine subearthly spheres, see Powell, “Subnature
and the Second Coming,” in O’Leary (ed.), The
Inner Life of the Earth: pp. 69-141. The goal
pursued by Ahriman of creating a sub-human being
through modern technology is openly promulgated
by Transhumanism; see, for example, Horn and
Horn, Forbidden Gates: The Dawn of Techno-
Dimensional Spiritual Warfare; see also Horn
(ed.), Pandemonium’s Engine: Satan’s Imminent
and Final Assault on the Creation of God; and
Rady Ananda’s article, “Transhumanism: Genetic
Manipulation and the Age of Human Destruction:
Toward the End of Homo Sapiens?” (http://
www.globalresearch.ca/transhumanism-genetic-
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
To grasp on a higher level a true spiritual per-
spective of what is really taking place here, it is
helpful to consider Rudolf Steiner’s words:
Let us now picture the vision of Christ, as it
will appear to the first forerunners during the
next 2,500 years, and as it appeared to Paul on
the way to Damascus. The human being will
ascend to cognition of the spiritual world and
will see the physical world permeated by a new
“country,” or new realm. Humanity’s physical
environment will present a totally different
aspect in the course of the next 2,500 years,
through the addition of an etheric realm, which
indeed is already here now, but which human
beings will learn to perceive. This etheric
sphere is even now spread out before the eyes of
those who have carried their esoteric training
as far as “illumination”—as was the case with
the initiates even during Kali Yuga. That which
human beings will see more and more in the
future is visible in its greatest heights to the ini-
tiates who draw from thence, at repeated inter-
vals, the forces they require. When they have to
carry out some special work, they draw their
forces from those realms within the Earth’s cir-
cuit which are visible to them, but which can
only be seen by those who have the vision. It
will help us to understand this, if we realize
that a part of that land from which the initi-
ates drew their forces during Kali Yuga will be
thrown open to a great part of humanity during
the next 2,500 years. Formerly, in the days of
primeval clairvoyance, human beings, though
then without a strong “I”-consciousness, could
see into the spiritual world—and in a way they
saw then more or less what they see now. How-
ever, they now enter it with their newly acquired
self-consciousness. At that time they saw it in
dreamlike ecstatic conditions, or by looking
into their own soul. That world which during
Kali Yuga became physical was then open to
the gaze of human beings. Hence the traditions,
which have preserved recollections of the old
clairvoyance, tell us of a forgotten fairy-tale
land which has now disappeared from sight.
There are wonderful documents in Eastern lit-
erature full of a peculiar tragic enchantment,
manipulation-and-the-age-of-human-destruction-
towards-the-end-of-homo-sapiens/5373858?).
– 62 –
telling us that at one time it was possible for
human beings to travel to this land where the
spiritual flowed into the physical. It is that
land from whence at certain times the initi-
ates—and at all times the Bodhisattvas—drew
fresh forces. The Eastern writings speak with
deep sorrow of that land, asking: “Where is it?”
We are told the names of places, and paths are
named; but the land itself is concealed, even
from those most initiated among the Lamas of
Tibet! Only to the highest initiates is it acces-
sible. But it is always stated that someday this
land will return to Earth. That is true; it will
return to Earth! And the guide thereto will be
he whom human beings will see, when, through
the vision of the Event of Damascus, they reach
the land of Shambhala. “Shambhala”—for so
this land is called—has withdrawn from the
sight of humanity. It can only be entered today
by those who, as initiates, go there from time
to time to be strengthened. The old forces can
no longer lead human beings thither. That is
why Eastern literature speaks with such tragic
despair of the vanished land of Shambhala. But
the Christ Event, which will be vouchsafed to
humanity in this century through the newly-
awakened faculties of human beings, will bring
back the fairytale land of Shambhala, which
through the whole of Kali Yuga could only be
known to the initiates.61
Through the event of Christ’s second com-
ing, whereby Christ is now opening the path to
Shambhala, the ascending forces of the Mother
are reaching ever higher towards terrestrial realms.
The Mother in the depths is seeking to help each
human being, each of her children, as is the Daugh-
ter, the Bride of the Lamb, Sophia in the heights.
It is incumbent on each of us to bridge the gap
between the heights and the depths, between the
Daughter and the Mother, with the help of Christ.
In Revelation, when Christ addresses the letter to
the Church of Philadelphia, he speaks of the door
that opens and no one shuts. What is this door? It
is the door to cognition in spiritual worlds. The
coming sixth cultural epoch will arise during the
Age of Aquarius—initially in the Slavic countries,
61 Steiner, The Christ Impulse and the Development
of Ego Consciousness, lecture Mar. 9, 1910.
 At the Gates of Damascus
but then spreading to become a world culture,
based on love and wisdom, embracing the whole
Earth. Human beings will increasingly learn how
to form a conscious connection with spiritual
worlds and with the angelic beings of the spiritual
hierarchies. What stands in the way of this capac-
ity is the soul, when ignorant of its transgressions.
Knowledge of the soul’s transgressions allows one
to experience remorse, and this is what births the
“force of penitence,” which literally is the key that
the soul uses to open the door that none other can
close but the soul itself.
The faculty of penitence, properly understood,
is the very force that in the future (beginning
in the twentieth century and continuing into
the sixth cultural epoch) will open, for an ever
increasing number of people, the gates that
close out the spirit world. For this faculty is
none other than “the key of David . . . that opens,
and no one shuts,” about which John speaks in
the Apocalypse in relation to the philadelphic
cultural community (Rev. 3:7). This faculty is
called the “key of David” because, in the Chris-
tian current of human history, David was its
first bearer and representative.62
The experience of sorrow and regret for wrongs
incurred brings forth the will to make good that
which has not been done right. This possibility is
even now increasing due to humanity’s “crossing
of the threshold.” We are to marshal the courage
to face and experience the effects of our deeds.
As we collectively engage in self-knowing we will
acquire the force of penitence. In so awakening,
we will be spiritually humbled; we will find the
open door to higher worlds—we will have the
“key of David.” This is the first step of healing our
relationship with the Earth, after which we will
be worthy mediators between the Mother in the
depths and the Daughter in the heights. We will
become collaborators in the great work of redeem-
ing the relationship between Nature and human
beings. Thereby will the persecutions against
the Mother through the “machine assault” on
Nature no longer go unnoticed; rather, they will
be resisted.
62 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, p. 113.
– 63 –
The emptying of demons from the inner planes of
the Earth allows for these realms to become filled
with light, so that where demons once snaked in
darkness, new forces are being born. This does not
mean that demonic beings no longer dwell at all
within the interior of the Earth; but it does sug-
gest that their habitat is shrinking more densely
into certain regions: for example, into the sixth
subearthly sphere (which could be described as
Ahriman’s “citadel”) and into the ninth subearthly
sphere—a realm of pure evil that manifests within
the Earth as a counterforce to the pure spiri-
tual region of the Sun, which is a realm of pure
goodness.
We can imagine a blessing that accompanies the
entrance of Christ into each new subearthly layer.
In light of this, in 2016 we will meet the challenge
of new forces of evil being released into our ter-
restrial world, and at the same time we have an
opportunity to receive blessings from the Mother’s
realm of Shambhala flowing up from below. We
can balance the dread of new evil with the knowl-
edge that simultaneously there will arise new
forces of strength. It is of profound significance
that in 2016, at the same time as Pluto arrives at
the sidereal degrees in Sagittarius remembering
the arising some two thousand years ago of the
full storm of persecutions against the early Chris-
tians, there takes place the event of Christ entering
the eighth subearthly sphere on his path of descent,
“opening the path to Shambhala.” His entry into
the eighth subearthly realm—also known as the
divisive layer—announces the antidote to the
forces working upwards from this layer, i.e., the
love-permeated life force of Christ that blesses
those who are persecuted and helps to create unity
between human beings.
Perpetual war, new weaponry, physical illnesses,
and endemic psychological dis-ease have increased
since 2004. Humanity needs to see itself, in the light
of Christ, as a comprehensive social organism—one
that can fall ill, just as can the individual standing
within it. Warfare is indicative of disease within the
collective social organism. Humanity lives as part
and parcel of a larger social whole, whose health
depends on the morality of the collective.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
[Rudolf Steiner] states that the preconditions
for the outbreak of “dire illnesses and plagues”
are created by “fraternal strife and internecine
war”63 —in other words, by the sickness of the
social organism. Establishing this connection
between the workings of dark powers amongst
nations and individuals, on the one hand, and
the effect of the outbreak of infectious dis-
eases which “attack poor human bodies” and
leave them to “waste away,” on the other, gives
shocking insight into the current state of the
modern world. Such plagues, against which
scarcely any medicines have yet proved effec-
tive, are already afflicting us, long before the
advent of the age of Oriphiel [the next arch-
angelic period after that of the Archangel
Michael] around 2400 ad.64
Are the drone wars currently being waged by the
United States in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen,
Somalia, and elsewhere, indicative of the begin-
ning of new forms of war? Or, are they the culmi-
nation of the last twelve-year cycle, meaning that
we can anticipate even more devastatingly indis-
criminate weaponry in the near future? There is
also the very real danger of more severe epidemics
and incurable diseases. When nations fight against
each other, they fight within humanity’s collective
“organism of the social order.” Another manifesta-
tion of warfare affecting the collective organism of
humanity is the manipulative use of weather mod-
ification technology, which—among other sinister
applications—pursues the goal of gaining control
of the world’s weather in order to use the Earth’s
organism as a weapon, bringing about catastro-
phes without being detected or identified as the
perpetrator of death and destruction.
Much is taking place, and anyone who is truly
paying attention can see this. In nature, much
happens every year that increasingly contra-
dicts the whole traditional process of nature in
the past. Springtime is different from what it
63 Internecine here defined as “within the collective
social organism of humanity.”
64 Von Halle, Illness and Healing, p. 158. Note that
the exact date of the end of the age of Michael
and the start of the age of Oriphiel is ad 2234; see
Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
p. 8, footnote 15.
– 64 –
used to be. Summer, autumn, and winter are
changing as well. In March we experience the
sultry days of summer. People talk of myste-
rious manifestations; the whole divine revela-
tion of spring, summer, autumn, and winter is
mixed up. Chaos is setting in, and this comes
not from Heaven, but from the interior of the
Earth. People think these are merely climate
changes, but this is not the case. When orderly
changes take place again in nature, these will
be the outer signs of Christ’s etheric return.65
If we reduced carbon emissions to zero, we
would not heal the disease in the upper atmo-
sphere; for it is human thinking, aligned with the
“other worldly” delusions of the Eighth Sphere
(discussed at the start of this article), that are
the principle causes behind climatic chaos. If we
were to live in peace here upon the Earth, we
would find that our weather would benevolently
cooperate with our needs. The peacemakers have
been assigned tasks as the antidote to evil mani-
festations from the seventh subearthly sphere, in
which Christ is now working. They work despite
the war-mongering being aggressively pursued
by the United States and its allies against various
nations that dare to resist the drive of the U.S.
for hegemony over the world. 66 Weather modifi-
cation technology is presenting humanity and the
Earth with critical problems. This technology has
greatly increased over the last twelve-year cycle
(2004-2016), associated with the seventh sub-
earthly layer. In the coming cycle (2016-2028),
associated with the eighth subearthly sphere,
Transhumanism 67—already highly influential
65 Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, pp. 399-400.
66 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
pp. 29–30, footnote 46.
67 “Transhumanist thinkers study the potential
benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that
could overcome fundamental human limitations,
as well as the ethics of developing and using such
technologies. They speculate that human beings
may eventually be able to transform themselves
into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as
to merit the label ‘posthuman’” (Wikipedia entry
on Transhumanism). See also Horn and Horn,
Forbidden Gates; and Horn (ed.), Pandemonium’s
Engine; and Ananda, “Transhumanism: Genetic
Manipulation and the Age of Human Destruction:
Towards the End of Homo Sapiens?” (http://
 At the Gates of Damascus
during the current (seventh) cycle—threatens to
encroach upon us increasingly. It is indeed now
a spiritual imperative that active self-engagement
in the work of meditation—including boldly
undergoing mystery trials—becomes the basis for
encountering the experiences of everyday life.
The eighth subearthly sphere holds the antidote—
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteous-
ness sake. It can thus be expected that more strin-
gent laws will be imposed on any who are working
in ways that increase the possibilities of serving
the good works of Christ and Sophia. Restrictions
launched against small farmers are one example.
Unlike the persecution of the early Christians after
the death of Christ on the cross, these new perse-
cutions are aimed towards an even more escalating
assault against Nature. GMO’s, for example, are
attacks against Nature’s seeds; and among various
other pernicious effects—when the fruits of GM
seeds are consumed as “nourishment” by human
beings—such attacks result in a “dumbing down”
of spiritual organs of perception. The human body
seeks the bread of life, not the caricature of this
from Ahriman. Eating genetically modified foods
renders the body denser, drawing one’s conscious-
ness closer to subearthly realms and also leading
it further away from suprasensory realms, thereby
increasing the strength of the impact of materi-
alistic influences upon human beings.68 Another
example of the “machine assault” upon Nature,
already mentioned, is the massive killing of dol-
phins and whales—an attack of unspeakable sor-
row on Nature’s creatures that is painfully diffi-
cult to bear and thus easily overlooked.69
The further debasing of Natura will be the
most prevalent evidence of the persecution spo-
ken of in the eighth beatitude. Despite the fact
that Sophia is descending70 and many are awak-
ening to her culture of brotherly and sisterly love,
the Antisophia, known as the “great whore of
www.globalresearch.ca/transhumanism-genetic-
manipulation-and-the-age-of-human-destruction-
towards-the-end-of-homo-sapiens/5373858?).
68 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s
Successor, p. 32, footnotes 49–50.
69 Cori, Before We Leave You.
70 See Powell and Isaacson, The Mystery of Sophia.
– 65 –
Babylon” (Revelation, chapters 17 and 18) is gain-
ing adherents—and many of these adherents can
be counted among the powerful rulers that stand
behind world governments. They have the money
and the other resources necessary to manifest
their agendas. They are a modern Moloch cult to
which we are sacrificing our first born, i.e., the
children bravely coming as the first responders on
behalf of a world gone mad. The children com-
ing to serve Sophia are to be protected, not given
over to the kingdom of technology—which is the
inversion to the developing manas consciousness.
Our situation is analogous to how the Baal cults,
during the centuries from the time of Moses into
the time of Elijah, worked against the people of
Israel to thwart the possibility of the first coming
of Christ. Now, in our time, it is evident that from
the depths of the three deepest layers of the sub-
earthly realms, dark forces are being put at the
disposal of immoral human beings.
At the time of Christ’s incarnation, the three
deepest layers of the Earth’s interior were—in
contrast to our time—relatively dormant. The
influences streaming from Shambhala, the realm
of the Mother, could then ray up in a relatively
unimpeded way to the border of the sixth sub-
earthly sphere. Since then, particularly during the
last third of the twentieth century and on into the
twenty-first century, the forces of the Asuras have
become increasingly active. It is for the overcom-
ing of these forces associated with the seventh,
eighth, and ninth subearthly spheres that Christ
is now penetrating down to the very heart of the
Earth, opening the path to Shambhala.
SUMMARY
At this time in world history, in the year 2015,
three events are particularly noteworthy:
1. the continuation of the beginning in 2014 of
a new 600-year cycle in the cultural devel-
opment of humanity (2014-2614), a time of
renewal of Buddhism infused by the Christ
Spirit;
2. the entrance into the second of the present
three and one-half years of trial at this time
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
of the reign of the Antichrist (mid-2013 to the
end of 2016 and into the start of 2017);
3. the continuation of the inspiring presence of
the Kalki/Maitreya that began to stream in
during 2014.
Astrosophically, Pluto is passing into the zodia-
cal degrees of Sagittarius, remembering where it
was located at the time of Paul’s experience at the
gates of Damascus, shortly after the death of the
first Christian martyr, Stephan. Moreover, Pluto
is approaching in 2016 the zodiacal degrees of
Sagittarius that recall the full fervor of persecu-
tion of the early Christians, which began in ad 36.
This coincides with Robert Powell’s research indi-
cating that Christ will enter a deeper layer of the
subearthly realms, the eighth subearthly layer,
next year (2016). This gives us forewarning to
see clearly what impulses are working behind the
events of world news and global developments, as
one twelve-year cycle comes to an end and another
begins in 2016.
In Gautama Buddha’s Successor, Robert Powell
offers a description of the second of the three and
one-half years, which he suggests may be the time
of the reign of the Antichrist (mid-2013 to the end
of 2016 and into the start of 2017):
In the second of the three years, a great feel-
ing of emptiness arises within human beings.
There is a sense that everything is too diffi-
cult to comprehend. This is accompanied by
increasing self-doubt and a sense of oppression.
This can lead to the feeling that one is losing
one’s will. This is the experience of the void of
the abyss, for it is the abyss separating the sen-
sory realm from that of the spiritual at which
one now stands. In contrast to the awareness
of the battle for the soul being waged during
the first year, the second year is characterized
by the sense of being abandoned to oneself
in a morass of nothingness, seeming like hell,
accompanied by a sense of powerlessness. In
this state of consciousness it is important to
be aware that there is something within the
nothingness. Then one can become aware of a
flicker of light, and realize that underlying the
light is the power of Christ’s love—responding
to one’s own love for Christ. “Those who love
– 66 –
me will keep my word, and my Father will love
them, and we will come to them and make our
home with them” (John 14:23). Then one will
gradually come to know that there is no end
to love, that Christ’s love is enduring, and that
he loves every human soul. The essence of the
trial of nothingness in the second year is to lead
one to the love within which one is enabled to
find one’s way out of the void. Underlying this
is the realization that the world was created by
love and that by the power of love it will be
redeemed. Through the great love of Christ’s
sacrifice, he knows every human soul; and it is
his love that is the lifeline that can lead the soul
back to him.71
There are those who agree that ahrimanic webs
are spinning a world of Ahriman’s making, but
who stop short of recognizing what Robert Powell
is bearing witness to as the spiritual activity behind
the scenes of modern worldly events. The presence
of the individuality in the process of becoming the
Maitreya is a confusing notion for some, for there
is an unfortunate misconception that has caused
many to believe that this individuality was, and is,
Rudolf Steiner.72 This confusion thwarts recogni-
tion of just what Powell is illumining, for Pow-
ell has taken up the thread once held by Valen-
tin Tomberg, who had picked up the thread once
held by Rudolf Steiner.73 The human will must
keep itself aligned with the spiritual guidance
of humanity in these critical times in which we
live. To the extent we turn back on the past and
miss the present, we will also miss opportunities
of the future and instead invite dark occult influ-
ences into the social order. This happened with
71 Powell and Isaacson, Gautama Buddha’s Successor,
p. 46.
72 This misconception can be called “the Arenson
error” in honor of Adolf Arenson, who was the first
Anthroposophist to put forward the hypothesis that
Rudolf Steiner himself was the Maitreya. In Rudolf
Steiner’s words, “I am not the one,” he directly
refuted this hypothesis; see Powell and Isaacson,
Gautama Buddha’s Successor, pp. 11–12, especially
footnote 18.
73 See the article “The Transition” by Robert Powell
& Keith Harris in the Easter 2014 newsletter
Starlight, of the Sophia Foundation, available as a
free download from: www.sophiafoundation.org >
Activities > Newsletter.
 At the Gates of Damascus
the failure of Steiner’s Threefold Social Order ini-
tiative. In Steiner’s original Memoranda of 1917
he articulated the basic premise of his Threefold
Social Order ideas, capable of spiritually trans-
forming modern society. His 1917 initiative was at
the time of the Great War, World War I, which saw
the death of some ten million military personnel
and around seven million civilians, with an esti-
mated twenty million who were wounded. More-
over, the Bolshevik Revolution was erupting also
at that time (1917), enticing desperate people to
desperate means as a way of escaping the oppres-
sion that was consuming them. The illness of the
existing social order could have found healing
through the Threefold Social Order. Instead, not
many years passed by and then, in 1933, the Beast
surfaced and wreaked havoc through his servants
Hitler and Stalin from that time on, exactly as had
been foretold by Rudolf Steiner.74
The stars lend their guidance. To follow the
stories in their rhythms is a path of initiation,
whereby one develops the ability to see the present
clearly, enabling also a perception of the future.
We can hold the enlightenment of Paul at the gates
of Damascus as a seed of hope to nurture the
future promise for all human beings, as referred
to by Rudolf Steiner in the earlier quote concern-
ing Shambhala: “The guide thereto will be he
[the Etheric Christ] whom human beings will see,
74 Steiner, The Book of Revelation and the Work of
the Priest, p. 231: “Before the Etheric Christ can be
comprehended by human beings in the right way,
humanity must first cope with encountering the
Beast, who will arise in 1933.”
– 67 –
when, through the vision of the Event of Damas-
cus, they reach the land of Shambhala.” We can
also take up the work of sacred magic on behalf of
Mother Earth, in an effort to protect her and all
her precious beings.75
The confluence of the two events now approach-
ing humanity in 2016—(1) the return of Pluto to
its position in ad 36 during the persecution of
the early Christians, and (2) the entry of Christ
into the eighth subearthly sphere, the antidote
to which is contained in the eighth beatitude:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righ-
teousness sake—may come to realization in sor-
rowful ways. Dr. Powell has nonetheless been pre-
paring us over the years to stand strongly before
the changes now bearing upon us. The meditative
and prayerful exercises of “white magic” offered
in his book Inner Radiance 76 offer significant
protection against the period of trial in which we
are now living.
A spiritual light shines powerfully from Paul’s
conversion experience at the gates of Damascus.
This light can become the inner light of hope
within each and every human soul. Valentin Tom-
berg describes a miracle as the descent of hope.
May this hope descend upon us as we make our
way through this year, 2015.
•
75 See Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot, chapter
3, on sacred magic in service of liberating Mother
Earth.
76 Powell, Inner Radiance and the Body of
Immortality.
 THE EVOLVING TRADITION
Richard Tarnas
A strology in its most general definition rests
on a conception of the cosmos as a coherent
embodiment of creative intelligence, purpose, and
meaning expressed through a constant complex
correspondence between astronomical patterns
and human experience. The various celestial bod-
ies are regarded as possessing an intrinsic associa-
tion with specific universal principles. Both these
principles and their astronomical correspondences
are seen as ultimately grounded in the nature of
the cosmos itself, thereby integrating the celestial
and terrestrial, macrocosm and microcosm. As the
planets move through their cycles, they form vari-
ous geometrical relationships with each other rela-
tive to the Earth within the larger cosmic environ-
ment. These alignments are observed to coincide
with specific archetypally patterned phenomena
in human lives. From the beginning of Western
astrology, such an understanding was closely asso-
ciated with the original Greek conception of kos-
mos, a word first applied to the world as a whole
by the Pythagoreans to convey a characteristically
Greek synthesis of intelligent order, beauty, and
structural perfection.
The astrological tradition initiated by the
Greeks in Alexandria in the Hellenistic era, dur-
ing the centuries immediately before and after the
birth of Christ, was embedded in a classical world
conception deeply influenced by Pythagorean and
Platonic thought. It had earlier roots in ancient
Mesopotamian celestial observations, from at least
the beginning of the second millennium bce, and
was shaped by ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, and
Persian cultural influences. The first known natal
chart, or horoscope, dates from about 400 bce
(the time of Socrates and Plato). The astrological
– 68 –
perspective and method that emerged in the fol-
lowing centuries were closely associated with the
scientific disciplines of Greek astronomy, math-
ematics, and medicine, with the esoteric streams
of thought that informed the mystery religions and
Hermetic literature of classical antiquity, and with
major philosophical and religious movements such
as Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and
Gnosticism. As an overarching view of the uni-
verse and the cosmic position of the human being,
astrology was singularly pervasive in the classical
era; it transcended the boundaries of science, reli-
gion, and philosophy.1 It subsequently influenced
Christian, Islamic, and Jewish thought and played
a central role in the art, literature, and cultural
ethos of the European High Middle Ages and
Renaissance. Because of this extraordinary diver-
sity in its origins and the succession of its later
environments, astrology was constantly being
reconceived according to the different intellectual
and cultural contexts in which it flourished.
Yet at the heart of all these various inflections, the
implicit cosmological metastructure within which
1 Cf. Aby Warburg’s description of astrology as
uniquely “the meeting and confrontation point
between the demands of a rational order, as in
Greek science, and the myths . . . inherited from
the East: between logic and magic, between
mathematics and mythology, between Athens
and Alexandria” (Eugenio Garin, Astrology in
the Renaissance, trans. C. Jackson and J. Allen,
rev. C. Robertson [London: Arkana, 1983], p. xi).
Similarly, Gustav-Adolf Schoener defines astrology
as “a tightrope walk between religion and scientific
astronomy,” following the classical philologist
Franz Boll’s statement that astrology at its essence
seeks to be “religion and science at the same time”
(G.-A. Schoener, “Astrology: Between Religion and
the Empirical,” trans. S. Denson, Esoterica: The
Journal, IV [2002]: 30).
 The Evolving Tradition
the Western astrological tradition developed can
be described as essentially Pythagorean-Platonic in
character: that is, the cosmos is understood to be
pervasively informed and integrated through the
active presence of a universal ordering principle, at
once mathematical and archetypal in manifesta-
tion, whereby the celestial bodies and their cycli-
cal patterns possess a symbolic significance that is
intelligibly reflected within the human sphere. Over
the centuries, diverse schools, interpretations, and
frameworks arose that continually reshaped and
transformed this underlying perspective, positing
different views concerning the nature and extent
of cosmic influence, the relative balance of celestial
constraint and human freedom, the question as to
whether planets are indications or causes, and, in the
case of the long-influential Aristotelian-Ptolemaic
model, the possibility of a more physically causal
determinism produced by the celestial spheres.
From its Mesopotamian and Egyptian origins to
its subsequent Hellenistic synthesis in the classi-
cal era, the history of Western astrology can, in
very general terms, be seen as having moved from
a more fluid astral divination (focused on intuit-
ing the will of the celestial gods and responding to
this perception through appropriate action, ritual,
and supplication for divine favor) to an increas-
ing emphasis on systematic observation of the
geometric regularities of astronomical movements,
the application of universal principles of interpre-
tation, and eventually the formulation of elaborate
rules for concrete prediction. This gradual process
of “rationalization” (in Weber’s sense) was com-
bined in later antiquity and the medieval period
with an increasingly mechanistic view of celestial
causality, which in turn became linked with a
more rigid determin ism. 2 A similar evolution took
2 Weber used the term rationalization to signify
the systematic deployment of reason in any social
activity, whether in law, science, or religion, to
effect greater calculability, efficiency, predictability,
and control. The tendency toward an increasingly
rigid mechanistic determinism that accompanied
this development in the history of astrology
can be seen as another form of Weber’s “iron
cage,” a state of oppressive depersonalization and
alienation, but here with ancient and medieval
rather than modern sources.
– 69 –
place in India after the conquests of Alexander
the Great brought Greek culture to Asia; Vedic
astrology was shaped both by the Mesopotamian-
Hellenistic tradition and by India’s own distinctive
religious and social legacies in a manner that has
continued to the present.
In Europe, in the wake of the Enlightenment
of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
astrology virtually disappeared from scholarly dis-
course and the worldview of the educated. Linger-
ing principally in the form of popular astrological
almanacs, it underwent a gradual revival during
the nineteenth century with the growing Euro-
pean interest during the Romantic period in eso-
teric traditions and later in theosophy. Finally, in
the course of the twentieth century, a widespread
rebirth of astrology took place, beginning in Eng-
land and spreading to North America and the
rest of Europe. The astrology that emerged was
informed by goals and theoretical assumptions
that often differed from those of the ancient and
medieval periods in fundamental ways. In general,
its character was more individualistic and psycho-
logical—emphasizing internal reality over exter-
nal, self-understanding over concrete event pre-
diction, symbolic interpretation over literal, and
participatory engagement over passive fatalism.
Accompanying this shift of character has been the
gradual rise within the astrological community of
a discourse of critical philosophical reflection and
the questioning of many traditional astrological
assumptions and tenets.
Numerous factors have played a role in this
recent trend. Increased access to precise astro-
nomical data and the discovery of the outer plan-
ets have deeply affected astrological practice and
theory. So also has the enormous increase in the
available data, with incomparably more individual
birth charts, biographies, and historical periods
having now become the basis for a collaborative
development of accepted principles of interpreta-
tion. No less important have been broader cultural
changes affecting general intellectual presupposi-
tions and the modern psychological character.
These changes include a larger commitment to and
experience of individual autonomy, a deepened
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
sense of interiority and the value of psychologi-
cal reflection, a more complex grasp of symbolic
cognition and interpretive multivalence, a more
critical understanding of the mutual implication
of inner and outer realities, and a deeper recog-
nition of the participatory character of human
experience. Associated with this shift is also an
increased awareness of the multidimensional and
multicausal nature of all phenomena, combined
with an appreciation of the irreducible indetermi-
nacy of life’s unfolding.
The widespread emergence of a more psycho-
logically sophisticated astrology in the second
half of the twentieth century, with Jung and Dane
Rudhyar the key figures, represents the domi-
nant historical trend, but an important periph-
eral development at this time was a new interest
from outside the field in statistical tests of astro-
logical hypotheses. Of these, the most significant
were the massive studies conducted by the French
statisticians Michel and Francoise Gauquelin over
a forty-year period beginning in the 1950s. The
widely discussed “Mars effect” first observed
by the Gauquelins and since replicated by other
research groups demonstrated a highly significant
statistical correlation of Mars located on either
the eastern horizon or the zenith at the birth of
prominent athletes. Similar correlations with plan-
etary position were found at the birth of eminent
leaders in other fields: Saturn for scientists, Jupiter
for politicians, and the Moon for writers, all cor-
rectly corresponding to the traditional astrologi-
cal principles and character traits associated with
those particular celestial bodies. 3 In 1982, after
3 See, for example, Michel Gauquelin, Cosmic
Influences on Human Behavior (New York:
Aurora Press, 1973). For a thorough discussion of
the Mars effect, see Suitbert Ertel and Kenneth
Irving, The Tenacious Mars Effect (London: The
Urania Trust, 1996), and Hans J. Eysenck and
David Nias, Astrology: Science or Superstition?
(London: Penguin, 1982). For an account of the
scandal involving attempts by the Committee
for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims
of the Paranormal (CSICOP) to discredit the
Gauquelin results (the account was written by one
of the committee’s founding members and chief
researchers), see Dennis Rawlins, “sTARBABY,”
Fate, No. 32, October 1981 (http://cura.free.fr/
xv/14starbb.html). See also John Anthony West,
– 70 –
extensive examination of the Gauquelin research,
Hans Eysenck, a prominent academic psychologist
unsympathetic to astrology (and famous for his
criticism of psychoanalysis for its lack of statisti-
cal support), published with his coauthor David
Nias a summary of their conclusions:
We feel obliged to admit that there is something
here that requires explanation. However much
it may go against the grain, other scientists who
take the trouble to examine the evidence may
eventually be forced to a similar conclusion.
The findings are inexplicable but they are also
factual, and as such can no longer be ignored;
they cannot just be wished away because they
are unpalatable or not in accord with the laws
of present-day science. . . . Perhaps the time has
come to state quite unequivocally that a new
science is in process of being born.4
The positive results of the Gauquelin studies and
their replication by others presented a robust chal-
lenge on science’s own terms to the conventional
scientific dismissal of astrology. Yet, paradox-
ically, statistical studies have added relatively little
to the astrological understanding, and they appear
to be methodologically inadequate for entering
into the archetypal frame of reference central to
the astrological tradition. The larger resurgence of
astrology during these decades has continued to be
qualitative rather than quantitative in its practice
and research, reflecting its sources in the Western
astrological tradition and contemporary depth
psychology rather than experimental science and
behaviorism. Common to the two approaches,
however, has been an underlying impulse in the
past half century—from both within and outside
the astrological discipline—that has moved astrol-
ogy into a more direct engagement with the main-
stream modern worldview. 5
The Case for Astrology (New York: Viking Arkana,
1991), and G. Cornelius, The Moment of Astrology.
4 Eysenck and Nias, Astrology: Science or
Superstition? pp. 208–209.
5 This brief overview of astrology’s historical
development in the West is highly schematic and
intended only to suggest its larger evolution ary
vector. At each stage in this development, many
factors—societal and cultural, philosoph ical,
religious, scientific, commercial, biographical—
 The Evolving Tradition
CAUSALITY AND CORRELATION
In the modern era, with the dominant Cartesian-
Newtonian paradigm in the background of all
thought and discourse on the subject, considerable
confusion has been produced by the conventional
scientific attempt to interpret—and thus reject
the possibility of—astrological correspondences
within a modern mechanistic cosmolog ical frame-
work. In effect, the Cartesian-Newtonian stand-
point led to a single simple question that, within
its framework, was regarded as decisive for the
issue of astrology’s validity: How can the planets
influence events on the Earth if no physical forces
have been observed that could cause those events?
This question was so defining for the mainstream
scientific mind that even well replicated statistical
evidence that supported astrological tenets could
not affect the intensity of its resistance. To a great
extent the question of physical planetary influence
reflected the residual strength of materialist and
mechanistic assumptions in contemporary scien-
tific thought, even after the conceptual shifts intro-
duced by quantum physics. Physical forces repre-
sented the only kind of relationship that could be
imagined to exist between celestial bodies and
human life. This approach to astrology also, less
obviously, reflected certain lingering literalist and
mechanistic tendencies in the astrological tradi-
tion itself that made it vulnerable to a reductionist
critique after the ancient Ptolemaic-Aristotelian
played a role in shaping the astrological
perspective and practice of any particular era
or individual. In any given instance, elements
from these different stages and periods continued
to live on, intermingling in complicated fusion
and compromise formations. This multilayered
complexity can be seen to have existed like a
palimpsest in all of the cultural epochs in which
astrology flourished—from Hellenistic Alexandria
and the Roman Empire through Persian and
Arabic culture under Islam and the High Middle
Ages and Renais sance in Europe to its worldwide
revival in the twentieth century. This complexity
is especially characteristic of the contemporary
astrological milieu, in which many schools and
practices, traditional and novel, are concurrently
flourishing. Despite these complications, however,
an overall evolutionary pattern of development
does seem discernible.
– 71 –
cosmology was rejected and replaced by New-
tonian science.6 Above all, however, the modern
dismissal of astrology reflected the virtually uni-
versal modern conviction that the cosmos was
disenchanted.
Given the nature of the evidence now known,
it is difficult to imagine any physical factor that
could serve as the ultimate source or medium of
the observed astrological correlations. At least
on the basis of the principal categories of data
I have examined, it seems to me highly unlikely
that the planets send out physical emanations, like
electromag netic radiation, that causally influence
events in human life in a mechanistic way so as to
produce the observed correlations. The range of
correspondences between planetary positions and
human existence is just too vast and multidimen-
sional—too manifestly ordered by structures of
meaning, too suggestive of creative intelligence,
too vividly informed by aesthetic patterning, too
metaphorically multivalent, too experientially
complex and nuanced, and too responsive to
human participatory inflection—to be explained
by straightforward material factors alone. Given
as well the consistent nature of correlations involv-
ing the Sun, the Moon, and all the planets of the
solar system from Mercury and Venus to Neptune
and Pluto, irrespective of their size or distance
from Earth, any causal factor resembling gravita-
tional influence seems to be equally improbable.
I believe that a more plausible and comprehensive
explanation of the available evidence would rest
on a conception of the universe as a fundamentally
and irreducibly interconnec ted whole, informed
by creative intelligence and pervaded by patterns
6 Part of the confusion generated by the clash
of paradigms, modern scientific and ancient
astrological, lay in the shifting meaning of ancient
terms and concepts as used in later eras. For
example, even in the more causal-mechanistic
perspectives of later Hellenistic astrology, the
planetary emanations which radiated their
influences from the celestial spheres onto the Earth
were not merely physical forces as the modern
mind thinks of these. They were as much spiritual
and symbolic as they were physical and literal in
nature, permeating the world with their analogical
currents, and thus contained the possibility of
multiple significations: i.e., they were archetypal.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
of meaning and order that extend through every
level, and that are expressed through a constant
correspondence between astronomical events and
human events. Such a view is concisely reflected in
the Hermetic axiom “as above, so below,” which
describes a universe all of whose parts and dimen-
sions are integrated into an intelligible whole. In
the perspec tive I am suggesting here, reflecting the
dominant trend in contemporary astrological the-
ory, the planets do not “cause” specific events any
more than the hands on a clock “cause” a specific
time. Rather, the planetary positions are indica-
tive of the cosmic state of archetypal dynamics at
that time. The words of Plotinus, the most influen-
tial philosopher of later classical antiquity, speak
directly to this understanding:
The stars are like letters which inscribe them-
selves at every moment in the sky. . . . Every-
thing in the world is full of signs. . . . All events
are coordinated. . . . All things depend on each
other; as has been said, “Everything breathes
together.”7
Instead of the linear causal mechanisms of mat-
ter and force assumed in a Newtonian universe,
the continuous meaningful coincidence between
celestial patterns and human affairs seems rather
to reflect a fundamental underlying unity and
correspondence between the two realms—mac-
rocosm and microcosm, celestial and terrestrial—
and thus the intelligent coherence of a living, fully
animate cosmos. The postulation of a systematic
correspondence of this kind implies a universe in
which mind and matter, psyche and cosmos, are
more pervasively related or radically united than
has been assumed in the modern worldview.
As for the relevance of causality in understand-
ing astrological correlations, it seems that a fun-
damentally new kind of causality must be posited
to account for the observed phenomena. Rather
than anything resembling the linear mechanistic
causality of the conventional modern understand-
ing, what is suggested by the evidence is an arche-
typal form of causality that in crucial respects
7 Plotinus, Enneads, II, 3, 7, “Are the Stars Causes?”
(c. 268), quoted in Garin, Astrology in the
Renaissance, p. 117.
– 72 –
possesses Platonic and Aristotelian characteristics,
yet is far more complex, fluid, multivalent, and co-
creatively participatory than previous conceptual
models—whether from physics, philosophy, or
astrology—have been able to accommodate.
FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM
Because the question of free will and determinism
has long been the most existentially and spiritually
critical issue in all discussions of astrology, I will
offer a few preliminary remarks here.
There is no question that a substantial part of
the Western astrological tradition supported a
relatively deterministic interpretation of cosmic
influence (a tendency even more marked in Indian
astrology). For numerous schools and theorists
of ancient and medieval astrology, the horoscope
revealed a person’s destined fate, and the celestial
powers governed human lives with a more or less
rigid sovereignty. The widespread reemergence
of Western astrology in the course of the twen-
tieth century, however, arising in a new context
and at a different stage in the West’s cultural and
psycholog ical evolution, brought with it a deeply
transformed vision of both the human self and the
nature of astrological prediction. The most char-
acteristic attitude among contemporary astrolo-
gers holds astrological knowledge to be ultimately
emancipatory rather than constricting, bringing a
potential increase of personal freedom and fulfill-
ment through an enlarged understanding of the
self and its cosmic context.
In this view, knowing the basic archetypal
dynamics and patterns of meaning in one’s birth
chart allows one to bring greater awareness to the
task of fulfilling one’s authentic nature and intrin-
sic potential, as in Jung’s concept of individuation.
The more accurately one understands the arche-
typal forces that inform and affect one’s life, the
more flexibly and intelligently responsive one can
be in dealing with them. To the extent that one is
unconscious of these potent and sometimes highly
problematic forces, one is more or less a pawn of
the archetypes, acting according to unconscious
motivations with little possibility of being a co-
creative participant in the unfolding and refining
 The Evolving Tradition

of those potentials. Archetypal awareness brings
greater self-awareness and thus greater personal
autonomy. Again, this is the basic rationale for
depth psychology, from Freud and Jung onward:
to release oneself from the bondage of blind action
and unconsciously motivated experience, to recog-
nize and explore the deeper forces in the human
psyche and thereby modulate and transform them.
On the individual level, astrology is valued for its
capacity to articulate which archetypes are espe-
cially important for each person, how they interact
with each other, and when they are most likely to
be activated in the course of each life.
But, in addition to the psychological evolution
of the modern self with its increased sense of
dynamic autonomy and self-reflective interiority,
perhaps the most significant factor in the emerg-
ing emancipatory understanding of astrology is a
deepening grasp of the nature of the archetypal
principles themselves.
•

“If you lift your arm and point upward, you have up there the realm of particular

Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. If you move and again point upward, you would

find other Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim above you. . . . Suppose you wanted to

point to some particular Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. They are by no means

identical, like a group of twelve similar soldiers, for instance. They differ considerably

from one another. Each bears its individual stamp, so that as one looks upward from

various points, one sees quite separate beings. In order to locate particular Thrones,

Cherubim, and Seraphim, one denotes them by a particular constellation. It is like a

signpost. In that direction over there are the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim known

as the Twins, over there, the Lion, and so on. The constellations of the zodiac are more

than mere signposts. . . . It is important to realize that, when we refer to the zodiac, we

are speaking of spiritual beings.”

— Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, April 17, 1909

– 73 –
 INTO THE VORTEX
Kevin Dann
“Everything real must be
understood as a Vortex.”
I n one of the grey metal filing cabinets at the
Rudolf Steiner Archive in Dornach, there are
among the many thousands of documents two curi-
ous undated slips of paper with figures and text
from Rudolf Steiner’s hand.
Notizblatt Archiv-Nr. NZ 685  Notizblatt Archiv-Nr. NZ 712
I.  Die  zehn  oder  neun  machen  in  sich  verschlin-
gend die vollkommene Zahl [The ten or nine make
the perfect number devouring itself]
II. Der Mensch ist eine kleine Welt [The human
being is a microcosm]
III.  Alles  Reale  muß  als  Wirbelbewegung  ver-
standen  werden. [Everything real must be under-
stood as a Vortex.]
Taken alone, this third axiom feels like hyperbole,
but considered in the light of the preceding two
axioms—“The ten or nine make the perfect number
devouring itself” and “The human being is a micro-
cosm”—and the accompanying diagram, the state-
ment seems a reasonable declaration from Rudolf
Steiner’s own spiritual research, and a telltale of
– 74 –
his lifelong appreciation for and employment of the
principle of rhythm.
A second document, also of indecisive prove-
nance1, seems to extend the third axiom of Docu-
ment NZ 712:
Bild der Entwicklung des Menschengeistes
Am Beginn ist der Mensch Gott
Am Ende ist der Mensch Gottes Ebenbild
Picture of the development of the human spirit
1 In Start Now! A Book of Soul and Spiritual
Exercises (pp. 168–169), the translated texts of NZ
685 and NZ 712 are included in material given as
“Meditations from the Esoteric School,” and stand
back-to-back between letters dated Dec. 1903 and
“a letter, 1904.” The recent Vitra Design Museum
traveling exhibition Rudolf Steiner: Alchemy of
the Everyday included the NZ 712 document, and
gave the date as 1921. I queried the Rudolf Steiner
Archive in Dornach but was informed (by email from
Stefan Widmer, Jan. 6, 2014) that the manuscript
had no date. Still, from the contents of the Esoteric
School lessons, it seems reasonable to date both
these documents to 1904–1905.
 Into the Vortex
At the beginning humans are God
At the end humans are the image of God”
Die Welt ist eine Wirbelbewegung
Jede Einrollung muß sich in Ausrollung
verwandeln.
[Das Leben soll Lection sein]
Der Mensch soll eine Wirbelbewegung sein.
Alles, was im Sinne der Wirbelbewegung
vollbracht ist, ist Magie
The World is a Vortex.
Every inward spiral must become an outward
spiral [Life must be a lesson]
The Human Being must become a Vortex.
All that is brought to completion as a Vortex is
magic.
Each of these axioms is so extraordinary—seem-
ing to be simultaneously classic “indications” invit-
ing deep meditative as well as empirical outward
study—and yet also so definitive, so total, as to
lull one into thinking perhaps that Rudolf Steiner
is merely stating the obvious. Why does Rudolf
Steiner give such tremendous significance to the
Wirbelbewegung/vortex? These statements were
made within the context of the lessons to the Eso-
teric School; what other statements did he make
about the vortex in public lectures or books that
might shed light on these enigmatic axioms?
Rudolf Steiner came of age at the very moment
when a great deal of speculative cultural work was
swirling around the Vortex model/concept, so per-
haps it is not surprising to find him frequently refer-
ring to the Wirbelbewegung in his public lectures
after 1904. 2 Indeed, one might even say that “the
vortex” was a keyword at the end of the nineteenth
century, beginning about a decade before the advent
of Michael’s latest archangelic regency in 1879, and
lasting until at least 1908, when astronomer George
Ellery Hale made the first photographs of sunspots,
showing them to be vortices. Clearly however, given
the tone and context of Rudolf Steiner’s statements, 3 Hermann von Helmholtz, “Über Integrale der
2 The German word for both “vortex” and “vertebra”
is Wirbel. Wirbelbewegung (“vortex motion”)
became the standard term in the German scientific
lexicon for all phenomena (in both fluids and air) of
a vortical form.
– 75 –
he was not simply speaking metaphorically, influ-
enced by popular linguistic and cultural convention.
“Long Live the Vortex!”
This fin de siècle period at the close of the Kali
Yuga saw a proliferation of Naturalistic explana-
tions for phenomena at both the microcosmic and
macrocosmic ends of the visible Universe, a sur-
prising number of which embraced the form of the
Vortex. Decades before Modernist British artist and
writer Wyndham Lewis declared—in 1914—“Long
Live the Vortex!” as an artistic call-to-arms, a
variety of 19th century sciences discovered and cel-
ebrated the vortex. In 1840, New York City steam-
ship entrepreneur William C. Redfield showed that
tornadoes—as well as larger, less destructive atmo-
spheric movements—had a vortical form. In 1858,
American geologist William B. Rogers described
his experiments on the formation of vortices in
air and liquids, only months after Hermann von
Helmholtz published “Über Integrale der hydrody-
namischen Gleichungen, welche den Wirbelbewe-
gungen entsprechen, 3” [“On Integrals of the Hydro-
dynamic Equations, That Correspond to Vortex
Motions”] which Lord Kelvin, half a century later,
would praise as “one of the most beautiful of all
the beautiful pieces of mathematical work hitherto
done in the dynamics of incompressible fluids.”4 In
1861, Clerk Maxwell would rest his electromag-
netic theory upon a vortical basis; in 1869, Lord
Kelvin (almost two decades after his brother James
had patented a vortex turbine for a British paper
mill) published his vortex atom theory; in 1875,
Lord Kelvin’s smoke-ring studying friend Peter
Guthrie Tait teamed up with Balfour Stewart to
write The Unseen Universe, an attempt at a unified
theory of science and religion, with the vortex as
its central motif; in 1884, Cavendish Professor of
Experimental Physics at Cambridge University J. J.
Thomson won the Adams Prize for his Treatise on
the Motion of Vortex Rings; in 1908, the late James
hydrodynamischen Gleichungen, welche den
Wirbelbewegungen entsprechen,” Journal Fur Die
Reine Und Angewandte Mathematik 1858 (55):
25–55
4 Lord Kelvin, in the preface to Koenigsberger,
Hermann von Helmholtz, iii.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015

Bell Pettigrew’s posthumous three-volume master-

piece Design in Nature described and portrayed
vortical forms from galaxies to the musculature of
the human heart.
All of these scientific developments testify both
to the era’s spectacular expansion of visionary
capacity into the physical world and to West-
ern science’s proclivity for modeling. In the case
of Hale’s sunspots or Isaac Roberts’ pioneering
photographs of spiral nebulae (aka “galaxies”),
the human eye was for the first time seeing the
macrocosmic manifestations of the vortical form;
at the microcosmic level, physicists were merely
imagining vortical forms and motions, but con-
stantly mistaking their models for reality. Dur-
ing a lecture series he gave in Baltimore in 1884,
Lord Kelvin remarked, “I can never satisfy myself
until I can make a mechanical model of a thing.”
When J. B. Stallo, in his 1882 Concepts and
Theories of Modern Physics wished to dramatize
how easily modern physicists conflated theories
and facts, he pointed directly at the recent substi-
tution for traditional atoms of matter, Lord Kel-
vin’s vortex atom. 5
The vortex model-as-reality error was not It was as if, at the very moment when spiritual
confined to Materialist thinkers: with seemingly scientific knowledge of Nature was about to pour
all of literate Western culture entranced by Kel- into the world, the prominence of the vortex as a
vin’s vortex atom, Mesmeric physician (and meta- universal manifestation of form was finally being
physician!) Edwin D. Babbitt’s 1878 Principles of discovered through the physical senses alone.
Light and Color mixed John Ruskin’s aesthetics,
Baron Karl von Reichenbach’s Odylism, and his A LOST SECRET?
own fanatical rage for system to produce a Mes-
More than two thousand years before Lord Kel-
mero-Spiritualist study of the “finer forces.” A
vin imagined the atom as a vortex, the Greek phi-
considerable portion of the book was devoted to
losopher Empedocles was reported (by Aristotle,
building up an abstract, totally speculative model
who took exception to Empedocles’ theory) to
of the atom. Babbitt’s drawing of his fantasy atom
have demonstrated his vortical theory of cosmic
—with its legend of “VORTEX” prominent at the
creation and evolution by stirring liquid in a glass
top center—yet lives, in dozens of forms, thanks to
amphora, into which he then dropped a handful
Besant and Leadbeater’s Occult Chemistry (1908),
of tea leaves. Magically, the leaves migrated to the
which reproduced Babbitt’s invention as a clair-
center of the miniature whirlwind and were held
voyant perception of the anu, or “occult atom.”6
there as long as he continued to stir. The dancing
5 Stallo, Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, He reminded readers that the Sanskrit word vritta,
x, xiii. like the English “vortex,” means “whirlpool.” For
6 Another pop occultist work that spread erroneous an excellent review of the blurred boundaries
ideas of the vortex atom was “Yogi Ramacharaka’s” between fin de siècle chemistry and physics and
(pen name of W. W. Atkinson) 1905 Advanced occultism, see Morrisson Modern Alchemy:
Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism. Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory.

– 76 –
 Into the Vortex

tealeaves elegantly expressed Empedocles’s cos-

mogony, which held that the Earth hovers in a
primal [Greek letters]—vortex or eddy—set
in motion by Zeus. This vortex separated out the
four elements from which all was made. Pulsing
eternally between (love) and (strife
or hate), the Vortex then created plants, animals,
and humans.
Empedocles’s vortical cosmogony was quickly
enough eclipsed that when Aristophanes’ The
Clouds (423 bc) lampooned pre-Socratic
mechanical philosophy, he did so by having
Socrates declare that “Zeus is now no more, and
Vortex rules.” Empedocles, one of the last real
magician-philosophers of ancient Greece, whose
vortex may well have been a true clairvoyant cos-
mogonic picture, was thus cast as ushering in the
death of the old gods before the new world of
mechanical forces. To bookend this irony, the
vortical cosmos vanished until the pioneer of the
modern mechanistic world-view, René Déscartes,
on November 10, 1619, dreamed of a Universe
made up of tourbillons—vortices. Posthumously
published in 1664 as Le Monde, Descartes’ trip-
tych dream vision inspired his model of space as When, in 1734, Emmanuel Swedenborg pub-
a plenum of fluid, certain portions of which were lished his Principia rerum naturalium, he clearly
in a constant whirling motion. The stars, plan- drew heavily upon Descartes, though he replaced
ets, and other celestial bodies all took form at the the Cartesian fluid with particles in vortical
center of these vortices.7 motion. “No other particles can be better adjusted
to a vortical motion than these, by reason of their
7 William Joseph Jackson, Heaven’s Fractal Net: figure and elasticity. . . . Upon the exercise of the
Retrieving Lost Visions in the Humanities,
(Indiana University Press: 2004) contains a vivid slightest force they naturally flow into a vortical
account of the 1618 dream. Richard Watson’s motion . . . as we can see also in water and every
Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes, element whose phenomena can be observed by
(David R. Godine: 2007) agrees with earlier
authors who suggest that the three-part dream
the senses” (179–180). Oddly enough, as shown
was a retelling of the trio of dreams in The by the nineteenth-century explosion of empiri-
Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. cal study of the vortex in hydrology, meteorol-
Amir D. Aczel, in Descartes’s Secret Notebook:
ogy, and physics, close observation of eddies in
A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the
Quest to Understand the Universe, (Broadway air and water had languished since Leonardo
Books: 2005)—without taking note of the fact DaVinci’s characteristically penetrating descrip-
that November 10 is one day after the fateful tions two centuries before.
Schicksalstag—raises many questions about
Descartes’ dream, particularly the significance Swedenborg advanced his vortex cosmos seven
of the date Nov. 10 in Descartes’ biography. My years before his visionary period began in 1741,
own brief study of this episode suggests that the and it is perhaps worth noting that his later works
“inspiring spirit”—Descartes himself recognized
that it was a malus spiritus—may have been an
Ahrimanic being. At the same time, it is possible 206-7) did—Descartes’ vision as a clairvoyant
to see—as Mme. Blavatsky (Isis Unveiled, I: perception of the akasha.

– 77 –
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
make no statements about vortical forms of plan-
etary and/or stellar generation or movement.
LIFTING THE VEIL
In both her 1877 work Isis Unveiled and more
extensively in The Secret Doctrine (1885), H.
P. Blavatsky affirmed the occult foundation of
knowledge about the vortical dimension of cosmo-
genesis. She gives the fifth “Stanza of Dzyan” in
volume 1 of The Secret Doctrine:
‘Wheels’. . . are the centers of force, around
which primordial cosmic matter expands, and
passing through all the six stages of consoli-
dation, becomes spheroidal and ends by being
transformed into spheres or globes. It is one
of the fundamental dogmas of Esoteric cos-
mogony, that during the kalpas (or Aeons) of
life, motion, which, during the periods of rest,
pulsates and thrills through every slumber-
ing atom—assumes an ever growing tendency
to circular movement. ‘The Deity becomes a
Whirlwind.’ . . .
The Wheels are also called Rotae—the
moving wheels of the celestial orbs participat-
ing in the world’s creation. . . .
This law of vortical movement in primor-
dial matter is one of the oldest conceptions in
Greek philosophy, whose first historical sages
were nearly all initiates of the Mysteries . . . 8
Given Madame Blavatsky’s opening of the flood-
gates of esoteric wisdom, it fell to British Chris-
tian esotericist C. G. Harrison to comment upon
HPB’s work and life—including the East/West
occult struggle over her destiny—in a series of six
lectures in 1893 to the Berean Society in London.
Although these lectures cover an extraordinary
range of esoteric terrain, a close reading reveals
that, after Mme. Blavatsky, the most prominent
subject is the vortex! In the second lecture, at
the conclusion of his perceptive discussion of the
nature of modern initiation, Harrison gives “The
Three Great Axioms”:
8 H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, I: 141. HPB
goes on to give a thumbnail—and yet magisterial,
and altogether original—intellectual history of
the microcosmic vortex, concluding with a nod to
Swedenborg and Lord Kelvin.
– 78 –
1. Seven is the Perfect Number.
2. The Microcosm is a Copy of the Macrocosm.
3. All Phenomena have their Origin in Vortices.9
The convergences and divergences of these three
axioms with those given by Rudolf Steiner in NZ
685 and 712 are immediately apparent—and call
out for study. The first two are perhaps the most
widely known and celebrated Hermetic truths; the
third—a clear cognate of Rudolf Steiner’s state-
ment that “Everything real must be understood as
a Vortex”—is oddly less so, and thus the impera-
tive for this brief study.
The real beauty of Harrison’s lectures is how
much—like both HPB before him and Rudolf
Steiner after him—his discussions of ancient
truths are rooted in his own moment in history.
His brief review of the first two axioms mainly
reference contemporary scientific literature and
current political events. Truly, 1879 is as much an
exoteric as esoteric marker of a pronounced shift
in human consciousness, and the “mountaintop”
perspective that shines through in these lectures
is largely due to the apotheosis—or “exhaustion”
from a different point of view—of nineteenth-cen-
tury materialistic scientific knowledge.
When Harrison turns to the third axiom, his
audience, had they been totally unversed in The-
osophy or Christian occultism, would have been
easily able to follow. Crookes, Buchner, Butlerof—
though the particular statements of these scien-
tists to which Harrison drew attention were ones
chosen from Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine—were
widely quoted by the popular press. But he also
relates contemporary physicists’ conceptions to
the Caduceus of Hermes and symbols from other
gnostic traditions.
In Harrison’s parlance, the Caduceus is “the
double vortex,” and in the final four lectures of
the series, becomes the leitmotif in his explanation
of the many “signs of the times” suggesting his
9 C. G. Harrison, The Transcendental Universe,
p. 95. Christopher Bamford, who brought these
lectures into public view at their centenary, muses
briefly upon the echo of the vortex in Rudolf
Steiner’s axioms, in a brief footnote on page 199.
The centrality of the vortex image within the work
is hiding in plain sight, in the book’s cover art.
 Into the Vortex
era’s position at the center of Time’s vortex.10 Pre-
saging very much what it will become for Rudolf
Steiner (and also, in our time, for “new alchemist”
Dennis Klocek), Harrison’s double vortex veri-
tably controls and directs the balance of his epic
exegesis. Implicitly human consciousness is pre-
sented as a Vortex just as much as is the rhyth-
mical unfolding of Time—both as God’s will and
as human struggle. What rings out as Mystery in
Rudolf Steiner’s axioms is in these lectures almost
quotidian, in passages like this: “Until the divine
reflection has recovered from the shock produced
in its medium by the impact of the two vortices,
man must continue to manifest as a double vortex
with a center of its own.”
In coming to terms with Harrison’s assertions,
one confronts the same conundrum that occasion-
ally presents itself when studying Rudolf Steiner’s
vortex statements: are these figures of speech (and
hence, like the 19th century physicists’ parlance,
models) or crystal clear clairvoyant perceptions
of higher realities? The penultimate paragraph of
Harrison’s tour de force is but one such occasion:
The dynamic effects, therefore (if we may use
the expression), of the Christian sacraments
are involutionary as regards the lower and
evolutionary in respect to the higher nature
of man. If we apply this idea to the symbol of
the double vortex, we shall recognize in the
Sacraments the appointed means whereby the
opposing forces will ultimately range them-
selves around their true center—the person-
ality (the fifth or human principle)—and the
attraction of the Eighth Sphere be neutralized.
The spheroidal vortices will then coalesce and
become one, first as an elliptical spheroid and
afterward as a true sphere capable of indefinite
expansion.11
“Everything real must be understood as a Vortex”
10 One of the unspoken truisms of a metahistorical
perspective is that every historical moment can
be reasonably conceived of as “the center of the
vortex,” i.e., the microcosmic “still point” or
pralaya between manvantaras, and simultaneously
a node on some incipient or manifest manvantara.
11 C. G. Harrison, Transcendental Universe. p. 167
– 79 –
Working strictly from published works in English
and lectures available online at the Rudolf Steiner
Archive (http://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/), I
have identified 26 instances where Rudolf Steiner
speaks of the Wirbelbewegung in the senses con-
sidered in this article, that is, the vortex as vor-
tex, rather than as metaphor or figure of speech.
Doubtless there are many more, but I believe that
these are likely both representative and compre-
hensive, as they cover all but the earliest period
of his public teaching, i.e., from 1904 until 1924.
Most interestingly, in these instances, he never
refers to any of the nineteenth-century scientific
work centered on vortex models or empirical
study—from von Helmholtz to Lord Kelvin—or
to Blavatsky, Harrison, or other esoteric writers.
Rather than present an exhaustive chronologi-
cal review, I wish to sketch some impressions that
might serve to stimulate discussion among those
who have more extensive knowledge of the par-
ticular themes and domains in which Rudolf Stein-
er’s statements about the vortex occur. The out-
standing theme is certainly the vortex as a symbol
of the destruction of old consciousness, lifeways,
races, etc. and inception of the new. Most of the
earliest references that he makes to the vortex are
in this sense, and frequently point particularly to
the time of Atlantis.12 During a
number of these earlier lectures,
Rudolf Steiner drew on the
blackboard the typical Cancer
zodiacal glyph, explaining that
this symbol was a prominent
motif in the repertoire of the
Rosicrucian (and Freemasonic) occult script.13
12 See for example: Oct. 3, 1905, “Foundations
of Esotericism,” lecture 8; Nov. 11, 1904,
“The Manicheans”; Oct. 20, 1906, Esoteric
Development, “The Rosicrucian Spiritual Path.”
13 Oct. 23, 1905, The Temple Legend, lecture 17,
“Freemasonry and Human Evolution”; Sept. 4,
1906, Founding a Science of the Spirit, lecture 14,
“Rosicrucian Schooling”; Oct. 20, 1906, “Esoteric
Development, lecture 8, “The Rosicrucian
Spiritual Path”; Mar. 14, 1907, “Who Are the
Rosicrucians?”; May 29, 1907, Rosicrucian
Wisdom. In addition, Rudolf Steiner drew the
Cancer glyph in one of the early Esoteric Lessons
(Köln, Dec. 1, 1906) to denote it as the symbol for
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
The second way in which Rudolf Steiner spoke
of the vortex was about vortex-shaped action in
the physical world, particularly in the formation
of human organs, the skeleton, embryonic stages,
and—on at least one occasion—of the entire
physical body as having been formed by vortex
movement.14
What distinguishes Rudolf Steiner’s treat-
ment of the vortex is that he explicitly describes
from his own clairvoyance vortical movement
within the supersensible—citing both etheric and
astral—realms:
There is a certain process in the higher worlds
which also operates in the physical world: the
whirling of a vortex. You can observe this whirl-
ing of a vortex when you look at a star cluster, as
in the constellation of Orion, for example. There
you see a spiral, only it is on the physical plane.
But you can view this also on all planes. It can
present itself in the form of one vortex entwining
itself into another. This is a figure to be found on
the astral plane in all possible forms.15
He also notes vortex movement in the etheric,
implicitly in his explanations of physical organ
formation, and occasionally he makes himself
more explicit about the “prime movements” in the
etheric realm, as he does here, speaking of the for-
mation of the human heart:
Here, let us say a certain movement occurs at a
certain speed (arrow pointing downwards), i.e.
a flow takes place with a certain velocity; and
the stream then fuses with another stream—it
must be assumed that the other flow is going not
in the same direction but the opposite direction
the fifth element, or akashic consciousness.
14 See for example Oct. 26, 1909, “The Higher Senses,
Inner Forces, and Creative Principles in the Human
Organism”; Oct. 27, 1909, “Supersensible Currents,
Group Soul, and the “I” in Human Beings and
Animals”; May 14, 1920, Mystery of the Universe,
lecture 14: The Human Being, Image of Creation.”
Also, Rudolf Steiner said that in earlier stages of
human evolution (both Old Saturn and Old Sun)
the human “body” (i.e., non-physical form) was
vortical in nature. (Founding a Science of the
Spirit, lecture 9: “Evolution of the Earth,” Aug. 30,
1906)
15 Oct. 20, 1906, Esoteric Development, lecture 7,
“The Rosicrucian Spiritual Path.”
– 80 –
(arrow upwards). The two streams therefore
flow into one another. Or imagine a wind
whirling with a certain velocity from above
downwards, and another from below upwards,
and they whirl into one another. If we take the
difference of velocity between the downward
and the upward current, relating the latter to
the former in such a way that the a difference
in velocity results bearing the same relation-
ship as the difference in velocity between stel-
lar and solar time, then the vortex created gives
rise to a distinct form condensing out of this
movement. One stream whirls downwards and
because the other whirls upwards, driving with
a greater velocity—the lesser velocity would
be that driving downwards—this gives rise
through the collision to a greater density, a cer-
tain figure or form. This figure—though here
only as a schematic diagram—is a silhouette or
outline of the human heart.16
Perhaps more than on any other occasion, this
description draws upon the analogy with the
physical world of air or water currents, and yet the
“currents” or “streams” that Rudolf Steiner speaks
of here are non-physical, i.e., etheric.
“The Human Being must become a Vortex”
What, one wonders, did Rudolf Steiner mean
by this statement? Given his emphasis on evolu-
tionary movement through time, it suggests that
the human being must “consume” his own past,
achieving further development by recapitulating
at a higher level his prior conditions of conscious-
ness and life. The axiom may also point to a par-
ticular future condition in which the human being
achieves creative powers akin to those now char-
acteristic of the Hierarchies.
Though, in his “vortex axioms,” Rudolf Steiner
does not say that “Man [the Human Being] is a
Vortex,” in at least one lecture contemplating the
working of the four ethers upon the human, he
describes just this.
It is a continual occurrence, a continual inter-
play between light and warmth ethers on the
one hand, pressing centripetally from above
downward, and life and chemical ethers on the
16 May 14, 1920, Mystery of the Universe, lecture 14,
“The Human Being, Image of Creation.”
 Into the Vortex
other hand, pressing centrifugally from below
upward. By this means the etheric configura-
tion of the human being is formed. It is actually
a transformation of the vortex formed by the
mutual impact of these two kinds of ether. The
shape that you encounter must be understood
then, as a cooperation between these two kinds
of ether.17
What seems striking to me is how, despite speak-
ing so confidently of a variety of vortex movements
in both the physical and the supersensible worlds,
neither Rudolf Steiner nor, aside from a few excep-
tions—his students—ever really links the two. It is
as if that pair of anonymous manuscript pages are
left as an invitation to the future.
“All that is brought to completion as a Vortex is
magic”
Say the word vortex today in anthroposophic
company, and it is most likely that it will bring to
mind biodynamic agriculture. In the spring of 1924,
just a short while before he traveled to Koberwitz
to deliver the Agriculture Course, Rudolf Steiner
demonstrated for Ehrenfried Pfeiffer and Guen-
ther Wachsmuth the method for turning the sub-
stances that they had buried over the winter into a
proper alchemical—i.e., “biodynamic”—spagyric.
Stirring with Pfeiffer’s walking stick the cow horn-
manure and cow horn-sand preparations that they
had just dug up, Rudolf Steiner created the first
BD 500 and 501 preps. Wachsmuth wrote: “He
was concerned primarily to stir energetically, form
a vortex and swiftly to reverse the direction of
spin—that is, the vortex formed by this energetic
stirring.”18 Could it be that this was the very first
instance of Rudolf Steiner himself performing
magic via the vortex, two decades after he had
first written down the axiom?
Certainly this was and is a magical technique, if
one considers magic as a release from the bounds
of earthly forces to allow cosmic forces to work
into earthly substance. This is the fundamental
characteristic of vortex movement; the center of
the vortex approaches a condition of chaos, thus
17 Apr. 12, 1921, Illness and Therapy: Spiritual-
Scientific Aspects of Healing, lecture 2.
18 Peter Selg, The Agriculture Course, p. 38.
– 81 –
allowing the working into matter of spiritual
forces. Though this principle is universally opera-
tive in Nature, Rudolf Steiner only rarely spoke
about it directly, as he did in 1921, discussing the
human embryo:
Anthroposophy is able, in a certain way, to point
out the direction in which to seek what develops
in the mother’s body as germinative cell of the
human embryo. Here we do not come across com-
plicated chemical combinations, but in reality with
a chaotic state of matter. We do not have before
us a highly complicated chemical combination or
some molecular structure, but a chaotic condi-
tion, a chaotic vortex of the ordered structure that
exists in a crystal and in a chemical molecule. In
the germinative cell matter is not developed to a
further organization, but it is pushed down into
chaos, and from the corresponding substance,
from the substance which becomes chaotic, then
develops something which can now receive what
comes down to it from above; the supersensible
man coming from the spiritual worlds.
The development of physical man will only be
grasped if physical research is brought to the
point of being able to see how the physical
human germ by leading matter back to chaos,
becomes capable of receiving the soul-spiritual
germ which comes down from pre-existence.19
The great tragedy of our era, of course, is that
despite our increasing ability to see the vorti-
cal nature of Creation at both ends of the physi-
cal spectrum, we continue to mistake effects for
causes. In the 1920s, Ludwig Graper and Robert
Wetzel pioneered the use of film to study embry-
onic tissue development, and were able to clearly
see and show the “Polonaise movement”—two
19 Nov. 29 1921, “Foundations of Anthroposophy,
lecture 2: Man in the Light of Anthroposophy.” See
Schwenk, Sensitive Chaos, for a clear introduction
to the natural history of vortex movement and
a subtle exploration of vortical expressions in
the physical world. Klocek, Sacred Agriculture:
The Alchemy of Biodynamics, gives an elegant
introductory to the physics and chemistry of vortex
action in watery solutions; both in that work, and
in his Seeking Spirit Vision: Essays on Developing
Imagination, the vortex becomes a central image
also for human consciousness.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015

large, counter-rotating vortices—of gastrulation
in chick embryos. Today, such picturing goes on at
the “nano-” level, and yet the underlying forma-
tive forces, and the beings standing behind them,
go completely unrecognized by science. 20
CONCLUSION: “THE WORLD IS A VORTEX”
Just over a century ago, when James Bell Petti-
grew’s three-volume Design in Nature (1908)—a
grand “argument from design” aimed squarely
at Darwinian and other materialist conceptions
of Nature—was published, the Western public
was just becoming acquainted with photographic
images of spiral galaxies. The ubiquitous spiral/
vortex form was Pettigrew’s main argument for
a “First Cause,” and Isaac Roberts’ photographs
of the spiral nebulae were the very first images
in this densely illustrated work. Pettigrew invited
the reader to compare these photographs of the
great star clusters with his drawings of spiraling
flowers, seeds, fruits, and the spiral apex of the
mammalian heart—a discovery that he himself
had made in the 1860s. He firmly believed that
this evidence alone would convince the most
diehard materialist of the necessity for a Deity
behind all the exquisite design.
20 See for example S. A. Sardersius et al., “A
‘chemotactic dipole’ mechanism for large-scale
vortex motion during primitive streak formation in
the chick embryo,” Physical Biology 8 (2012), and
Percival McCormack, Vortex, Molecular Spin, and
Nanovorticity.
If Rudolf Steiner used the word Welt in the
sense of “cosmos” or “galaxy,” then his statement
could merely have been describing the form and/
or movement of our Milky Way. It seems much
more likely that he sought with this statement to
encompass both the physical assemblage of stars,
the spiritual beings who dwell there, and the pro-
cess by which all of these and more came—and
continue to come—into being. In conclusion:
In speaking of Saturn, I spoke of a globe of fire
or of a large fiery egg, and then of a revolving
motion. And it was in fact originally a sort of ball
or egg. Whilst that globe, which corresponds to
the very first Saturn condition, is revolving, the
following is gradually formed; it acquires a sort of
girdle, which does not surround the whole egg, but
which is there as a sort of broad band. And within
that belt these single forms collect which are being
formed all around. This belt formation is a general
cosmic law. This law—which rests on an accumu-
lation in the form of an equator or belt—you can
see exemplified in the cosmos, as far as your sight
can reach, in the Milky Way, which owes its exis-
tence to that law. When you look at the Milky Way,
stretching like an external belt around the heavens,
with the stars shining sparsely in between, you
must think of its being the result of that law which
causes things to draw together into a belt as soon
as a rotatory process begins. 21
•
21 Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical
World, lecture of Apr. 18, 1909

“It became clearer and clearer to me—as the outcome of many years of research—
that in our epoch there is really something like a resurrection of the Astrology of
the third epoch [the Egyptian–Babylonian period], but permeated now with the
Christ Impulse. Today, we must search among the stars in a way different from the
old ways. The stellar script must once more become something that speaks to us.”
—Rudolf Steiner (Christ and the Spiritual World
and the Search for the Holy Grail, p. 106)

– 82 –
 POWER OF THE SUN
Nicholas Kollerstrom
The Sun is not a ball of gas; but in that place
where the Sun is, there is something less than
empty space—a sucking, absorbing body. . . .
Where the Sun is, is emptier than empty space.
This can be said of all parts of the universe
where we find ether. . . . Ether is sucking,
absorbing. . . . The Sun is an absorbing, suck-
ing sphere, and wherever ether is present, we
have this absorbent force. . . . The Sun pos-
sesses the power of suction only, being noth-
ing but ether, nothing but suction.1
“The Cup dipped into the Sun. It scooped up
a bit of the flesh of God, the blood of the uni-
verse, the blazing thought,
—Ray Bradbury,
The Golden Apples of the Sun
A stronomers claim to know, why the Sun
shines. There would be some implosion of
credibility, research grants etc. were doubt cast
upon this. At this time of writing (March 2014)
the yearly conference of the Electric Universe peo-
ple is taking place in New Mexico, and they are
posing such a challenge: an alternative discourse,
over what makes the Sun shine.
Neutrinos found
Astronomers generally feel that they can now
say what makes the Sun shine, because they have
at last been able to detect the required “neutri-
nos” emanating from the center of the Sun. 2 That
clinches it, in their view. They will now cheerfully
say that trillions of neutrinos pass through you
every second, but we don’t notice because they
“Holy Grail” of free energy for a future civiliza-
1 Steiner, Mystery of the Universe, pp. 48–49.
2 Frank Close, Neutrino, p.165.
– 83 –
have no effect. But do we really want to believe
this? Have the axioms gone wrong somehow?
The now-found neutrinos have no mass (or very
little) and no charge and travel only at the speed of
light—and while traveling from Sun to Earth they
change into different forms, as they have three dif-
ferent forms into which they can metamorphose.
Is that the only evidence for solar fusion? Yes, that
is the only evidence for solar fusion. It is hard to
avoid the feeling that this is a rather tortured bit
of logic, held together by an unduly long chain of
assumptions.
We here recall Lord Rutherford’s worthy axiom,
that any scientific theory worth its salt should be
explicable to a barmaid, although barmaids may
not have such leisure time these days. As a science
historian I’d say that there is a perceived distrust
over the unreality of this new model.
Just about nothing on the surface of the Sun
looks remotely as if produced by thermonuclear
fire at the core. Indeed, none of the observed fea-
tures of the Sun—the corona, chromosphere, spic-
ules, granulation, sunspots, solar flares, and so
on—have any business being there
All of the stupendous drama we see on the
Sun’s surface looks electrical-magnetic in nature,
as if the electrical turmoil of the solar surface is
the source of the light with which the Sun shines.
Is not the photosphere a brilliant electrical dis-
charge phenomenon? Sunspots are dark instead of
bright, which is prima facie evidence that heat is
not trying to escape from within.
For half a century physicists have been trying
to produce stable fusion power—the much-touted
tion—and have got absolutely nowhere. They have
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
Close up of a sunspot; image from the La Palma
Telescope, Canary Islands, Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences, 2002.
always used its alleged occurrence inside the Sun
to justify their research grants.
The one and only thing that really has been
shown about thermonuclear power, is that it goes
bang rather quickly.
If I may bring in a bit of science here, the rate
of a thermonuclear reaction varies as the fourth
power of temperature. The reaction generates heat,
then the resulting increase in temperature very
sharply increases the reaction rate: which is why
the thing always tends to go bang!
Looking up at the serenity of the night sky, do
you want to believe the stars are burning from
such fusion power, as Hans Bethe averred? Yes
Fred Hoyle wrote the equations, from hydrogen
to helium to beryllium, that’s as far as it suppos-
edly goes inside the Sun. To explain all the other
elements in the Sun as shown by its spectrum,
one has to suppose that much bigger stars ear-
lier existed, producing all the heavier elements by
fusion, which then blew up and from which our
solar system condensed…
The “Electric Universe” Model
The “Electric Universe” people recently lost
their Wikipedia entry, around the time of their
2013 Arizona conference, optimistically entitled
“The Tipping Point.” Advocates of the Electric
Universe model suggest that these magnetic-elec-
trical phenomena on the surface do not come from
deep inside the Sun—and are what makes the Sun
shine. To quote Wal Thornhill at that conference,
– 84 –
concerning the image of a sunspot shown here:
“Does this sunspot look like turbulent boiling-hot
gas?”3 He added that there is “virtually no convec-
tion detectable on the Sun.”4
The matter of the Sun is non-atomic; it is in
“plasma” form. Does galactic energy light up stars,
by currents of electrical plasma? The Electric
Universe people have been focusing on this non-
atomic condition of matter as comprising 99.9% of
the universe. The two classic books on the subject
I recommend are The Electric Universe by Thorn-
hill and Talbot and The Electric Sky by Donald
Scott. Both have chapters about the Sun, contest-
ing the notion that it is powered by nuclear fusion,
whereas its current website www.electricuniverse
.info/Electric_Sun_theory only has this down as a
“speculative theory!”
This implosion of confidence has (I suggest)
derived from the apparent resolution of the solar-
neutrino dilemma over the last decade. Can the
whole “Electric Universe” story thereby be cast
as a pseudo-science that temporarily appeared,
during the decades while this missing-neutrino
dilemma flourished? I suggest not.
The ever-more close-up pictures of the solar sur-
face are looking ever-less like anything produced
by thermal energy emanating from the solar inte-
rior. The Solar surface has three different layers
interacting: the photosphere, the chromosphere
(“The chromosphere has spicules, long thin fingers
of luminous gas which appear like the blades of
a huge field of fiery grass growing upwards from
3 Wal Thornhill, The Tipping Point—Electric
Universe Conference (Albuquerque, NM, Jan. 3–6,
2013). See video of his talk: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=HgdJcghkri4 ‘From Cosmic Currents
to the Electric Sun’ (28 minutes into his talk). See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvX0CIIkN1c
for a ‘Time lapse sunspot’ for motion of the
filament lights into the sunspot.
4 Thornhill alluded to a recent article: Shravan M.
Hanasoge, ‘Anomalously weak solar convection,’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
in the United States of America, vol. 109, no. 30
(May 3, 2012), saying that convective velocities
were 20 to 100 times weaker than they should be,
just below the photosphere. See also the journal
Science, June 14, 2012.
 Power of the Sun
the photosphere below”5), and the corona. There
is a rather organic, biological feel about all this,
as tremendous electrical arcs and storm-activity
takes place.
A sunspot is where a magnetic field tube emerges
from the Sun, which loops round and reenters an
adjacent sunspot of opposite polarity. Symmetry
above and below the solar equator exists in such a
way that there tends to be a comparable sunspot-
cluster of reverse polarity in the other hemisphere
of the Sun, suggesting that tubes of magnetic force
might be going through the Sun. Such a complex
magnetic inner structure is hardly compatible with
the idea of thermonuclear fire at the center.
Sunspots grow and fade away in an eleven-year
cycle. Nothing on Earth resembles these self-
reversing magnetic-electrical processes that take
place every twenty-two years; it does not look at
all like a phenomenon produced by thermal con-
vection currents emanating from the Sun’s center.
Two very different paradigms are here involved.
Wrong-Way Temperature Gradient
The temperature gradient on the Sun is the sin-
gle greatest problem for the fusion-energy heat
model. The Sun’s corona mysteriously stays at
several million degrees centigrade. (NB: the solar
corona should not exist at all on the standard
model). Then the solar photosphere is about five
to six thousand degrees centigrade. We can see
below that into the center of a sunspot, and that is
only at three to four thousand degrees centigrade.
It appears dark because it is thus cooler. There is
a huge temperature gradient here, and it is totally
the wrong way.
This looks like a fatal flaw in the Standard
Model.
The Sun rotates faster at its equator than at its
poles (twenty-five days compared to thirty-five
days, as seen from Earth). That is a massive thirty-
percent differential in the rate of rotation. Astron-
omers have no clue why this is happening and, in
fact, keep rather quiet about it because they sus-
pect it’s going to wreck their theory. If there were
a central, thermonuclear heat source, with its heat
5 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosphere.
– 85 –
diffusing outward by convection currents, that
would soon stop, by friction, any such differen-
tial rotation. Such convection currents welling up
from the center—supposedly carrying heat to the
outside where it turns into light—would bring a
stop to any such differential rotation. Au contraire,
one would expect the flow of solar wind coming
from around the Sun’s equator and rotating round
at something like a twenty-seven-day period—it
fans out from the Sun in an Archimedes spiral—to
exert a retarding torque upon the equatorial rota-
tion. So, if anything, we should expect the solar
equator to be rotating more slowly.
The solar corona (which becomes visible dur-
ing solar eclipses) lacks this differential rotation
somewhat, and in this respect it does not look as if
the corona is being produced by the solar surface.
Heartbeat of the Sun
The heartbeat of the Sun every twenty-two
years is a self-reversing magnetic field. It’s quite
unearthly—i.e., one cannot easily model what
is going on. Long words like magneto-hydro-
dynamic appear here. Like everything we see on
Sol, it is in no way predicted or expected from the
standard model.
Let us meditate upon the glory and majesty of
this phenomenon. In 2013, a rather weak sunspot
maximum has been reached, which means that the
huge North–South magnetic field of the Sun had
faded away. It grows strongest at sunspot mini-
mum, then it starts to re-form, having reversed its
magnetic polarity. Thus, the North–South mag-
netic field of the Sun reverses every eleven years.
Just about everything on the solar surface is
affected by this huge eleven-year (or twenty-two-
year) cycle. It conditions just about everything
taking place on the solar surface, whereas there is
absolutely no reason for it to exist on the fusion-
thermal-energy model. At sunspot maximum, the
pale-pink chromosphere 6 expands somewhat and
becomes more visible, especially at the poles.
6 As pointed out by Ralph Jurgens, “The
Photosphere: Is It the Top or the Bottom of the
Phenomenon We Call the Sun?’ Kronos, vol. 4, no.
4 (summer 1979)—available as a PDF from http:
//www.kronos-press.com/juergens/index.htm.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
One theory of how the eleven-year cycle works
concerns the torsional lines of magnetic flux,
which become strained and stressed with the dif-
ferential rotation of the solar surface, thereby
pulling the sunspots closer to the equator—that
is, they move to lower solar latitude in the “but-
terfly” pattern, until the whole thing flips over
and starts again. That flip-over of sunspot pattern
happens at sunspot minimum, in contrast with the
big North–South solar magnetic polar field rever-
sal that happens at the maximum. Sunspots are
strongest when the North–South magnetic field
is weakest. If astronomers don’t say more about
this heartbeat of a star, which is unlike anything
else in the known universe, it is surely because the
entire cycle has no business to be there, according
to the fusion-energy model.
Here you might want to meditate upon the four-
stage systole–diastole of the human heart.
Or, you might want to look at tree-rings on the
stump of a tree that has been cut down. One can
usually see how every eleventh tree ring is the
thickest. Do you notice how astronomers never
want to talk about this? There is a deep biologi-
cal connection between the heartbeat at the cen-
ter of our solar system and all life on Earth, and
astronomers don’t want to mention it because it
doesn’t fit their theories.
The huge North–South magnetic field of the
Sun will have to pass through the center of the
Sun. Can one really have Sol’s magnetic field pass-
ing through a nuclear-fire core at over ten million
degrees centigrade? It sounds unlikely.
Paradigm Shift
Stars are too far away for us to be able to tell,
whether any of them has a self-reversing mag-
netic field. Sol is, as far as we know, unique. Does
neutrino flux density vary with the eleven-year
sunspot cycle—i.e., correlate with the number of
surface sunspots, as some have suggested? If so,
that would suggest they are a surface phenome-
non. That would indeed be a testable prediction
between the two theories. On the Electric Uni-
verse theory, nuclear fusion does take place but
in the tendrils coming out from the sunspots (see
image, above), which have had helium detected
– 86 –
around them. The center of the Sun may be quite
cool, as Sir William Herschel believed.
A pioneer of the Electric Universe model for the
Sun, Ralph Jurgens at Flagstaff, Arizona, wrote:
“. . . the established theory of stellar energy is
embarrassed by the mild behavior of the Sun’s
photospheric granules.” Conventionally, the pho-
tospheric granules are supposed to be the tops of
vigorous convection cells driven by the Sun’s cen-
tral nuclear furnace. Internal convection is essen-
tial to the Standard Solar Model, because convec-
tion is “somehow” supposed to generate the Sun’s
complex magnetic fields. These convection cur-
rents as not very evident.
For what makes the stars shine, there is a fine
talk by Wal Thornhill at the 2013 EU conference
“From Cosmic currents to the Electric Sun” (see
footnote 2). In “Anomalously Weak Solar Convec-
tion,” an article in the journal Science of June 14,
2012, Thornhill found that the Sun’s “convective
velocities are 20 to 100 times weaker than cur-
rent theoretical estimates . . . prompting the ques-
tion, what mechanism transports the heat flux
of a solar luminosity outwards?” He commented,
“That essentially means that the theory of how the
Sun works is incorrect.”
Isaac Newton wrote in his Principia that “natu-
ral phenomena of the same kind should be assigned
to the same causes,” giving the example, “the light
of a kitchen fire and of the Sun,” but that didn’t
work very well. Sol is very unearthly. Sol is some-
how able to shine on without exhausting itself;
that’s the mystery! Maybe we should just leave it,
as Goethe the German poet wrote:
The Sun-orb sings, in emulation,
’Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation
He ends with step of thunder-sound.
The angels from his visage splendid
Draw power, whose measure none can say;
Thy lofty works, uncomprehended,
Are bright as on the earliest day.
—Raphael, prelude to Faust
•
 BULLETIN ON BIODYNAMIC PEST CONTROL

Brian Keats

A Response and Follow-up to Malcolm Gard-

ner’s Bulletin on Biodynamic Weed Control
eight years. Over longer periods of time the pen-
tagram itself moves anticlockwise (a southern
hemisphere perspective) through the Zodiac so
This is not the case, however, with animal
peppers, which are therefore even more chal- that the points of the pentagram arrive approxi-
lenging to understand and create. But it should mately 2.3 days earlier each eight-year cycle.
be noted in passing that for vertebrate animal (Picture a five-pointed star rotating slowly). If we
pests Steiner recommended ashing their hides take the stars apexes to be superior conjunctions
when Venus is an evening star at “peak con- of Venus; Apex 1 in the diagram below left Scor-
junction” with Scorpius (i.e., in the middle of pio in 1924. Scorpio now lies between two points
the sidereal constellation), and that this event of the star with the left point (Apex 5) very slowly
will occur this fall on October 16th, at which approaching it. Once this apex of the pentagram
time Mercury will also be an evening star (wan- reaches Scorpio there will a superior conjunction
ing) and all the planets except Mercury and the
in Scorpio every eight years for thirteen cycles. In
moon will be descending.
this 2013 year we are on the Pisces series of supe-
There have been varied interpretations in biody- rior conjunctions (Apex 2) as we will be again
namic circles of what Steiner meant by “Venus has eight years hence in 2021.
to be behind the Sun” or the “high conjunction of
Venus” or “peak conjunction with Scorpius” as the
timing for burning the skins of animals that have
become pests. He also mentions that Venus needs
to be in the constellation of Scorpio for this opera-
tion. The understanding of Venus in Scorpius is
straightforward if a decision has been made as to
which zodiac is being used as a frame of reference.
The “peak conjunction” I take to mean that Venus
should be around superior conjunction and I have
discussed this with Malcolm in past years.
What is generally not realized is that Venus is
not always in Scorpio and at or near superior con-
junction each year. It is a rare event to have Venus It seems that the closer Venus is to superior
in Scorpio and exactly at Superior conjunction. conjunction when transiting through Scorpio
An exact alignment took place when the Kolis- the better the effect of the pepper. Some years,
kos did their mice pepper experiment in 1926. Venus is near inferior conjunction below the Sun
This has not occurred again since and will not sphere instead. In the case of Venus being at or
happen until 2190! Venus’s movements through near to inferior conjunction feel Venus’s gesture
the constellations describe a pentagram over would be directed to the Earth rather than being

– 87 –
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
out beyond the Sun sphere nearer to the stars and
opening Scorpio’s gates of fertility.
Revisiting the Kolisko
Mice Pepper Experiment
Back in the 1990s, I revisited the Kolisko’s exper-
iment with mice peppers and researched when the
experiment must have taken place.
Dr. Eugen and Dr. Lilly Kolisko’s observations
of mice extraordinary behavior were done in 1926,
when Venus was in Scorpio (both tropically and
sidereally!) and at superior conjunction. Quoting
their book Agriculture of Tomorrow (2nd ed.):
Our first experiment carried out in 1926 will
be described. We began by breeding a large
number of white mice in order to carry out the
necessary experiment during the constellation
of Venus. The mice were kept in glass cages
covered with wire mesh in a separate room,
well equipped for this purpose. Each cage con-
tained a male and a female mouse.
The day of the constellation came, the
exact hour for the experiment was fixed for
four o’clock in the afternoon. We examined the
mice every other hour, and found everything in
complete order. At two o’clock in the afternoon
we examined them for the last time, when feed-
ing them. Some minutes before four o’clock we
entered the room again and had a real shock.
In each of the cages one mouse was killed. The
female Mouse had killed the male. In all the
cages there was the same ghastly spectacle.
The killing was done so, that the female mouse
had bitten through the throat of the male, then
opened the skull and begun to eat the brain.
Some mice must have started earlier or worked
more quickly, because we found different
stages of this terrible process. In a few cages
the female mouse was sitting quietly beside the
‘victim, looking innocent, as if everything was
all right. Some mice had apparently first eaten
the brain, and then started to eat the other inner
organs, beginning with the lungs and working
downwards to liver and kidneys. Some stopped
after having eaten the brain they had bitten off
the four paws and placed them symmetrically
in a square in the sawdust.
We shall never forget this spectacle. Prob-
ably we had not fixed the right moment for
– 88 –
our experiment. The planet Venus came to
the highest effectiveness earlier than we pre-
sumed and the female mice acted under this
influence. No other explanation was possible.
The constellation of Venus had driven the
female mice to kill their mates in this extraor-
dinary way.
Rudolf Steiner really knew about all these
forces, how they work in the plants, in the
animals and in the human organism. All his
indications are correct. If we burn the seeds
of the plants we interfere with the forces of
reproduction in plant life. If we burn the
whole insect, we interfere with the reproduc-
tion in animal life, but then we must take the
sun into consideration. The sun must stand
at a certain place in the zodiac. If we burn
the skins of higher animals, we again inter-
fere with the force of reproduction—then we
must see that the planet Venus stands in a
certain constellation. That we are interfering
with the forces of reproduction is quite obvi-
ous from the fact that the female mouse killed
the male.”
The book states that the mice were killed some-
where between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. (European or
Universal Time with or without daylight savings
adjustments is a question) at some date in 1926. I
deduced that the experiment must have taken place
on November 21, 1926, because Venus arrived at
superior conjunction on that day and Venus had
already arrived in Scorpio. Venus was in Scorpio
from November 18 to December 12.
In 2012, I decided to reinvestigate the Kolisko
mice pepper experiment with new findings I had
from my weather researches.
I placed a map of the sidereal zodiac onto the
Earth, a so-called geodetic projection. To do that
0 0 Aries was offset westward 230 from Greenwich
in line with the equator. The zodiac band was laid
across a map of the Earth to form twelve equal
division bands at right angles to the equator (NB
not to the ecliptic). The following map from my
Astro Calendar editions illustrates this.
 Bulletin on Biodynamic Pest Control
I then took a section of a projection map, placed
the planets on to it, and noted that Venus, Sun,
and Saturn all had a time–space relationship to
the area in which the experiment took place as
per map below.
On the map for the November 21, 1926, 12:35
p.m. Universal Time, the time of the Venus supe-
rior conjunction in Scorpio, you will see a verti-
cal line where Taurus begins between the symbols
for Taurus. East of that line for the next 30 0 will
come under Taurus. NB. The book states that the
experiment was planned for 4pm but later states
“...the planet Venus came to the highest effective-
ness earlier than we presumed.” It also does not
specify when the pepper preparation was made
or applied.
To the east of the Taurus line are three dotted
lines. These three lines indicate the lines of lon-
gitude (meridian lines) that the Sun, Saturn, and
Venus are on, however they are on the opposite
side of the Earth in Scorpio and working through
the Earth into this region of Europe. They also
indicate that a triple conjunction took place (the
lines are on top of each other). Not only was there
a Sun–Venus conjunction (superior conjunction)
on the November 21 at 12:26:35 UT but on the
same day Venus was conjunct Saturn at 16:41:27
UT and Sun conjunct Saturn at 17:52:05 UT. Euro-
pean time would be +1 hour to UT and would not
– 89 –
make any difference to the Taurus longitude line
position and little difference to the planetary lines.
Three conjunctions took place in a very short
interval of time when the extraordinary mice
behavior was observed.
In my weather research work I have both
observed and forecast that extreme weather events
can occur when multiple lunar or planetary aspects
occur in a short interval of time. In the case of
lunar events if two events like that of perigee
and full moon are concurrent or near concurrent
(within 24 hours) then severe to extreme weather
events are highly likely to take place worldwide.
In the case of planetary events triple conjunctions,
cyclones to Earthquakes have taken place along
the meridian circles (or harmonics of them) indi-
cated on the projection maps. Examples are given
on my website article from www.astro-calendar.
com then Research > Extreme Weather.
In light of these investigations I think it is fair to
say that we are not going to be able to reproduce
the Koliskos experiment and the added Saturn
conjunctions need to be considered when trying
to understand the extraordinary events that took
place. It was a far greater event than a Venus supe-
rior conjunction in Scorpio. Saturn and the triple
conjunction had a part to play. I do not think Dr.
Kolisko was correct when the writer stated “No
other explanation was possible!”
Rudolf Steiner excerpts:
Now, imagine that you do the following: You
catch a fairly young mouse and skin it, so as
to get the skin. There you have the skin of a
fairly young mouse. (There are always enough
mice, albeit they must be field mice if you wish
to make this experiment). But you must obtain
this skin of the field mouse at a time when
Venus is in the sign of Scorpio.
At the time when Venus is in Scorpio, you
obtain the skin of the mouse and burn it. Care-
fully collect the ash and the other constituents
that remain over from the burning.
Provided it has been led through the fire at the
high conjunction of Venus and Scorpio, you
will find this an excellent remedy.
 BACKGROUND TO LUNAR PERIGEE PLANTINGS
Brian Keats
BIODYNAMIC CALENDAR GUILD
AND R ESEARCH
A n informal international guild of calendar
compilers was formed in February 2012 with
the aim of working collaboratively with Mark
Moodie to further research into biodynamic plant-
ing practices. Mark who has set up databases to
gather and analyze research results through www.
considera.org took advantage of a visit of mine to
the UK to organise a face-to-face meeting with
Nick Kollerstrom, Mark and I as well as having
Sherry Wildfeuer join us via phone. As a result of
this meeting we agreed upon dates and times that
could be helpful in the investigation of the effects
of 2013 eclipses on seed plantings. These were
then published in four calendars: Stella Natura
(Sherry), Gardening and Planting by the Moon
(Nick) and my Antipodean Astro Calendar and
Northern Hemisphere Astro Calendar. Mark is
still gathering data from this international experi-
ment and the results will not be known in time for
the 2014 calendar editions.
This same guild, in conjunction with Mark, met
by phone in June 2013. The feedback was that
there had been small but significant and encour-
aging participation in the experiment from both
hemispheres. We then decided upon the following
for 2014: 1) to invite other calendar compilers to
join the guild; 2) to suggest dates for readers to
continue investigating the question “Does plant-
ing seeds at the time of an eclipse have a negative
effect on the germination and growth of a plant?”;
3) to offer dates to investigate a second question
“Does planting seeds at the time of a lunar peri-
gee have a negative effect on the germination and
growth of a plant?” Lunar perigee is defined as the
– 90 –
moon’s closest distance to the earth in its 27.55-
day cycle.
Background to Lunar Perigee Plantings
Maria Thun advocated that planting seeds in the
hours around a lunar perigee was not beneficial to
subsequent plant growth. Maria Thun based cal-
endars have this period marked as a non-planting
time.
I am of the opinion this is true for some of the
perigees but not all of them and more so in some
years than in other years. This opinion comes from
my experience in observing the weather, being
familiar with astronomical rhythms, and realizing
that the weather and the plants are dancing to the
same tune that is being called by the Sun, Moon,
planets, and stars.
Every perigee is different, as is every full moon,
as is every peak declination (ascension or descen-
sion). I have just listed three different lunar
rhythms that take place every month. It is impor-
tant to consider them in relationship to each other.
You will find that up to twice in every year the
perigee takes place within twelve hours of the
Full or New Moon—that is, the perigee/apogee
rhythm is in synch with the lunar phase rhythm.
This beautiful fact comes about as fourteen full-
moon cycles takes 413.32 days and fifteen perigee
cycles takes 413.42 days. When this occurs you
will notice:
it is the closest perigee of the year (proxigee)
around 357,000kms;
a fortnight before or after the proxigee is the
most distant apogee around 406,600km;
there are very high and very low tides in this
period;
 Background to Lunar Perigee Plantings
there will be widespread unusual or extreme
occurrences of weather (including
earthquakes).
These lunar periods are known as “supermoons,”
a term coined by Richard Nolle and defined as “a
New or Full Moon that occurs with the Moon
within 90% of its closest approach to Earth.” The
supermoons are 7.5 lunar months apart, alternat-
ing between New and Full Moons. This half of
the 413-day cycle. Sun, Moon and the Earth are
in a straight line on this occasions (syzygy). Lunar
rhythms have a correlation to rhythms in all fluids
(including molten lava beneath our tectonic plates
and plant sap). The extreme weather tends to be in
a period three days either side of the the proxigee
moon.
In 2014 the perigee distances will range between
356,900 at the proxigees to 369,800kms. Tidal
forces are inversely proportional to the cube of the
Moon’s distance and consequently there are huge
differences within this range. It is well worth tak-
ing note of those perigees under 358,000kms each
year.
In my experience of perigees prevailing climatic
and weather/atmospheric conditions become exag-
gerated. If is tending towards wet, then it will be
very wet and if it is a hot period, then it will be
very hot! If it was summer I could expect floods
in the tropics but heat waves in a temperate zone.
This could be fine-tuned by consulting a synoptic
weather forecast to see where the high and low-
pressure cells are likely to be located (I publish an
annual forecast for Australia one year in advance).
With a sense of anticipation of what could hap-
pen weather-wise in a particular month I can
plan my horticultural activities. If a close perigee
(under 360,000kms) is pending when my prevail-
ing weather conditions have been warm and moist
I could expect fungal activity to be rife and take
prophylactic actions accordingly. That perigee,
under those conditions, would obviously have a
negative effect on seed plantings. However if con-
ditions had been very dry it could well turn out to
be a favorable time.
You will find the more distant perigees are
further away, time wise, from the Full and New
– 91 –
Moons, the respective lunar rhythms are not in
synch.
I am quite sure our horticultural activities and
future research will be far more fruitful when we
become more aware of the interplay of the vari-
ous lunar rhythms and carry out our gardening
and farming, as well as designing our experiments,
accordingly.
Why choose 2014 to run a
Lunar Perigee experiment?
I will start by saying why 2013 was not a good
time to run the experiment!
I have already mentioned that every 7.5 and 15
lunar months the phase cycle synchronizes with
the perigee/apogee cycle (206.5 and 413 days).
Well, every year, another two lunar rhythms
come into phase with each other. Around every
winter solstice the Full Moon coincides with its
peak ascension. When the Sun is at its weakest the
Moon is at its strongest. These two rhythms are
opposite around every summer solstice. When the
Sun is strong the Full Moon is weak.
In 2013, three lunar rhythms came into synch
culminating in the June Full Moon which took
place on the perigee and at peak ascension. All
three have correlations to increasing tide heights.
All three indicated relationships to seed germina-
tion rates in Ernst Zurcher’s report on research
work into plant rhythms “Chronobiology of Trees:
synthesis of traditional phytopractices and scien-
tific research, as a tool of future forestry.”
Having an extra lunar rhythm in synch with the
perigee cycle to contend with in 2013 was not ideal.
The year 2014 does not have that complication
and in the table below are the perigee dates with
distances of the Earth from the Moon. The zodia-
cal element as per Thun is also given to help in the
choice of seeds to plant. The closest perigees are
numbered 1 to 4— NB there are two proxigees,
one at New Moon and one at Full. The proxigee
New Moon will give the highest tide of the year,
which will be supported by the perihelion that
week. The proxigee Full Moon will give you high
tides, too, but that month will have the lowest
neap tides.
 The 2014 perigees are all taking place in the
southern hemisphere. The perigees progress
through the zodiac and hence the hemispheres
as 5 zodiacal constellations are over the southern
hemisphere and 5 of the north (Pisces and Virgo
are over the equator). The 2015 proxigee Moon
will be in Pisces and by 2016 it will be in Aries and
thereby over the northern hemisphere.
I suggest that the perigees in 2014 will have a
more pronounced effect in the southern hemi-
sphere, particularly over the late winter period
with the proxigee taking place in August. Repeat-
ing the experiment in 2016 for example, would help
to discern if there is a hemispherean difference in
a perigee’s influence on seed germination or plant
growth.
Dates and Times for the planting trials are given
below in three time zone sections:
NB The times given are the exact times for the
perigees and the central point of the eclipses. The
period of effect is generally considered to be 12
hours either side of these times.
In the Astro Calendars the suggested experimen-
tal planting period is highlighted.
Mark Moodie’s website www.considera.org
/2014planting.html will have more details of the
research project and helpful suggestions.
•

LUNAR P ERIGEE EXPERIMENT DATES AND TIMES FOR 2014 TRIALS

Jan. 1 21:00 Perigee: 356,921 fruit/seed 2 New Moon: Proxigee

Jan. 30 9:58 Perigee: 357,100 earth root New Moon
Feb. 27 19:52 Perigee: 360,400 earth root
Mar. 27 19:30 Perigee: 365,700 air
Apr. 23 1:27 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
May 18 12:58 Perigee: 367,100 fruit/seed
Jun. 15 4:34 Perigee: 362,100 fruit/seed
Jul. 13 9:27 Perigee: 358,300 earth root 3 Full Moon
Aug. 10 18:43 Perigee: 356,896 earth root 1 Full Moon: Proxigee
Sep. 8 4:29 Perigee: 358,400 air
Oct. 6 10:41 Perigee: 362,500 air 4 Full Moon
Nov. 3 0:21 Perigee: 367,900 air
Nov. 27 23:11 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
Dec. 24 16:43 Perigee: 364,800 earth root

Apr. 15 7:00 Lunar Eclipse earth/air

Apr. 29 6:14 Solar Eclipse fruit/seed
Oct. 8 10:51 Lunar Eclipse air
Oct. 24 9:57 Solar Eclipse air

– 92 –
 Background to Lunar Perigee Plantings

Jan. 2 7:00 Perigee: 356,921 fruit/seed 2 New Moon: Proxigee

Jan. 30 19:58 Perigee: 357,100 earth root New Moon
Feb. 28 5:52 Perigee: 360,400 earth root
Mar. 28 5:30 Perigee: 365,700 air
Apr. 23 11:27 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
May 18 22:58 Perigee: 367,100 fruit/seed
Jun. 15 14:34 Perigee: 362,100 fruit/seed
Jul. 13 19:27 Perigee: 358,300 earth root 3 Full Moon
Aug. 11 4:43 Perigee: 356,896 earth root 1 Full Moon: Proxigee
Sep. 8 14:29 Perigee: 358,400 air
Oct. 6 20:41 Perigee: 362,500 air 4 Full Moon
Nov. 3 10:21 Perigee: 367,900 air
Nov. 28 9:11 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
Dec. 25 2:43 Perigee: 364,800 earth root

Apr. 15 17:42 Lunar Eclipse earth/air

Apr. 29 16:14 Solar Eclipse fruit/seed
Oct. 8 20:51 Lunar Eclipse air
Oct. 24 19:57 Solar Eclipse air

Jan. 1 13:00 Perigee: 356,921 fruit/seed 2 New Moon: Proxigee

Jan. 30 1:58 Perigee: 357,100 earth root New Moon
Feb. 27 11:52 Perigee: 360,400 earth root
Mar. 27 11:30 Perigee: 365,700 air
Apr. 22 17:27 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
May 18 4:58 Perigee: 367,100 fruit/seed
Jun. 14 20:34 Perigee: 362,100 fruit/seed
Jul. 13 1:27 Perigee: 358,300 earth root 3 Full Moon
Aug. 11 10:43 Perigee: 356,896 earth root 1 Full Moon: Proxigee
Sep. 8 20:29 Perigee: 358,400 air
Oct. 6 2:41 Perigee: 362,500 air 4 Full Moon
Nov. 3 16:21 Perigee: 367,900 air
Nov. 28 15:11 Perigee: 369,800 earth root
Dec. 25 8:43 Perigee: 364,800 earth root

Apr. 15 23:42 Lunar Eclipse earth/air

Apr. 29 22:14 Solar Eclipse fruit/seed
Oct. 8 2:51 Lunar Eclipse air
Oct. 24 1:57 Solar Eclipse air

– 93 –
 WORKING WITH THE STAR CALENDAR
Robert Powell, Ph.D.
I n taking note of the astronomical events listed
in the Star Calendar of the Journal for Star Wis-
dom (JSW), it is important to distinguish between
long- and short-term astronomical events. Long-
term astronomical events—for example, Pluto
transiting a particular degree of the zodiac—will
have a longer period of meditation than would the
five days advocated for short-term astronomical
events such as the new and Full Moon. The fol-
lowing describes, in relation to meditating on the
Full Moon, a meditative process extending over a
five-day period.
Sanctification of the Full Moon
As a preliminary remark, let us remind our-
selves that the great sacrifice of Christ on the
Cross—the Mystery of Golgotha—took place at
Full Moon. As Christ’s sacrifice took place when
the Moon was full in the middle of the sidereal
sign of Libra, the Libra Full Moon assumes spe-
cial significance in the sequence of twelve (or thir-
teen) Full Moons taking place during the cycle of
the year. In following this sequence, the Mystery
of Golgotha serves as an archetype for every Full
Moon, since each Full Moon imparts a particular
spiritual blessing. Hence the practice described
here of Sanctification of the Full Moon applies
to every Full Moon. Similarly, there is also the
practice of Sanctification of the New Moon, as
described in Hermetic Astrology, Volume 2:
Astrological Biography, chapter 10.
During the two days prior to the Full Moon,
we can consider the focus of one’s meditation to
extend over these two days as preparatory days
immediately preceding the day of the Full Moon.
These two days can be dedicated to spiritual
reflection and detachment from everyday con-
cerns, as one prepares to become a vessel for the
in-streaming light and love one will receive at the
– 94 –
Full Moon, something that one can then impart
further—for example, to help people in need, or
to support Mother Earth in times of catastrophe.
During these two days, it is helpful to hold an atti-
tude of dedication and service and try to assume
an attitude of receptivity that opens to what one’s
soul will receive and subsequently impart—an
attitude conducive to making one a true servant
of the spirit.
The day of the Full Moon is itself a day of hold-
ing the sacred space. In doing so, one endeavors
to cultivate inner peace and silence, during which
one attempts to contact and consciously hold the
in-streaming blessing of the Full Moon for the rest
of humanity. One can heighten this silent medita-
tion by visualizing the zodiacal constellation/side-
real sign in which the Moon becomes full, since
the Moon serves to reflect the starry background
against which it appears.
If the Moon is full in Virgo, for example, it
reminds us of the night of the birth of the Jesus
child visited by the three magi, as described in
the Gospel of St. Matthew. That birth occurred
at the Full Moon in the middle of the sidereal
sign of Virgo, and the three magi, who gazed up
that evening to behold the Full Moon against the
background of the stars of the Virgin, witnessed
the soul of Jesus emerge from the disk of the
Full Moon and descend toward Earth. They par-
ticipated from afar, via the starry heavens, in the
Grail Mystery of the holy birth.
In meditating upon the Full Moon and opening
oneself to receive the in-streaming blessing from
the starry heavens, we can exercise restraint by
avoiding the formulation of what will happen or
what one might receive from the Full Moon. More-
over, we can also refrain from seeking tangible
results or effects connected with our attunement
to the Full Moon. Even if we observe only the date
 Working with the Star Calendar

but not the exact moment when the Moon is full,
it is helpful to find quiet time to reflect alone or
to use the opportunity for deep meditation on the
day of the full moon.
We can think of the two days following the full
moon as a time of imparting what we have received
from the in-streaming of the full disk of the Moon
against the background of the stars. It is now pos-
sible to turn our attention toward humanity and
the world and endeavor to pass on any spiritual
blessing we have received from the starry heavens.
Thereby we can assist in the work of the spiritual
world by transforming what we have received into
goodwill and allowing it to flow wherever the
greatest need exists.
It is a matter of holding a sacred space through-
out the day of the full moon. This is an important
time to still the mind and maintain inner peace.
It is a time of spiritual retreat and contact with
the spiritual world, of holding in one’s conscious-
ness the archetype of the Mystery of Golgotha as
a great outpouring of Divine Love that bridges
Heaven and Earth. Prior to the day of the full
moon, the two preceding days prepare the sacred
space as a vessel to receive the heavenly blessing.
The two days following the day of the full moon
are a time to assimilate and distribute the spiri-
tual transmission received into the sacred space we
have prepared.
One can apply the process described here as a
meditative practice in relation to the full moon to
any of the astronomical events listed in the JSW,
especially as most of these remember significant
Christ Events. Take note, however, whether an
event is long-term or short-term and adjust the
period of meditative practice accordingly.

“The shadow intellect that is characteristic of all modern culture has fettered
human beings to the Earth. They have eyes only for earthly things, particularly
when they allow themselves to be influenced by the claims of modern science. In
our age it never occurs to someone that their being belongs not to the Earth alone
but to the cosmos beyond the Earth. Knowledge of our connection with the cos-
mos beyond the Earth—that is what we need above all to make our own. . . . When
someone says ‘I’ to themselves, they experience a force that is working within,
and the [ancient] Greek, in feeling the working of this inner force, related it to
the Sun; . . . the Sun and the ‘I’ are the outer and inner aspects of one being. The
Sun out there in space is the cosmic ‘I.’ What lives within me is the human ‘I’. . . .
Human beings are not primarily a creation of Earth. Human beings receive their
shape and form from the cosmos. The human being is an offspring of the world
of stars, above all of the Sun and Moon. . . . The Moon forces stream out from a
center in the metabolic system. . . . [The] Moon stimulates reproduction. . . . Sat-
urn works chiefly in the upper part of the astral body. . . . Jupiter has to do with
thinking . . . Mars [has] to do with speech. . . . The Mercury forces work in the part
of the human organism that lies below the region of the heart . . . in the breathing
and circulatory functions. . . . Venus works preeminently in the etheric body of the
human being.”
— Rudolf Steiner, Offspring of the World of Stars, May 5, 1921

– 95 –
 SYMBOLS USED IN CHARTS

P LANETS ZODIACAL SIGNS A SPECTS

‰ Earth a Aries (Ram) q Conjunction 0º

Q Sun s Taurus (Bull) t Sextile 60º

W Moon d Gemini (Twins) r Square 90º

E Mercury f Cancer (Crab) e Trine 120º

R Venus g Leo (Lion) w Opposition 180º

T Mars h Virgo (Virgin)

Y Jupiter j Libra (Scales)

U Saturn k Scorpio (Scorpion)

‚ Uranus l Sagittarius (Archer)

O Neptune v Capricorn (Goat)

P Pluto x Aquarius (Water Carrier)

c Pisces (Fishes)

OTHER
‹ Ascending (North) Node p Sun Eclipse
ΠDescending (South) Node Moon Eclipse
P Perihelion/Perigee Inferior Conjunction
A Aphelion/Apogee Superior Conjunction
Maximum Latitude Chiron
Minimum Latitude

– 96 –
 TIME
T o help readers work with the information
given in the ephemerides, we are adding new
information to last year’s text—see “New.”
The information relating to daily geocentric and
heliocentric planetary positions in the sidereal
zodiac is tabulated in the form of an ephemeris
for each month, in which the planetary positions
are given at 0 hours Universal Time (UT) each day.
Beneath the geocentric and heliocentric ephem-
eris for each month, the information relating to
planetary aspects is given in the form of an aspec-
tarian, which lists the most important aspects—
geocentric and heliocentric/hermetic—between
the planets for the month in question. The day and
the time of occurrence of the aspect on that day
are indicated, all times being given in Universal
Time (UT), which is identical to Greenwich Mean
Time (GMT). For example, zero hours Universal
Time is midnight GMT. This time system applies
in Britain; however, when summer time is in effect,
one hour must be added to all times.
** In other time zones, the time has to be adjusted
according to whether it is ahead of or behind Brit-
ain. For example, in Germany, where the time is
one hour ahead of British time, an hour must be
added; when summer time is in effect in Germany,
two hours have to be added to all times.
Using the calendar in the United States, do the
following subtraction from all time indications
according to time zone:
• Pacific Time subtract 8 hours
(7 hours for daylight saving time);
• Mountain Time subtract 7 hours
(6 hours for daylight saving time);
• Central Time subtract 6 hours
(5 hours for daylight saving time);
• Eastern Time subtract 5 hours
(4 hours for daylight saving time).
– 97 –
This subtraction will often change the date of an
astronomical occurrence, shifting it back one day.
Consequently, since most of the readers of this cal-
endar live on the American Continent, astronomi-
cal occurrences during the early hours of day x are
sometimes listed in the Commentaries as occur-
ring on days x–1/x. For example, an eclipse occur-
ring at 03:00 UT on the 12th is listed as occurring
on the 11/12th since in America it takes place on
the 11th.1
NEW
The preceding procedure can be greatly simplified.
Here is an example for someone wishing to know
the zodiacal locations of the planets on Christmas
Day, December 25, 2014. Looking at the Decem-
ber ephemeris, it can be seen that Christmas Day
falls on a Thursday. In the upper tabulation, the
geocentric planetary positions are given, with that
of the Sun indicated in the first column, that of the
Moon in the second column, and so on. The posi-
tion of the Sun is listed as 8 09’ Sagittarius.
For someone living in London, 8 09’ Sagittarius
is the Sun’s position at midnight, December 24/25,
2014—noting that in London and all of the United
Kingdom, the Time Zone applying there is that
of Universal Time/Greenwich Mean Time—UT/
GMT.
For someone living in Sydney, Australia, which
on Christmas Day is eleven hours ahead of UT/
GMT, 8 09’ Sagittarius is the Sun’s position at 11
a.m. on December 25.
For someone living in California, which is
eight hours behind UT/GMT on Christmas Day,
1 See General Introduction to the Christian Star
Calendar: A Key to Understanding for an in-depth
clarification of the features of the calendar in the
Journal for Star Wisdom, including indications as
to how to work with it.
 Journal for Star Wisdom 2015
8 09’ Sagittarius is the Sun’s position at 4 p.m. on
December 24.
For the person living in California, therefore,
in order to know the positions of the planets on
December 25, it is necessary to look at the entries
for December 26. The result is:
For someone living in California, which is eight
hours behind UT/GMT on Christmas Day, the
Sun’s position at 4 p.m. on December 25 is 9 10’
Sagittarius and by the same token, the Moon’s
position on Christmas Day at 4 p.m. on Decem-
ber 25 is 2 34’ Aquarius—these are the positions
alongside December 26 at midnight UT/GMT—
and eight hours earlier equates with 4 p.m. on
December 25 in California.
From these examples it emerges that the plan-
etary positions as given in the ephemeris can be
utilized, but that according to the Time Zone one
is in, the time of day is different and also for loca-
tions West of the United Kingdom the date changes
(look at the date following the actual date).
Here is a tabulation in relation to the foregoing
example of December 25 (Christmas Day).
UNITED K INGDOM, EUROPE,
A ND A LL LOCATIONS WITH
TIME ZONES EAST OF GREENWICH
Look at what is given alongside December 25—
these entries indicate the planetary positions at
these times:
• 12:00 a.m. (midnight December 24/25) in
London (UT/GMT)
• 01:00 a.m. in Berlin (CENTRAL EURO-
PEAN TIME, which is one hour ahead of
UT/GMT)
• 11:00 a.m. in Sydney (AUSTRALIAN
EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME, which is
eleven hours ahead of UT/GMT)
– 98 –
CANADA, USA, CENTRAL A MERICA,
SOUTH A MERICA, AND A LL LOCATIONS
WITH TIME ZONES WEST OF GREENWICH
Look at what is given alongside December 26—
these entries indicate the planetary positions at
these times:
• 7:00 p.m. in New York (EASTERN
STANDARD TIME, which is five hours
behind UT/GMT)
• 6:00 p.m. in Chicago (CENTRAL STAN-
DARD TIME, which is six hours behind
UT/GMT)
• 5:00 p.m. in Denver (MOUNTAIN
STANDARD TIME, which is seven
hours behind UT/GMT)
• 4:00 p.m. in San Francisco (PACIFIC
STANDARD TIME, which is eight
hours behind UT/GMT)
• IF SUMMER TIME IS IN USE, ADD
ONE HOUR—FOR EXAMPLE:
• 8:00 p.m. in New York (EASTERN
DAYLIGHT TIME, which is four hours
behind UT/GMT)
• 7:00 p.m. in Chicago (CENTRAL DAY-
LIGHT TIME, which is five hours behind
UT/GMT)
• 6:00 p.m. in Denver (MOUNTAIN DAY-
LIGHT TIME, which is six hours behind
UT/GMT)
• 5:00 p.m. in San Francisco (PACIFIC
DAYLIGHT TIME, which is seven hours
behind UT/GMT)
Note that in the preceding tabulation, the time
given in Sydney on Christmas Day, December 25,
is in terms of Daylight Time. Six months earlier,
on June 25, for someone in Sydney they would
look alongside the entry in the ephemeris for June
25 and would know that this applies (for them)
to . . .
 Time

• 10:00 a.m. in Sydney (AUSTRALIAN
EASTERN TIME, which is ten hours
ahead of UT/GMT).
In these examples, it is not just the position of
the Sun that is referred to. The same applies to
the zodiacal locations given in the ephemeris for
all the planets, whether geocentric (upper tabula-
tion) or heliocentric (lower tabulation). All that
is necessary to apply this method of reading the
ephemeris is to know the Time Zone in which
one is and to apply the number of hours differ-
ence from UT/GMT.
The advantage of using the method described
here is that it greatly simplifies reference to the
ephemeris when studying the zodiacal positions
of the planets. However, for applying the time
indications listed under “Ingresses” or “Aspects”
it is still necessary to add or subtract the time dif-
ference from UT/GMT as described in the above
paragraph denoted **.
•

“Why does a feeling of grandeur, of reverent awe, come over us when we look up into

the starry heavens? It is because without our knowing it the feeling of our soul’s home

awakens in us. The feeling awakens: Before you came down to earth to a new incarna-

tion, you yourself were in those stars, and out of the stars have come the highest forces

that are within you. Your moral law was imparted to you when you were dwelling in

the world of stars. When you practice self-knowledge, you can behold what the starry

heaven bestowed upon you between death and a new birth—the best and finest powers

of your soul. What we behold in the starry heavens is the moral law that is given to us

from the spiritual worlds, for between death and a new birth we live in these starry

heavens. One should contemplate the starry heavens with feelings such as these. . . . If

we then raise our eyes to the starry heavens, we will be filled with a feeling of reverence

and will know that this is the memory of the human being’s eternal home.”

—Rudolf Steiner (Life Between Death and Rebirth, Nov. 18, 1912)

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COMMENTARIES AND EPHEMERIDES
JA N UA RY– DE C E M B E R 2 015
Claudia McLaren Lainson and Sally Nurney

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Commentaries and Ephemerides:

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Journal for Star Wisdom 2014

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