Here I want to elaborate a bit on my understanding of the cycle of Avatars and Buddhas, and their relationship to each other. I take as a point of departure Valentin Tomberg’s presentation of Avatars and Buddhas in his Letter-Meditation on the Fool. He characterises Avatars as transcendent beings who descend in order to guide humanity out of a gesture of grace; on the other hand Buddhas are human beings who work their way upwards into the spiritual world out of their own efforts, becoming a beacon and an example for other human beings. He paints a picture of the successor to Gautama Buddha—Maitreya Bodhisattva—gradually working his way up to be able to unite himself with the descending Kalki Avatar, culminating in the 5th millennium as the being Maitreya Buddha. I pose the hypothesis that Maitreya Bodhisattva is none other than the Cain individuality in a previous article, and that Kalki Avatar is his twin-soul, who was rejected and smothered by Cain, an inner event that manifested itself outwardly in the fratricide of Abel. The story of our time is bound up with the gradual reunion of these twin brothers.
Now, traditionally there are ten Avatars of Vishnu, appearing or ruling more or less sequentially. The earliest of these Avatars are in animal form; the fourth is half man, half beast; only with the fifth do we have a fully human form (albeit in miniature). The tenth and last of these Avatars appears in our own time, in the Satya Yuga after Kali Yuga, as Kalki Avatar.
On the other hand, we have the circle of twelve Bodhisattvas who, in turns of 5000 years each, work their way upwards to Buddhahood, after which they pass on their mantle to the next Buddha-to-be. Gautama Buddha was the sixth Buddha; therefore, the first Buddha began his path to Buddhahood some 30,000 years before Gautama. This would put the start of the path of the first Buddha sometime around the fall of humanity and the extrusion of the Moon in the middle of the Lemurian Age (which began around the year 37,467 BC; the fall happened somewhere in the middle, so around the year 30,000 BC; Gautama incarnated in the 6th-5th centuries BC, so 30,000 years earlier would bring us more or less to the same time). Maitreya is the seventh bodhisattva, and will be the last to attain Buddhahood before the return of the Moon to the Earth (around the year 5734). After Maitreya there are five further Buddhas to come, who will lead humanity during the 6th and 7th Ages, up until the time of the Sun’s reuniting with the Earth.
It is notable that Kalki is the final Avatar, on the one hand, and on the other hand, that Maitreya is the last Buddha before the Moon returns to the Earth. For after this event, there will no longer be sexual procreation or physical incarnation in the sense with which we are familiar and have been for millennia. The five final Buddhas will not have accompanying Avatars because, after the advent of Maitreya Buddha, the alchemical marriage of transcendent and earthly will have achieved complete fusion. Thereafter, the Buddhas will in a certain sense be Avatars at the same time: they will be etheric incarnations rather than completely physical ones.
Let’s assume for the moment that up until the time of Maitreya, there is an Avatar guiding or accompanying each of the Buddhas—in a certain sense, as their guardian angel (the guardian angel of Gautama Buddha is mentioned often enough by Rudolf Steiner, and indeed is supposedly Vidar—the Scandinavian Archangelic being who has taken over as Solar Archangel for Michael after his rise to Archai or Spirit of the Age of the Consciousness Soul about a century ago. More on this perhaps in a future article). This would also give the Avatars a 5,000 year cycle. In that case, the first of the Avatars would have been guiding developing humanity some 50,000 years ago (give or take)—some time before the extrusion of the Moon and the start of the cycle of Buddhas.
In fact, we can see that the start of the cycle of Avatars began in the Hindu “Golden Age.” The cycle of Ages (or Yugas) begins with a 20,000 year Golden Age (Krita Yuga); a 15,000 year Silver Age (Treta Yuga); a 10,000 year Bronze Age (Dvapara Yuga); and a 5,000 year Dark Age (Kali Yuga) which just ended in 1899. Therefore, this cycle of Yugas began just over 50,000 years ago, and will finish in the 4399, after the 2,500 year Light Age (Satya Yuga).
It was around this time that the Sun separated from the Earth, in the Hyperborean Age preceding the Lemurian. And so we can see that the first three Avatars—appearing in animal form—incarnate during this Golden Age of Hyperborea into early Lemuria, before the human being is fully formed and fully incarnating. With the fourth, appearing in half man, half animal form, we have the first Avatar of the time of the Moon’s extrusion in the middle of Lemuria. This is the first Avatar to “overlight” or guide a bodhisattva on the path to Buddhahood. The ten Avatars overall, as a cycle of beings, are on a path of gradual descent—a process of birth and incarnation. They have their time from the separation of the Sun in Hyperborea, until the reunion of the Moon in approximately 4000 years time. The final seven of the ten Avatars work in conjunction with the first seven of the Buddhas—coming into ever deeper relationship and earthly union with them, culminating in the Maitreya Buddha uniting completely with the Kalki Avatar.
On the other hand, the Buddhas began their path when the Moon separated from the Earth in Lemurian times, and will only complete their path when the Sun reunites with the Earth in the last great Age, some 30,000 years from now. Theirs is a path of ascent, of death and excarnation—of re-spiritualizing that which has become completely mineral. They gradual work themselves up to being able to completely take in an Avatar being, a process that has become closer and closer and will again reach its culmination at the union of Maitreya and Kalki in 2400 years time. After this point, there will be no difference any longer between Avatar and Buddha—the final five operate in as different a modality in comparison to the first seven Buddhas as do the first three Avatar in comparison to the final seven.
Perhaps in a forthcoming article we will look at who some of these Avatars may have been, and how they are related to the twin souls of the Holy Family (for example, Krishna is the eighth avatar, but is also known to be identical with the Nathan Jesus, the twin soul of Adam/John the Baptist). More to come at some point down the road…
Here I want to clarify what I referenced in the previous article about the Mystery of Joseph, in which I referenced two forms of dating the Book of Revelation which lead to a culminating year of 3200 AD. There are any number of ways of “accurately” dating the Book of Revelation, since this is a multivalent work of sacred art akin to the Tarot of Marseilles. One could think of the Book of Revelation as a description of Archetypal Time, analogous to Goethe’s Archetypal Plant. The forms, gestures, and movements of the text will be consistent across different literal lengths of linear time, but those lengths of time are specific embodiments of the overarching timing (emphasis on the verb aspect of this word) of Revelation.
Clear as mud!
Let’s look together at a few of the different ways this text unfolds in time, with one motive being to find out where we are in that timing. One of Rudolf Steiner’s earliest lecture cycles on the Apocalypse (see here), he describes the various levels of the revelation in relation to anthroposophical cultural epochs. Specifically, he refers to the seven letters as related to the seven post-Atlantean cultural epochs; the seven seals as related to the seven cultural epochs in the Sixth Age (after the War of All Against All and the reunion of the Earth and Moon); the seven trumpets as related to the seven cultural epochs of the Seventh Age (during which the Sun will reunite with the Earth, and our cosmos as we know it will come to an end); and the seven vials of wrath as related to the “small Pralaya” in between this fourth stage of Earth evolution and the fifth, which will be a kind of proto-Jupiter evolution. He brings this preliminary experience of Future Jupiter into relation with the descent of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Book of Revelation.
This is a vast and sprawling time scale, which specifically brings our time—that of the fifth cultural epoch—into relation with the letter to the Church in Sardis. There is much that can be and has been said about what this letter to Sardis expresses about the trials and mission of our time, but I will leave the reader to discover that on their own. Look to the lecture series above, but also to this lecture from Steiner’s very different cycle on the Apocalypse from 1924. I also highly recommend Valentin Tomberg’s meditations on this fifth letter to the Churches in the penultimate section of Christ and Sophia.
Now, in the lecture cycle referred to above (from 1924), Rudolf Steiner brings in a very different form of timing the Apocalypse, and places modern humanity at a different moment in the course of its unfolding vs the letter to the Church in Sardis. In this lecture he brings the seven seals into relationship with the time period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the Crusades; the blowing of the trumpets began with the Crusades, and has carried on into our own time. During the War in Heaven between Michael and the Dragon—he specifically points to the years 1843-44 as the height of materialism—the sixth trumpet began to blow. Rudolf Steiner indicated that the seventh trumpet would blow around the time of the rise of the Sorathic impulse in the year 1998.
Based on Rudolf Steiner’s indications, we can calculate a more exact rhythm for the unfolding of the four series of seven (letters, seals, trumpets, vials) in the Book of Revelation. The Mystery of Golgotha marks the time of the first seal, while the turn of the year 1843-44 marks the time of the start of the blowing of the sixth trumpet. Therefore, the time between April 3, AD 33 and December 31, 1843 can be divided into twelve (seven seals and five trumpets): 1810.74/12 = 151.58 years. If we multiply this number by 7, we come to the length of time covered by each of the four groups of seven: 151.58×7 = 1061.06.
From this we can see that:
The age of seven letters lasted from 1029 BC – AD 33
The age of seven seals lasted from AD 33 – 1094 (the first Crusade began in 1095)
The age of seven trumpets began in 1094 and will last until 2155
And the age of seven vials will last from 2155 – 3216
It is perhaps worth noting that the first King of Israel, Saul, was crowned in 1026 BC. From this perspective, the unfolding of the Book of Revelation shows us the journey from Jerusalem as an earthly royal city to the New Jerusalem, the “kingdom of heaven.” It is also worth noting that the end year of the Apocalypse from this perspective corresponds to the year 6977 in the Hebrew Calendar—very close to the end of a “week” of millennia (the year 7000, which corresponds to the year AD 3239). According to some traditions, the last “day” of this week of millennia will be the Messianic Age, a grand Sabbath and day of rest. This “day” would correspond to the years AD 2239 – 3239, to the heart of the period during which the Etheric Christ appears to humanity. For some scholars, we have already reached the “eve” of the Sabbath in the 20th century, and have technically already entered this Sabbath millennium.
In terms of where we are right now in Apocalyptic historical unfolding, we are in the midst of the seventh trumpet blowing, which lasts from 1994 through 2155. In the Book of Revelation, the seventh trumpet blows at the end of Chapter 11, and the first vial of wrath is not poured out until the start of Chapter 16. The events of Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 are therefore all part of our contemporary Apocalyptic story from this point of view.
Now, there is a third point of view that is born more from my own research, based on some indications from Robert Powell and Rudolf Steiner. They both have indicated that the War in Heaven described in Chapter 12 took place between 1841-79. Robert points out that the appearance of the woman clothed with the sun at the start of this chapter took place around the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. Rudolf Steiner indicates that the incarnation of the “Beast from the Earth” (Sorat) in Chapter 13 is related to the year 1998, whereas Robert tells us that this chapter has to do with the current incarnation of Ahriman in human form.
It seems to me that Chapter 12 is describing the fate of Europe in the 19th century: the woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars is the the Ideal of Europe, the threefold social organism of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. This was the heritage brought out of the revolutions of the end of the 18th century that could have been taken up in a new way through the impulses of Goethe, Schiller and Novalis. The dragon waiting to consume the child of Ideal Europe, who must be then whisked up to heaven: here we have the image of the life and death of Kaspar Hauser, the “Child of Europe.” The War in Heaven ensues…here we have the time from 1841-79, during which Europe was completed eclipsed by materialistic thinking. The casting down of the spirits of darkness in 1879 led to the dragon releasing the deluge to drown the woman: this is the rise of Marxism, Darwinism, and Bolshevism in the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.
Note that in the aftermath of this flood, the woman is given wings to fly into the desert for “a time, times, and half a time.” Here we have the tragic destiny of Ideal Europe post-World War I: this ideal is concentrated in Anthroposophy, but is unable to take hold in Central Europe. It flees “into the wilderness” until it is able to return home, after “a time, times and half a time.” We might bring this into relation with the start of humanity’s experience of the Temptations in the Wilderness, which according to Robert Powell began in the year 1929 and will last until 2047. It is this time period which more or less corresponds to Chapter 13, whereas Chapter 12 lasts from the turn of the 18th-19th centuries until around the year 1929.
Chapter 14 shows us the return of Christ in the Etheric. This image, like all the others in the Book of Revelation, is multivalent. It could refer to the year 1933, when Christ became available to human beings in elemental guise for the first time; or it could refer to the year 2375, when the Sun enters Aquarius at the spring equinox (the Sign of the Son of Man in the Heavens). It could also refer to Christ’s presence in the astral and devechanic planes (around the years 4000 and 6000 respectively). The image of Christ coming in the clouds bears all of these events within it in a seed form.
In terms of the timing we are working with in this case, we can bring this appearance of Christ in Chapter 14 into relation with the years 2133-2135. Robert points to the years 2133-4233 as the unfolding of the Ego of Christianity (after the unfolding of its physical body between 33-733; its etheric body between 733-1433; and its astral body between 1433-2133). He also points to Christ’s appearance in the Etheric as related to a journey into the underworld: yes, Christ appeared in the Earth’s etheric aura between 1933-45, but then began a journey into the sub earthly spheres (demarcated by the exploding of the atomic bomb in the Trinity Test of July 16, 1945). By and large, Christ has descended below the level of our conscious awareness during this time. He descends all the way to the Mother below the nine sub earthly spheres in 2040, and then begins his re-ascent. He returns to the etheric aura of the Earth—as he was between 1933-45—in the year 2135.
So: we have Chapter 12 lasting from the turn of the 18th-19th centuries up through about 1929; Chapter 13 lasting from about 1929-2047; and Chapter 14 centred around the reappearance of Christ in the Etheric in 2135.
We can find a more specific timing for the unfolding of each chapter of the Book of Revelation by taking the year 3216 referred to above as an “end point”, and taking as our starting point September 30, AD 395. Why this date? In an esoteric lesson from 1911, Rudolf Steiner claims that the Apocalyptist time travelled to that specific date in order to write the Apocalypse (see here).
Now, between 3216.44 and 395.75, there are 2820.69 years. When we divide this by the 22 chapters of the Book of Revelation, we come to: 2820.69/22 = 128.21 years per chapter. Based on this timing, Chapter 12 corresponds to the years 1806-1934; Chapter 13 corresponds to the years 1934-2062; and Chapter 14 corresponds to 2062-2190. Note that according to this timing, Chapter 16—during which all of the vials of wrath are poured out—would take place between 2318-2447. While from the perspective Rudolf Steiner set out from in 1924 the entire time period from 2155-3216 is an outpouring of the vials of wrath (see above), when we incorporate this other perspective it would seem that the 24th-25th centuries will be of particular intensity in this regard. This aligns very much with Rudolf Steiner’s indications regarding Archangel Oriphiel, the Saturnine Archangel whose rulership extends from 2234-2588. See here, here, here, here, here, here in particular, but also this lecture and this lecture. It becomes quite clear from Rudolf Steiner’s indications that, rather than the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius” announcing itself as a time of peace, love and harmony, it is rather a time when the “Waterbearer” pours out vials of divine wrath upon a humanity that struggles to awaken from materialistic somnambulism. According to Steiner, it is only in the Venusian Age of Anael, which comes after the Age of Oriphiel, that a culture of love and beauty will truly be able to manifest itself (around the years 2588-2943). Our task as modern Michaelites is to train ourselves to “hold the line” through the coming times of darkness, compared to which our modern dilemmas are only bootcamp.
In terms of locating ourselves in time, we find ourselves in the second half of Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation. In the first half of this chapter, the beast from the waters arises. Note that he rises up from the waters meant to drown Ideal Europe at the end of Chapter 12. We could relate this to the rise of both Hitler and Stalin in the 1930s, but in particular this is in reference to Stalin, who prepared himself to become the vessel for Ahriman in his next incarnation. The beast that was slain, and yet lived, and was worshipped by all the Earth refers to the militant form of Bolshevism that flowed through Stalin dying and resurrecting as a more cosmopolitan cultural Marxism in his next incarnation: Bolshevism presenting itself as kindness, openness, and progressivism, and therefore much more insidious.
According to Robert Powell’s research, Stalin reincarnated on February 5, 1962. Based on my own research, Ahriman entered the vessel of this individuality sometime in the “Parzival years” of ages 15-21 (somewhere between 1977-83), and had the greatest degree of free reign around 33 years later—centred around April 20, 2014, an Easter Sunday during which the exact same Jupiter-Pluto opposition occurred as the original Easter Sunday on April 5, AD 33. The “beast from the earth”, Sorath, arose in the year 1998. It has been largely his activity since that time—and for the coming decades—to bring about the rise of the “image of the first beast”, to which all must bow down. Notice that the beast arises from the earth, which came to the aid of the woman at the end of Chapter 12 by swallowing all the water. The Western powers were only able to stop Hitler and Stalin through the elaboration of increasingly draconian forms of technology (beginning with Alan Turing), which have since infiltrated into every aspect of our cultural life. These powers wish to create an “image of the beast”, in other words, to make it possible for the reign of Ahriman to extend beyond the lifetime of any one incarnation, and become a structural component of an increasingly technocratic culture. A prime example of this is the social credit system of communist China, in which one’s ability to buy and sell is predicated on whether one’s behaviour and speech aligns with what the Almighty State has decided is wrong and right. Modern woke and cancel culture, particularly around the issue of vaccination and vaccine mandates, tend to lead us ever closer to an apparently decentralised and pervasive world-wide governance spearheaded by the World Economic Forum that will manage the behaviour, speech, and even thoughts of everyone on the planet through economic incentives. In other words, global slavery of the masses of “deplorables” who need to be managed by a self-appointed aristocracy of experts who “know better.” The Mark of the Beast: this is the struggle of our age, up through the year 2062 or thereabouts.
So, if we want to locate our time within the events of the Book of Revelation, we will find it in the letter to the Church in Sardis; in the time of the seventh trumpet (Chapters 11-15); and most specifically of all, in the latter half of Chapter 13, during the implementation of the mark of the beast and the worship of his image by the beast from the earth.
Overall, however, what we are looking at when we see the Book of Revelation as culminating in the year 3216—whether from Rudolf Steiner’s perspective or from my own—what we may be seeing is the description of the gradual reunion of Abel with his twin-soul: the two Josephs becoming one, just as the two Marys became one in the year AD 44, and just as the Adam individuality reunites with his twin-soul in our own age. In the previous article, I noted Estelle Isaacson’s indications that the Abel individuality would develop into a kind of angelic being in the 4th millennium. Robert Powell, on the other hand, sees a gradual descent of Sophia into incarnation in an etheric body, culminating in the year 3574. I believe that the Abel individuality prepares herself to become this etheric vessel for Sophia through the Apocalyptic process which culminates in the year 3216. Perhaps in a future article we will look more closely at who the twin-soul of Abel may be, and what this further implies regarding this transformation in the 4th millennium.
A few months back, my friend Phillip and I began to work with a 33 day consecration to St. Joseph—beginning around Michaelmas and ending around All Soul’s. During this time, we began to wonder about the identity of St. Joseph from an anthroposophical perspective. The anthroposophical mythos paints a picture of two different families—a Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew, and a different Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the Gospel of St. Luke. We are familiar, as anthroposophists, with the karmic identities of the two Mary individualities and the two Jesus individualities, and yet there is virtually zero mention in anthroposophical literature regarding the identity of Joseph. What follows are some intuitions that arose for me as we held this question last fall.
When it comes to the two Jesus children, we find that the Jesus of St. Matthew is the reincarnation of Zarathustra—the individual who bore the accumulated wisdom and experience of all humanity—while the Jesus of St. Luke is the “twin soul” of the Adam individuality—a pure soul who had been held back in the spiritual “White Lodge” since the fall of humanity, and therefore had never before incarnated. They represent the two poles of vast experience vs complete innocence.
On the other hand, we have the two Mary individualities. The Mary of the Gospel of St. Matthew is the reincarnation of the Queen of Sheba, who bore the son of Solomon: Menelik, the first Emperor of Ethiopia. Menelik was an incarnation of Zarathustra—therefore, in their incarnation in the Gospel of St. Matthew, they repeat the relationship of mother and son. Indeed, in their first incarnation they had this relationship, as the Mary of Matthew is none other than the primal mother, Eve, while Zarathustra is Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. On the other hand, the Mary of the Gospel of St. Luke is another “twin soul”—the twin soul of Eve who was also held back at the time of the fall, waiting until the time of the incarnation of the Logos to have her one and only incarnation on Earth.
A question that arose for me and Phillip is around this “twin soul” phenomenon—what exactly does this mean? Are these “twin souls” like reserves, back-ups, or copies of the original egos incarnating on Earth? Or only their higher members, held back until the right time? If it is only the latter, how can they incarnate in material, physical form? Do each of us have a “twin soul”, a kind of parallel identity that is protected in the spiritual world, in case our stream of incarnations goes totally awry?
For the sake of the picture I will paint here, let’s assume for the time being that at the very least, and in particular, it was the primal family who were sent down to the dangerous incarnational battlefield of Earth, and therefore “copies” of each of these primal egos were made in the spiritual world as a protective measure. (For some justification of even entertaining the idea of “ego copies”, see the lecture series on Spiritual Economy by Rudolf Steiner from 1909: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA109/English/AP1986/PrSpEc_index.html).
Therefore, we would consider that each of the five members of the primal family is accompanied by a “twin soul”: Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Seth.
From this, we might entertain as a hypothesis the Joseph from the Gospel of St. Matthew was also a member of the primal family, and that the Joseph from the Gospel of St. Luke was, like the Mary and Jesus of Luke, an innocent “twin soul”, incarnating for the first time. But which member of the primal family was he? We might want to jump to the conclusion that since Mary is Eve, then Joseph ought to be Adam, but this is not the case. As we pointed out above, the “twin soul” of Adam incarnated as the Jesus child in the Gospel of Luke. Adam himself incarnated as the cousin of this Jesus child—John the Baptist, who was born some six months prior to Jesus.
Something remarkable that may give us a clue as to the identity of Joseph is related to the time of his death. You see, after the union of the two Jesus children in the Temple—when the Matthew Jesus was around 17 and the Luke Jesus was around 12—the body of the Matthew Jesus, now bereft of the ego of Zarathustra, soon after passed away. His father, the Matthew Joseph, had already died some years prior. On the other hand, the Luke Jesus had changed to such a degree after the entry of the Zarathustra Ego into his body that his mother, the Luke Mary, passed away. The nature of the innocent twin-soul of Adam was such that the Luke Jesus was more or less a child with special needs. With the entry of the Zarathustra Ego into this boy, he transformed into a totally different person more-or-less overnight. His mother could no longer relate, could not find her son any longer so to speak.
The Matthew Mary, now a widow, met and married the widower Joseph from the Gospel of Luke. In this, she was reunited with her son Zarathustra who now inhabited the body prepared by the twin-soul of Adam. From the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich we know that in early April, AD 29—about five months prior to the Baptism in the Jordan—the Luke Joseph also passed away. A few weeks later, “the ‘word of God’ came to John…[who] left the wilderness and ‘he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.’” This is a significant indication—that a few weeks after the passing of the Luke Joseph, a transformation comes over John the Baptist. Perhaps we can see here that something akin to the union of the two Jesus children in the Temple has taken place? That the individuality dwelling within the Luke Joseph has passed over into John the Baptist?
We know from Rudolf Steiner’s telling from the Fifth Gospel that shortly before the Baptism in the Jordan, Jesus of Nazareth poured out his soul—quite literally—in a confessional conversation with his mother. As he did so, the Zarathustra Ego departed from the body of the Luke Jesus, preparing this body for the descent of the Logos. Simultaneously, the Luke Mary—the twin-soul of Eve—united with the Matthew Mary. For the first time since the Fall of Humanity, a twin-soul had united with its pair: twin Eve uniting with Eve herself. In this reunion, she became the Virgin Mary. We will return to this extremely significant event later on. For now, we can realize that at the moment of the Baptism in the Jordan, we have another Nativity scene: the Luke Mary dwelling in the breast of the Matthew Mary; the Luke Joseph speaking through John the Baptist, who baptizes the body of the Luke Jesus to receive Christ—the birth of the Logos into Humanity. If we entertain the hypothesis that the Luke Joseph united with John the Baptist, then all three of the innocent twin-souls of the Luke Gospel were active and present at the Baptism in the Jordan.
We will return, in a moment, as to why exactly the uniting of the Luke Joseph with John the Baptist might bear an indication as to Joseph’s identity. For another indication we need look no farther than the life circumstances of the Matthew Joseph. We see here a man who communicates in the night with the angelic spheres; who must travel into Egypt in order to escape the persecution of the jealous Herod; and who must remain in exile in Egypt, protecting the treasure of the Matthew Jesus until the time is right. Indeed, even the name “Joseph” gives it away. We have here a transformed repetition of the destiny of Joseph, son of Jacob. Joseph was the dreamer, who had prophetic visions in the night. He was threatened by his jealous brothers, and sold into bondage in Egypt. There he made sure that a portion of the abundant harvest was held back and protected for the future time when it would be needed and shared out.
According to the research of Robert Powell, Joseph son of Jacob was an incarnation of the Abel individuality. Jacob, on the other hand, was an incarnation of Mensor (or Melchior), the “Gold King” who comes to revere Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew. After incarnating as the son of Jacob, the Abel individuality then incarnated as Solomon—Solomon who fathered Menelik (Seth, Jesus) with the Queen of Sheba (Eve, Mary). Again, this would indicate that the holy family in the Matthew Gospel repeats their karmic relationship from the time of the Queen of Sheba. Finally, Solomon’s father was King David, who (again according to the research of Robert Powell) reincarnated as King Herod, the jealous “4th King” who slaughtered the innocents. And so we can see that many of the Abel individuality’s karmic threads are woven together around the birth of the Zarathustra Jesus.
In fact, we could see this incarnation as the father of Jesus as the culmination of a certain lineage of incarnations, after which the karma of this individuality turns the corner and goes in a very new and different direction. Almost immediately after the lifetime as the father of Jesus, this individuality would have reincarnated as a woman—specifically, as Mary Magdelene. We could perhaps view this individuality’s incarnations prior to Christ as akin to Joseph the Dreamer prior to being sold into Egypt; and now, from her incarnation as Mary Magdalene onwards, this individuality is on her way to becoming Joseph the Interpreter of Dreams, the Joseph who is unrecognisable to his brothers when they come to him looking for grain. We will return to this theme later on.
And so we entertain this hypothesis: the Matthew Joseph was an incarnation of the Abel individuality, whereas the Luke Joseph was the innocent “twin soul” of Abel. This innocent twin soul of Abel then entered into John the Baptist in April, AD 29, at the start of his ministry. And why exactly is this uniting with John the Baptist a clue that the Luke Joseph is related to Abel? This would make sense of confusing indications from Judith von Halle, who consistently refers to John the Baptist as representing the “Abel stream”, and even seems to bring him into connection with the Abel individuality. She paints the picture of the uniting of John the Baptist with Lazarus at his raising from the dead as a temporary union of the Abel stream (through John the Baptist) with the Cain stream (since Lazarus is the reincarnated Cain): a kind of preview of a state of being that will only truly be realized in the future, according to Judith von Halle.
Again, we will return to this theme later…for now, the main point is that considering 1) the Luke Joseph as the twin-soul of Abel and 2) that John the Baptist was united with this twin-soul from a certain point onward, makes sense of Judith von Halle’s otherwise confusing indications.
Now, let’s take stock of what we’ve come to so far: in the Gospel of Matthew, we have Abel, Eve and Seth reincarnated in Joseph, Mary, and Jesus respectively. The “twin-souls” of Abel, Eve, and Adam are incarnated in the holy family Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in the Luke Gospel. John the Baptist is the reincarnation of Adam, and Lazarus is the reincarnation of Cain. (Notice that the twin-souls of Adam, Eve, and Abel are active in this time, but those of Cain and Seth are not).
Abel dies as the Matthew Joseph, and reincarnates rapidly as Mary Magdalene. The Matthew Jesus (Seth) dies and unites with the Luke Jesus (twin-Adam), becoming the vessel for Christ. The Nathan Joseph (twin-Abel) dies and unites with John the Baptist (Adam). Eventually, this Abel-Adam hybrid being unites with the deceased Lazarus, facilitating his resurrection, after which he is a kind of amalgamation of Abel-Adam-Cain. Perhaps most significant of all—only surpassed by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ—is the reunion of Eve with her own twin soul just prior to the Baptism in the Jordan.
Take a moment to reflect: all of the unions (except for one) between members of the primal family with twin-souls are a kind of mixing and matching. Abel with Adam. Adam with Seth. Adam and Abel with Cain. We have here what might be the archetypal expression of Charles Williams’ “Company of the Coinherence”, actively bearing each other’s burdens (see here: https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/my-life-for-yours/ and here: https://pillars.taylor.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=inklings_forever). Each of the “mundane” members of the primal family seemed incapable of accomplishing that which they needed to accomplish without the aid of a more transcendent “twin-soul” that did not originally belong to them. This represents a level of sacrifice, humility, and cooperation unmatched in human history.
And it would seem that the goal—yes, even the goal of the incarnation of Christ—is to reunite the twin-soul with its original companion, one member of the primal family at a time. This process of reunion begins where the separation started: with our collective mother, Eve. All of this mixing and matching amounts to making possible Mary’s attaining the status of Virgin through reunion with her primal twin. This reunion then culminates, some 15 years later, in the Assumption of the Virgin, when Mary became Queen of the Angels. The Mystery of Golgotha is at the center of world becoming, yet the immediate raison d’être of this divine-human act was the (utterly paradoxical!) goal of returning Eve to a state of Unfallen Nature through reuniting her with her twin-soul, and assuming this Virgin being into Heaven at the end of her life. The Virgin Mary held the unique place in the center of the circle of apostles at the time of Christ, and has held the center of Christianity for 2000 years since then.
Perhaps, however, this reunion of the primal family with their respective twin souls is an ongoing process that will reach a certain culmination at one point? It would seem that now, in the time of the Second Coming, another reunion is taking place. Rudolf Steiner indicated in his final public lecture that the Adam-Elijah-John-Raphael-Novalis individuality would return at the end of the 20th century in order to carry the world through the coming trial. Valentin Tomberg, in his private journals, corroborated this indication of Steiner’s but added that this individuality would need to incarnate in a female form, in order to be a proper vessel for the soul of the Nathan Jesus, with whom she would unite (see Most Holy Trinosophia by Robert Powell). Now, we have been referring to the Nathan Jesus as the Luke Jesus—this is none other than the original twin-soul of Adam! There is incredible significance to this indication: just as Eve was “made Virgin” by reuniting with her twin-soul at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so in our time, Adam too is “made Virgin” by being reunited with his twin-soul.
According to Robert Powell, this individuality incarnated in the mid-1970’s as an individual with special needs. Keep in mind that when the twin-soul of Adam incarnated at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, it was as a child who would have been perceived as having special needs or developmental differences. This indication of Robert’s speaks to the fact that this individual incarnated in a specific form in order to facilitate a reunion with her twin-soul—becoming a kind of “Virgin John.”
We might wonder whether this has any bearing on Christ’s indication to Peter in Chapter 21 of the Gospel of John, that John should remain until Christ comes again. Perhaps, after a series of preparatory incarnations since the Mystery of Golgotha, the destiny of the John-Adam individuality will now be akin to the Virgin Mary: to no longer incarnate on Earth in a physical body, but to be an ever-present guardian and comforter of the striving souls of humanity on their way to Christianize the Earth. The primal parents renewed as King and Queen of the Angels.
We might imagine that there is now a similar swapping of twin-souls, just as there was at the time of Christ, in order to facilitate this reunification of Adam with his twin-soul. We might imagine, for example, that during our own time the Abel individuality was incarnated with the “twin-soul” of Cain-Lazarus speaking through her. Or that the Cain-Lazarus individuality is among us, with the “twin-soul” of Seth-Zarathustra inspiring him. Or that the Zarathustra individuality is here, with the “twin-soul” of Abel-Joseph working into his destiny. To be sure, all of that remains highly speculative at best, so take it with a grain of salt.
What seems to be clear enough—based on indications from Estelle Isaacson in her Mary Magdalene trilogy—is that the Abel individuality will also be reunited with his twin-soul, at some point in the 4th millennium, transforming this individuality into a semi-angelic being. This is the transformation into “Joseph the Interpreter of Dreams” alluded to above. We might imagine that both Cain-Lazarus and Seth-Zarathustra would be there—perhaps sharing twin-souls once again—in order to facilitate the reunification of Abel with his twin. This “Virgin Abel” will then become the vessel for the etheric incarnation of Sophia, around the year AD 3574. I am of the mind that, from two different perspectives, the “timeline” of the Book of Revelation culminates ca AD 3200, and that this will be the time of the reunification of Abel with his twin. From this perspective, the Book of Revelation is a description of the destiny of the Abel soul on the part of the Cain soul, who facilitates this process. We will go into this in a further section.
The process of reunion of the primal family with their twin-souls culminates around the end of the Age of Light (ca 4433), when Maitreya Bodhisattva attains to Buddhahood. It will be around this time that the Cain-Lazarus individuality can properly reunite with his twin-soul. This process of “virgining” begins with Eve and ends with Cain—the two perpetrators of the primal Fall of Humanity, the one committing the primal female sin in the eating of the forbidden fruit and temptation of Adam, the other committing the primal male sin of jealousy and murder. There is a deeper aspect to the fratricide of Abel by Cain that is germane to our discussion here.
We can consider Cain as akin to the prodigal son, who takes his inheritance before its time and squanders it, until he is driven to return in shame and dire need to his father. We can think of the Cain individuality as insisting on carrying his twin-soul with him, dragging it down to Earth and not allowing it to be protected, as was the case with the other members of the primal family. This is reflected (or one could say embodied) in his murder of Abel: the smothering of his transcendent twin in the mud of earthly existence. At that point, his twin soul experienced a death, and his destiny ever since then has been to go through a process—as a Wandering Fool—of resurrecting this deceased twin soul. A preliminary step was taken when Lazarus was resurrected in union with the dual being of twin Abel and Adam. This dual being acted as a kind of “stand-in” for the deceased twin-soul of Lazarus. It achieved another stage of revivification during the 13th-15th centuries, when it was bestowed in a provisional form on the Lazarus individuality with the name “Christian Rosenkreuz.”
This being is now more fully resurrected, and is able to achieve to varying degrees unification with the karmic communities that are in relationship with the Cain-Lazarus individuality. For example, as we indicated above, it does seem that this being was able to “overlight” and “speak through” the Abel individuality for a time in our own day and age. At the culmination of the resurrection process, this being will reunite completely with Cain-Lazarus, bringing him into the same Virginal state as Mary, John, and Magdalene before him, and fulfilling the promise of the reuniting of the Abel and Cain streams that was foretold in the deed of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
We can only assume that simultaneously, Seth-Zarathustra—the Unknown Friend from the Highlands—will finally be able to meet with his twin soul, after shepherding his brother Cain to this final reunification. Interested readers should be able to find many indications from Steiner, Tomberg, and Powell that these two individualities work hand-in-hand as we move through the 6th Cultural Age of “Brotherly Love.”
Another name that has been given to this resurrecting twin-soul of Cain-Lazarus is Kalki Avatar. (Note that Steiner fairly explicitly indicated that the twin-soul of Adam was none other than the Krishna Avatar). We can remember that the name “Kalki” means “born from filth”—like the Prodigal Son with the pigs. A symbol of this birth out of the mud is the lotus flower, which blossoms in the swampy waters. He is the final Avatar in the classical sequence of ten Avatars. These Avatars incarnate over the course of five yugas, or ages:
Krita Yuga, or the Golden Age, lasting 20,000 years;
Treta Yuga, or the Silver Age, lasting 15,000 years;
Dvapara Yuga, or the Bronze Age, lasting 10,000 years;
Kali Yuga, or the Iron Age, lasting 5,000 years;
Satya Yuga, the Age of Light, lasting 2,500 years.
I will address the timing of the Book of Revelation, as well as the timing of the appearance/incarnation of Avatars and Buddhas, in the next section.
An after-image of the Act of Consecration of Man, from March 2021, when the communal taking of the wine returned to the service after a year’s absence…
The soul is the mediator between the hereditary physical body and the eternal spirit of the human being. As the eternal spirit incarnates into a variety of hereditary physical bodies across the stream of time, different “souls”—or empirical personalities—come into existence for the relatively brief time that body and spirit are joined for the earthly incarnation. This succession of souls is a karmic heredity belonging to the spirit alone, unlike the bodily heredity with which the eternal spirit is merely a guest participant.
When we enter into the soul and spiritual worlds in the life between death and rebirth, we eventually approach the Midnight Hour. We are confronted face to face with the Godhead of the world, the Father God; simultaneously, we have a panoramic experience of all of our lives—past and future alike. We are, in this moment, our eternal spirit as completely as we can be, surrounded by each elaboration of this spirit in a group of temporal souls—the full expression of our particular “species of ego.” Linear time becomes a spatial encircling round.
We then forget this experience as we head to our next incarnation—completely immersing into our identification once again as a particular soul, a partial expression of the fullness of our everlasting spirit.
This is the experience of the human being. What is the experience of Christ?
Christ: the “Self of selves”, the “Spirit of spirits.” Just as our spirit is the focal point and radiating center for each of our individual souls across our lifetimes, Christ is the focal point and radiating center for everyhumanspirit. Christ’s sojourn on Earth in a physical body is like the experience of the Midnight Hour for the individual human. Just as we are surrounded by the panorama of our various soul-beings at this moment, so Christ for the entirety of his earthly life was surrounded by a panorama of individualities who were similarly derivations of his own full Spirit. His Midnight Hour was not to meet the Father God in the heights, but rather to meet the Mother Goddess in the depths—and with her, all of his “particular manifestations”…the human race as a whole.
And so from this perspective, on the Earth the roles of Christ and the human being are the inverse: in earthly life, the human being forgets the spirit and enters into a “partial” state, a state of mere soul; whereas on earth Christ became the absolute fullness of Spirit, surrounded by all of his “partials.”
How, then, does Christ experience the Midnight Hour of the human being? Perhaps…Christ “forgets” his fullness—while the human being brings it to realisation—at the foot of the Father? Perhaps…Christ “incarnates” as individual spirits during the Midnight Hour, forgetting his eternal role as “Spirit of spirits,” just as we forget our eternal nature when we come to Earth. Truly, then, he can say “no one comes to the Father but by me.” For in order to have this experience at the foot of the Father in the Midnight Hour, we must become Christ and Christ must become each of us, one after the other—an enormous cycle of incarnations on the part of Christ, wherein he makes possible our achieving fullness of spirit once again, and righting the course of our karma.
From this point of view, the lineage of eternal spirits in contact with the Father in the sphere of the Midnight Hour are no longer separate spirits, but individual incarnations (“partials”) of the One Spirit of spirits, the Christ.
What is fullness for Christ in the realm of the Mother is partiality for the human being, and what is fullness for the human being in the realm of the Father is partiality for Christ. We can imagine a kind of intricately woven tapestry which draws these realms Above and Below together—the single grand form of the Christ as the inverse of the multitude of miniature forms of individual human beings—and as they weave together, something emerges from their weaving…
(as the soul emerges from the weaving of body and spirit)
…The emergent world-soul is the nine angelic hierarchies, each one appearing as a necessary step on the ladder from human soul below to human spirit above, and from Christ-spirit above to Christ-Spirit below.
But I make supplication not for them only, but also for those having faith in me on account of their word, that all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they too might be in us, so that the cosmos may have faith that you sent me forth. And I have given to them the glory you have given me, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they might be brought to completion in one, so that the cosmos might know that you sent me forth, and loved them just as you loved me. Father, I wish that they too, those you have given to me, might be with me where I am, that they might see my glory, which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the cosmos. Righteous Father, the cosmos also did not know you, but I knew you, and these know you have sent me forth; and your name I have made known, and will make known to them, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them also.
I recently made a discovery that changes the perspectives I set out at the close of the previous article on Kalki Avatar and Valentin Tomberg, and felt the need to share this with my readers.
In that article, I pointed to the Hindu prophecy of the incarnation of Kalki Avatar, which refers to the Sun, Moon and Jupiter finding their place between 4°-17° Cancer. I noted that in Valentin Tomberg’s life, this alignment very nearly occurred in July/August 1931, and occurred properly on August 1, 1943. On the other hand, I noted that in our time, the alignment once again happened properly on July 26, 2014 and would (similar to July/August 1931) come close to occurring on August 11, 2026. I painted the picture that we were perhaps moving through the years 1943-1931 in reverse, from a certain point of view.
However, I have now found an earlier instance of the gathering of Sun, Moon and Jupiter between 4°-17° Cancer; in fact, this would seem to be the event which fulfilled the Hindu prophecy, which specifically stated that when this alignment occurs at the end of the Kali Yuga, Kalki would incarnate on Earth. According to Rudolf Steiner, Kali Yuga ended in 1899. The first alignment of Sun, Moon, and Jupiter in this portion of Cancer occurred July 26-27, 1919, when Jupiter was nearly 5° Cancer and the Sun was around 9° Cancer. The Moon traveled between these two over the course of the 26-27 of July. There is a remarkable similarity between this alignment of the three planets, and the one that occurred exactly 95 years later on July 26, 2014.
This lends us a new perspective to the advent of Kalki overlighting Maitreya. Valentin Tomberg was only 19 years old when this alignment occurred. If we consider July 1919 – April 1920 as a gestational period, as I suggested in terms of the 1931 alignment in the previous article, this focuses on the exact time period of Tomberg’s life when he was being introduced to the Hermetic Martinism of G.O. Mebes. This would prove to be the seed of a mode of spirituality which would grow and develop up until the end of Tomberg’s life (culminating in Meditations on the Tarot), unlike his relationship with Anthroposophy.
This relationship with Anthroposophy instead seems to find its origin around the year 1919 (actually as early as 1917), then grow and develop up until around the time of the alignment of July 1931. Tomberg is developing himself as a student and teacher of Anthroposophy up until this time period; then, between July 1931 and the next true alignment on August 1, 1943, we see the height of Tomberg’s role as teacher of anthroposophy and proclaimer of the Etheric Christ. After this time period, his relationship to Anthroposophy as a spiritual movement disappears, albeit his inner connection to Rudolf Steiner only seems to strengthen from this point onward.
Similarly in our time, there is another true alignment of these three planets between 4°-17° Cancer after the approximate alignment on August 11, 2026, one that is once again almost exactly 95 years later than the alignment on August 1, 1943: on July 31, 2038, the Sun will be at 13° Cancer, and Jupiter at 15° Cancer, with the Moon traveling between them.
So our perspective shifts somewhat through this. Instead of looking at the years 2014-2026 as a passage through 1943-1931 in reverse, perhaps we can look at the entire period from 2014 through 2038 as a kind of repetition at a new octave of the years 1919 through 1943, 95 years later. It is interesting in this case to note that there are some interesting resonances when we look 95 years ahead of Rudolf Steiner’s biography to the life of Robert Powell. For instance, 95 years on from November 1879, when Rudolf Steiner was first coming into contact with the work of Goethe, brings us to November 1974, when Robert’s first publication was released: the Christmas 1974 edition of the Mercury Star Journal. In 1900, Rudolf Steiner left behind what had been his main adult career of science and philosophy, and became involved with the Theosophical Society; 95 years later, in 1995, Robert Powell took his life work in a very new direction with the co-founding of the Sophia Foundation with Karen Rivers.
For those who are more intimately familiar with the biographies of both Rudolf Steiner and Robert Powell, there are many other revealing resonances that can be found. I will leave it to the reader to discover them for him or herself. Perhaps pay attention to:
1879 – 1891 vs 1974 – 1986
1891 – 1900 vs 1986 – 1995
1900 – 1913 vs 1995 – 2008
1913 – 1922 vs 2008 – 2017
1922 – 1925 vs 2017 – 2020
What this perspective offers us is the notion that possibly this period from 2014 through 2026 is merely a build-up of sorts for the activity of Kalki Avatar and Maitreya in our time, just as 1919-1931 was for the life of Valentin Tomberg. And we can be open to the idea that perhaps the communities that are receptive to the impulses which can be given by Kalki Avatar in our time come in a great variety of forms: for example, in 1919-20, Valentin Tomberg was becoming deeply involved in no less than three spiritual streams: Anthroposophy, Hermetic Martinism, and the Sophiology of Vladimir Solovyov. In a way, his life work was to weave these three together in one way or another; originally, it seems he attempted to allow the latter two to shine through Anthroposophy. In the end, however, it was Hermeticism that was able to accommodate the spirits of both Anthroposophy and Sophiology.
We may continue to face ever more challenging times ahead of us. Note that 95 years after the death of Rudolf Steiner was the onset of the extreme reactions to Covid-19 in March of 2020—again a kind of resonance at another level between the time of Steiner and that of Robert Powell, as this has resulted in a very challenging time for the Sophia Foundation—as it has for any organization that has as its focus bringing people together in living community. But when we consider the life of Valentin Tomberg, we see that in 1927 he joined the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science; from that time on for the next seven years, he became increasingly devoted to reigniting the flame that had burned so brightly for Rudolf Steiner in the last two years of his life. Perhaps, then, in the coming year—95 years after 1927—we can rededicate ourselves to that upon which we were intensively focused in the years leading up to 2020. For so many—certainly for me—life has felt like a never-ending interruption ever since the start of the covid tyranny. Can we find the will forces and the opportunities to bring back to living reality the activities, relationships, and initiatives that were just beginning for us in 2018 and 2019? Even in the knowledge that there is the strong possibility that our efforts may once again be greatly frustrated, as they were for Valentin Tomberg…perhaps 2030 will be a dreadful reappearance of the tragic split of the Anthroposophical Society in April 1935…but the stars incline, they do not compel!
I do think it is worth noting that while Valentin Tomberg was discovering the Tarot of Marseilles through the work of Mebes between July 1919 and April 1920, a kind of pinnacle was being reached in a certain direction through Rudolf Steiner’s work. This was the time period when the picture of the Threefold Social Organism was getting quite a lot of attention from the general public, and for a moment seemed like a viable solution for what was left of Germany post-World War I. The first Waldorf School was opened in Stuttgart following the watershed lecture cycle Study of Man. The scientific courses on light, warmth, and medicine began. Work had almost reached a certain level of completion on the Goetheanum, which would lead it to its official opening in September 1920.
This was the time period of Anthroposophy when a real focus on practical initiatives and the social life began to be the primary focus. What is ironic about this is that it seems that this is the main piece of Anthroposophy that was missing for Valentin Tomberg. He seemed to see only two sides to Anthroposophy: Aristotelians who were solely interested academic and spiritual research, and Platonists who were soulfully devoted to Christ first and foremost. He identified with the latter, and when it seemed to him that Christology (and the Platonist stream as he understood it) had no place in the eyes of the Vorstand, then Anthroposophy had failed. Unfortunately, Tomberg never got the chance to really become engaged in the practical initiatives—biodynamic farming, curative work, anthroposophical medicine, Waldorf education. It is in this realm that the research of the so-called Aristotelian becomes service to others; it is here that one’s inner connection to Christ becomes real, as Christ is encountered in and through the other—in the social realm, as well as in the kingdoms of nature.
This limited and polarised experience of Anthroposophy lead Valentin Tomberg to the point of despair, even going so far as to say that the path of the consciousness soul is no longer valid; that instead there is only a combined path of the intellectual soul (through traditional Catholicism), and of manas (by descending with Christ into the sub-earthly spheres on the path he takes in his Second Coming). But surely, the path of the consciousness soul is alive and well, primarily in the realm of the will. Biodynamic farming, Camphill, Waldorf education, Uriel and Weleda…all continue to bear the seeds of the threefold social order, waiting for fertile earth. And amongst the diehard practitioners in these fields, the cognitive path that is proper to the consciousness soul—that of Goethean observation and ethical individualism as exercised in the Philosophy of Freedom—is also alive and well.
So perhaps—and hopefully—the time from July 2014 to July 2038 may after all be a journey back in time, a mirror reflection of August 1943 through July 1919. Perhaps our efforts, our karma, and the realm of the dead who work with us will allow the journey to 2038 to be a rediscovery of that which was lost to Valentin Tomberg—and all of mankind—in 1919: the truly practical Christening of the Earth, and the remedy for the ills of our time, through the widespread recognition and application of the living image of the threefold social organism.
Hello, friends. It has been a long time. This is not so much from lack of inspiration—indeed, there are half a dozen different themes I’ve been meaning to write about on here for the past year—but simply from lack of time. Today I am busy grading summaries of pages 21-31 and 63-70 of Steiner’s Theosophy by first year Camphill Academy students. They are excellent. What a satisfying experience to bring a group of 25 young people to an initial understanding of the human as a threefold being of body, soul, and spirit. From a certain perspective this carries more urgency for me than whatever strange spaghetti I might want to throw at the wall here on Treehouse.
The following comes after some prodding and poking from my dear friend Jim Wetmore, and in light of his ongoing work on the english edition of Harrie Salman’s biography of Valentin Tomberg, carries a similar urgency to my need to grade Theosophy homework.
In that work, both Harrie Salman and Michael Frensch propose the idea that Valentin Tomberg was a vessel for the Maitreya Bodhisattva, a lofty spiritual being which inspired him from approximately 1931/32/33 through 1943/44/45 or so. This time period would more or less correspond with the most intense period of Tomberg’s anthroposophical work, during which he wrote or lectured on what has since been published as Russian Spirituality, Christ and Sophia, Inner Work, The Foundation Stone Meditation, and The Lord’s Prayer Course. After this time period, there is an apparently abrupt transition. Tomberg began a series of works on the reformation (or rather, resurrection) of jurisprudence in 1944, which were completed in 1952. These came from a more traditional, academic, and Catholic stance than the previous decade’s worth of work (Tomberg converted to Catholicism in 1945). After about 8 years of inactivity in the realm of publication or teaching, Tomberg then spent a majority of the sixties penning his Hermetic magnum opus, Meditations on the Tarot, which was not published (properly) until well after his death in 1973.
Harrie splits Tomberg’s public life into two parts: the first, Anthroposophical, and the second, Hermetic (some might say Catholic-Hermetic, but Harrie wants to downplay the negative connotations that may come with the identification of Catholic, which limit rather than properly describe the deeply esoteric nature of Tomberg’s Catholicism—one that is truly Hermetic in the sense of the word as employed in Meditations on the Tarot, i.e. universal, comprehensive, synthetic, holistic. However, I would argue that part and parcel of that holism is Tomberg’s Catholicism bearing within it the deepest devotion to what would seem to the uninitiated as backward traditions and conservatism). Again, from Harrie’s point of view, it is possible that the Anthroposophical phase was inspired or “overlit” by the Maitreya Bodhisattva, and that after this being “left Tomberg behind”, Tomberg was in a sense left to his own devices and no longer “inspired from above” so to speak.
Now, this is an area that has become quite confusing over the years. For example, you have Rudolf Steiner saying at one point that the Maitreya Bodhisattva would be a normal individual up until the ages of 30-33. Then a mysterious transformation would take place; the ego of that individual would leave, and another ego would come in—for example, that of Abraham, Elijah or Moses—and would operate within that individual from that point onwards, akin to the descent of Christ into the vessel of Jesus of Nazareth at the River Jordan (see the lectures from Nov 4 and 5, 1911 here: https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/index.php?ga=GA0130). On the other hand, you have Robert Powell (see here) stating that Abraham was an incarnation of the Maitreya Bodhisattva, which would imply that Tomberg was one of those “higher egos” mentioned above from the very start (not to mention that Steiner himself stated that Novalis was Elijah). Then there is the perspective that there is a circle of twelve semi-archangelic Bodhisattvas who march ahead of mankind, attaining the level of an archai when they reach their final incarnation and the status of Buddhahood. And so somehow, you have a more “earthly” bodhisattva, incarnating every century in the struggle to attain a higher level of development over a 5,000 year period, as well as a more “heavenly” Bodhisattva, who actually is not quite properly human and is guiding this whole process from above.
Well, what a mess!
My personal preference is to clear away the confusion here by putting to use the frame of reference Tomberg himself was using by the end of his life. Indeed, if we truly subscribe to the idea that the biography of Valentin Tomberg was the appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva in our time, shouldn’t we take the man at his word when he describes the nature of this mystery to us? For Tomberg’s perspective, we need look no further than the 21st Letter-Meditation on The Fool from Meditations on the Tarot. Here, he brings into relationship the path of the Avatars and the path of the Buddhas. From this perspective, the Avatars are beings of revelation and grace from above. They are the semi-archangelic beings who inspire the bodhisattvas on their paths to enlightenment. Whereas the bodhisattva him or herself represents the stream of human effort and experience. The eventual attainment of Buddhahood, in the final incarnation of a bodhisattva, represents the final and complete union between the inspiring Avatar being above (on a path of descent) and the striving human bodhisattva below (on a path of ascent). Let’s look more closely at Steiner’s words from November 4 and 5, 1911, and see if we can bring them into some alignment with Tomberg’s characterisation from “The Fool”:
In the case of this bodhisattva, a particular law applies. We shall understand this law by remembering the possibility that a complete transformation may take place in the life of the soul at a certain age in life. The greatest of all such transformations came about at the Baptism by John in the Jordan… a somewhat similar transformation will take place in him who will become the Maitreya Buddha… It will always be noticed that, between his thirtieth and thirty-third years, a tremendous change takes place in his life. There will be an exchange of souls, although not to such a complete degree as in the case of Christ. The “I” that dwelled in the body until then passes out of it at this time and the bodhisattva becomes an altogether changed being—although the “I” does not cease to function and is not actually replaced by a different “I” as in the case of Christ Jesus… What happens is this: the first “I” passes out and a different “I” enters. This may be an individuality such as Moses, or Abraham, or Elijah. This individuality will then be active for a time in the body, thus bringing about the preparation necessary for the Maitreya Buddha.
The bodhisattva lives on for the rest of his life with the “I” that entered into him at that time… When in some three thousand years from now he becomes the Maitreya Buddha, his “I” will remain in him but will be woven through by another individuality. And this will happen in this thirty-third year, the year when the Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled by Christ. The Maitreya Buddha will then come forward as the Teacher of the Good, as the mighty Teacher who will transmit the true knowledge and the true wisdom concerning Christ…
So, how can we resolve this with the perspective of Valentin Tomberg? Well, Tomberg would not characterise this “foreign” ego that intervenes between ages 30-33 as the ego of Abraham, Elijah or Moses. He would say that this is a contact with the inspiring Avatar who is guiding the bodhisattva on the path to enlightenment. In the case of Maitreya, this Avatar is Kalki Avatar. The way that Rudolf Steiner paints the picture, it seems very black and white: this “foreign” ego completely replaces the bodhisattva’s ego in all of his incarnations leading up to the final attainment of Buddhahood, and remains there in the vacated vessel of the bodhisattva’s body for the rest of his life. At the attainment of Buddhahood, the “natural” ego of the vessel does not leave: rather there is a complete merging of the two egos within the bodhisattva at age 33, who thereby becomes Buddha.
Now, my own perspective, using Tomberg’s language and based out of his perspective, is something a bit more nuanced and fluid. In what follows I will refer to the transcendent, archangelic aspect of the Buddha-in-becoming as Kalki Avatar, and the reincarnating human individuality as Maitreya Bodhisattva. Please, do not let there be any confusion that when I refer to Maitreya I mean anything transcendent. I am writing in Tomberg’s own terms, by which Maitreya is a “mere man” going through many, many lifetimes of struggle in order to—through a Faustian effort, so to speak—attain to Buddhahood.
Around the ages of 30-33, the Kalki Avatar makes a partial descent towards Maitreya. He can only come into as close a contact as this vessel is prepared to allow, through destiny and through his own efforts. And this “touching in” of Kalki Avatar into the life of Maitreya may or may not last for the remainder of the incarnation, in spite of what Rudolf Steiner indicates. It is by no means a linear path to Buddhahood. All that can be sure is that in the final incarnation, the Avatar is able to approach *completely*, and to merge *completely* with the struggling ego of Maitreya. In the meantime, and as a preparation, we must think of this struggling Maitreya as a kind of gestating child in a womb. He is surrounded and formed by a karmic community that radiates its impulses into him in his various incarnations. This karmic community is inspired and guided by Kalki Avatar (let’s remember that archangelic beings find their expression on the material plane in communities, nations, languages, peoples). And so it also depends—up until the final incarnation—to what extent the karmic community surrounding the focal point of Maitreya is prepared, by destiny and by their own efforts, to receive the guiding impulses of Kalki Avatar.
We can carry this image of Kalki working through a karmic circle, radiating his forces and guidance into Maitreya in the center, as akin to the incarnation of Christian Rosenkruez in the 13th century, when as a child he was surrounded by the “circle of twelve” who radiated into his being their particular experiences, wisdom, and capacities acquired over the ages. We can then imagine the final incarnation of Maitreya Buddha as akin to the reincarnation of Christian Rosenkreutz who was active in the 15th century as the founder of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood—all of the capacities that had been radiated into him in his prior life could now operate through him completely naturally, as a gift of grace.
So from my perspective, it does not make any sense to say that Maitreya left Tomberg at a certain point. Tomberg is Maitreya. The two are inseparable. However, it is possible to say that the inspiring activity of Kalki Avatar ebbed and flowed throughout his biography, depending on the karmic community with which he was surrounded. The inspiring activity of Kalki Avatar was at its height for Tomberg during the 1930s, but could only maintain itself as long as Tomberg maintained his connection and relationship with the anthroposophical movement. And in the build-up to World War II, with egotism rife amongst all leaders within the movement (including Tomberg himself, to be sure!), it became impossible for this connection to last through World War II.
It was, perhaps, written in the stars. According to an ancient Hindu prophecy, Kalki Avatar will appear among men as the restorer of true religion at the close of Kali Yuga (which ended in 1899), when the Sun, Jupiter and the Moon stand together in Cancer (specifically in the Lunar Mansion Pushya, 4°-17° Cancer). Now, on August 13, 1931, all three of these planets were in Cancer, but the Sun was beyond the Lunar Mansion Pushya (at 25° Cancer). And so it was almost—but not quite—the right conditions for the incarnation of Kalki into Tomberg: he was 31 years of age, the right age of receptivity for such an event, but the stars were not quite aligned.
Nonetheless, as Harrie’s biography indicates, a significant event occurred around this time for Tomberg:
In July 1931, Tomberg met Marie Steiner in Helsinki, Finland, at a conference where she read out all the class lessons of the Free School of Spiritual Science. These are 19 meetings for members of the first class of this school, at which the meditations given by Rudolf Steiner are read aloud by a ‘class reader’. Tomberg himself gave a lecture on the Foundation Stone Meditation. During the class lessons he had a spiritual experience, about which he wrote to Marie Steiner on 12 July 1931:
“… I experienced an awakening, an awakening of the soul, that I could hardly have expected. With my whole soul, I have heard the meditation texts that you have spoken in the hall. And everything, everything that they contained, I was able to experience this time with all the inner movement of the soul, with all the radiance of the soul. Space disappeared from my consciousness, I lost myself, and instead of both the outside world and myself, like a mighty wedge of spirit, a vibrating, radiant majestic experience descended, which was both a piece of the world and a piece of man”.
We can think of this time period around July/August 1931 as a “moment of conception”, with the birth of Kalki within the soul of Valentin Tomberg occurring sometime around April/May of 1932. The primary activity of Kalki within and through Tomberg (we might say “at the expense of” his personal self) lasted until the summer of 1943, specifically August 1, 1943, when the Sun, Jupiter and the Moon were within two degrees of each other at 12°-14° Cancer, fulfilling the prophecy of the starry script which would announce the birth of Kalki Avatar. Perhaps at this point in Tomberg’s biography, had conditions been right—both within his own soul as well as in the wider world community—another level of development may have occurred along the lines of uniting himself with Kalki. But on the other hand, perhaps it is in the nature of the step-wise development to complete union with this being that the starry script marked the bookends of the time of closer union between Maitreya and Kalki in the 20th century: August 1931 through August 1943. It may be worth noting here that Elisabeth Vreede, Tomberg’s main supporter from the General Anthroposophical Society who opened up the gateway for Tomberg to the Netherlands, passed away on August 31, 1943. And perhaps as the “birth” that goes along with the August 1943 conception, it was between February-July 1944 that the Tombergs settled in Germany and Valentin began his dissertation on law and jurisprudence at the University of Cologne.
And so, contrary to the perspective of Harrie Salman and Michael Frensch, I would say that it is only after 1943 that we get an impression of the mission of Maitreya, to whatever degree that is still distinct (as, for the time being, it must be) from the mission of Kalki Avatar. If the Kalki Avatar offers the grace of revelatory wisdom, as clearly exemplified in a work like Christ and Sophia, then Maitreya Bodhisattva offers the eternal effort of the striving human being. And this is what we see in Valentin Tomberg’s biography increasingly up to the end of his life: to investigate the question of inner certainty and to weigh all spiritual matters in the inner forum of conscience where the basis for this inner certainty can be found. It is the revelations unveiled to Tomberg’s spirit that we find in the years 1931-43; it is the unfolding of his own soul’s power through great inner struggle that we find from 1943-73.
For us nowadays we should attempt to be aware that on July 26, 2014 there was once again a “proper alignment” of the Sun, Moon and Jupiter in the 4°-17° range of Cancer. Perhaps this was once again a “moment of conception”, bringing Kalki to birth in April 2015—at the very least in a karmic community, and perhaps also in Maitreya himself. We must remind ourselves that the path to Buddhahood is both long and non-linear—it is entirely at the hands of destiny (i.e., grace, ora) and inner development (i.e., effort, labora) whether and how deeply Kalki is able to work into and through either his karmic community or Maitreya himself, and for how long. On August 11, 2026, the Sun, Jupiter, and Moon will once again be in a “weak alignment” as they were in 1931: with Jupiter and Moon conjoined at 14° Cancer, while the Sun is at 24°. From a certain point of view, we could even see the time from 2014-2026 as moving through 1943-1931 in reverse, in terms of the Kalki Avatar alignments bookending those two twelve-year periods. The stars incline, they do not compel…who is to say whether this moment in 2026 will be an “opening in the spiral”, another step in the octave of coming into receptivity of Kalki’s guidance on the part of the individual and the community—or whether it will be a “tower of destruction” moment, when illusions, inflated egos, and blind alleys are exposed for what they are, and we are thrown back upon ourselves?
On the other hand, whoever said the two are mutually exclusive? Perhaps they need each other. At the end of the story, “Annihilator of Ignorance”/”Maintainer of Religion,” (Kalki) and “Bearer of the Good through the Word” (Maitreya) come to be completely identical.
On August 21, 2017, thousands of people gathered together across the United States to witness an event that had not occurred since 1918: a total solar eclipse whose pathway crossed from coast to coast of the contiguous United States. With well-deserved hype emerging throughout digital media, this eclipse came to be called the “Great American Solar Eclipse.”
I can remember this eclipse quite vividly. At this point in time, I was still living at Plowshare Farm in Greenfield, New Hampshire. Since 2014, I had become increasingly involved with a local group of Sophians and Hermeticists, some of whom might be known to quite a number of readers, as they have been long-time friends and facilitators of Sophianic work: Richard Reho, Gail Dupre, Jim Wetmore, just to name a few. All told, there were nine of us locally who had been working together.
Specifically, our work centered around the Grail Knight’s Practice, a mantric distillation of Valentin Tomberg’s Lord’s Prayer Course, to which Robert Powell had given eurythmic movement. We also focused on a new form of working with the Tarot of Marseilles, which came to be called “Hermetic Conversation.” Eventually, I would present something of the work with Hermetic Conversation at the Sophia Foundation’s Annual Meditation Retreat in Santa Fe in 2019.
In both 2014 and 2015, this New Hampshire group had periodic retreats facilitated by Robert Powell and/or Estelle Isaacson. However, after 2016, Robert Powell entered into a much less intense travel and workshop schedule (see here: https://sophiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Choreocosmos_ConsiderationsEaster_2016.pdf). He has not traveled to the United States since then. Our group had a weekend intensive with Estelle Isaacson in the summer of 2016, and as we looked to the summer of 2017, we decided we wanted to have another intensive with Estelle.
This was not to be, however—the weekend we chose to have our event was centered around this Great American Solar Eclipse. This happened to be at exactly the same time as the Sophia Foundation’s Annual Meditation Retreat in Idaho—and Estelle had already made the commitment to co-facilitate this retreat with Karen Rivers. Due to health reasons, as well as massive shifts in her spiritual life, this was to be the last year that Estelle was able to attend a Sophia Foundation event, at least up through the present time.
And so, undaunted, we decided to carry on and co-create a retreat of our own. We invited friends like Kevin Dann and Ian Clyne. We left the evenings open-ended, during which Ian (a professional jazz pianist) guided us through musical experiences of our birth horoscopes. In the mornings we had Hermetic Conversation on the The Devil, Temperance, and Death. In the afternoons we experimented with more improvisational forms of Choreocosmos, and entered deeply into the Grail Knight’s Practice. The weekend culminated with experiencing the Solar Eclipse, the cosmic configuration of which created the foundation for our improvisational Choreocosmos (more on configuration below). All the while, we kept in consciousness that we had another group of Sophians actively engaged in complementary spiritual work on the other side of the country—like the two pillars of the 4th Apocalyptic Seal.
It was an incredibly rejuvenating weekend. We had begun to engage in content and processes that felt totally brand new, yet natural continuations of the work with which we had all become so deeply familiar. And yet, although it felt like a new beginning, it proved to be in actuality the fruition of that which we had been cultivating together for the past three years. By the year’s end, five of our nine would move—four of them to Ecuador, where Robert Powell and Lacquanna Paul had found their new home. Two of them would become more heavily involved in their external vocation, making it difficult to meet anymore with regularity. In hindsight, it feels as though this particular group of people were meant to come together to bring something to full expression at the time of this Solar Eclipse, and then go their separate ways. By the summer of 2019, I and my family moved away from New Hampshire to Copake, New York to join Camphill Village—and yet the work begun in New Hampshire carries on, with myself and my spiritual brother Phillip Malone continuing our work on Hermetic Conversation up to the present day.
And why do I write all of this? Because I wonder if others, too, perhaps feel as though they entered a different realm as of this Great American Solar Eclipse—particularly, but not limited to, my friends known and unknown here in the United States. It may be that we stand in the midst of—yes, right now, exactly in the midst of—a 6⅔-year long period.
In an extremely rare turning of events, the total solar eclipse that was visible from coast to coast of the United States on August 21, 2017 will be followed by another total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. This eclipse will be visible not just across the United States, but all the way from Mexico to Canada (see here: https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/april-8-2024/).
The above shows the path of the 2024 eclipse, which might be called “The Great North American Solar Eclipse.” Below shows the intersecting point of the two paths, from 2017 and 2024:
Notice that the midpoint of these two American Eclipses is December 14-15, 2020, less than one week before the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on the Winter Solstice (December 21). In fact, there is a total solar eclipse visible in South America, in Chile and Argentina, at the exact midpoint: https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/2020-dec-14. From this we can see that this third week of Advent leading up to the Great Conjunction is a kind of turning point or pivot in this 6⅔-year time period. We might imagine the 3⅓ years from August 21, 2017 through December 21, 2020 as the winding up of a clock, with the 3⅓ years from now until April 8, 2024 as the clock beginning to mark the time—of that which has been seeded to begin sprouting and revealing itself. The image of entering a vortex, of traveling one spiraling arm on the way in; entering the center point (the “eye of the storm”); and then traveling the other spiraling arm on the way out, presents itself to the eyes of our minds and hearts.
In another sense, humanity at large—and certainly the United States—stands at a crossroads. The time for choosing is before us: Christ or Ahriman. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—or Surveillance, Technocracy, Plutocracy. As this Great Conjunction occurs on the darkest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, we can feel the spiritual world holding its breath as humanity enters into the time of deepest darkness, wondering if they will choose for the Light to be reborn. Indeed, there are historical indications that are quite encouraging in this regard; for those who would wish to read further about these indications, turn to the last few pages of this article, where I have attached selections from my “Editorial Foreword” to last year’s Saturn—Mary—Sophia: Star Wisdom, Volume II.
By turning our hearts and our thoughts to the cosmic memories of the cosmic configurations of these two eclipses and the Great Conjunction, we make ourselves more receptive to the intentions of the spiritual world for this time. The Great American Solar Eclipse from August 21, 2017 was monumental in this regard: the occultation of the Sun by the Moon occurred at 3° Leo, conjunct Eta Leonis. This very closely recalled the seventh healing miracle of Christ from the Gospel of John, the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead. This miracle also occurred during a New Moon (every solar eclipse is a New Moon) conjunct Eta Leonis, one of the most powerful megastars, on July 26, AD 32 (all of the dates from the life of Christ in this article are drawn from the work of Robert Powell in Chronicle of the Living Christ and Christian Hermetic Astrology).
Looking to the Great Conjunction, this meeting of Saturn and Jupiter occurs at 5° Capricorn. This is only 3° shy of the Sun’s position at the first healing miracle, the Changing of Water into Wine, during which the Sun was 8° Capricorn, on December 28, AD 29. Notice that both of these miracles have an emphasis on drawing the cold light of the spiritual heights of the Father down into the darkest, warmest depths of the Mother in the heart of the Earth—the fusion of the furthest extremes. We can feel, then, that the time period from 2017 through 2020—the first spiral of the vortex—is a movement in reverse through the seven healing miracles from the Gospel of John. This movement backwards is taken up by Valentin Tomberg in his final work, published posthumously as Lazarus, Come Forth!, in which he brings into relationship the healing miracles with the seven days of Creation in the Book of Genesis. The final healing miracle of the Raising of Lazarus is a recapitulation of the first day of Creation—“Let there be light!”—while the first healing miracle of the Changing of Water into Wine is a recapitulation of the seventh day of Creation, during the primal Sabbath, when the Elohim declared all of Creation to be “very good.” During these past three years, therefore, we have had the opportunity to become a new Creation through Christ.
The Great Conjunction is even more closely related to another event in the life of Jesus—the Adoration of the Magi. While the Solomon Jesus was born on March 5, 6 BC, it took the Magi over nine months after his birth for them to arrive at the house of Jesus and his family. The three Magi bestowed their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh on December 26, 6 BC, to the nine-month old child they knew to be the reincarnation of their great spiritual teacher from prior incarnations, Zoroaster (Zarathustra). On this day, the Sun was 6° Capricorn, only 1° away from the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter in this year’s Great Conjunction.
And what about the Great North American Solar Eclipse that we look forward to on April 8, 2024? On this day, the Sun and Moon will conjoin at 24° Pisces. This too recalls the incarnation of the Solomon Jesus. The year 7 BC also saw a Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter—but this year was special; as sometimes happens due to retrograde motion, the two of them were conjunct not once but three times. It was this series of conjunctions that awoke the Magi to the reality of Zarathustra’s descent once again into an earthly body. In particular, it was the first of these conjunctions, which occurred on May 27, 7 BC, at 24° Pisces—the same position as the Sun and Moon on April 8, 2024. It was shortly after this Great Conjunction that Zarathustra was conceived and began his descent to Earth, on June 7, 7 BC.
And so this second 3⅓ year period, leading out of the vortex of 2020, draws our gaze to the individuality of Zoroaster or “Radiant Star”, yet again moving backwards through time, from the Adoration of the Magi when he was nine months old, to the time just before his conception. We might imagine this, on the one hand, to indicate a resurrection of the ancient Star Wisdom of Babylonian Astrology—a “moving back” to the Solomon Jesus’s incarnation as Zoroaster in the 6th century BC. The April 8, 2024 solar eclipse also very closely recalls the miracle of the Feeding of the Four Thousand (March 15, AD 31; Sun 25° Pisces); Peter receiving the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (March 19, AD 31; Sun 28° Pisces); and the Triumphant Entry to Jerusalem on “Palm Sunday” (March 19, AD 33; Sun 29° Pisces). All of these star memories combine to give the strong impression of the “Return of the King”—of true Authority overcoming false authority, putting things into their proper order.
The following are reflections on the Great Conjunction, as well as the Saturn-Pluto and Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions which preceded it this year. They are taken from Saturn—Mary—Sophia: Star Wisdom, Volume II, published November 2019 by Lindisfarne Books. These selections are taken from pages 17-21.
….at the end of the 16th Letter-Meditation on the Tower of Destruction, the Anonymous Author draws a connection between the classical spiritual identities of the planetary spheres (e.g. the Titan Chronos with the Saturn Sphere) and the leading spiritual beings of the Christian faith. He notes that rather than Chronos, it is the Virgin Mary who is now the ruler of the Saturn Sphere…. We wished to emphasize this Saturnine aspect of the Divine Feminine in light of the two major conjunctions of this year: the year begins in January with a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto, which only occurs every 34 years on average, and it ends with a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in December, which occurs approximately every 20 years.
It is quite rare for both of these aspects to occur in the same year, and it portends to be a dynamic one because of that. Historically, the gesture of Saturn-Pluto conjunctions is rather dire, full of doom, constriction and restriction, death, and the deep shame that arises in the communal recognition of our failings as humanity. On the other hand, Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions tend to demarcate shifts in cultural consciousness, miniature cultural waves bringing in a new overall Gestalt of insights, experiments, discoveries, and creations.
In between these two is a Jupiter-Pluto conjunction, which takes place roughly every 13 years, and generally portends enthusiasm and positivity on both a cultural and individual level. So we are taken from the depths of despair and conflict at the beginning of the year, to the heights of flaming enthusiasm in the midst of the year, to finally be brought across the threshold of a new equilibrium at the end of the year—and the Virgin Mary, the Divine Mother, carries us with her abundance of grace through it all.
Looking back historically, we can see that the Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions have occurred during important moments in the evolution of our modern Grail Spirituality:
2007: Inauguration of the Grail Priesthood
1994: Founding of the Sophia Foundation
1981: Meditations on the Tarot is translated into English by Robert Powell (finished in 1982)
1968: The original manuscript of Meditations on the Tarot is completed in French (in 1967)
1956: The seed-idea for what will become Meditations on the Tarot is formed (in 1957)
1943: The end of the Valentin Tomberg’s “Lord’s Prayer Course” in Amsterdam
1931: The beginning of Tomberg’s anthroposophical publications (in 1930)
1918: The first presentation of the Threefold Social Organism (in 1917)
1906: Start of Anthroposophical Christology in the form of “Theosophical Rosicrucianism”
1894: Publication of The Philosophy of Freedom
1882: Rudolf Steiner’s first exposure of Goethe’s Fairy Tale, and the start of a lifetime of writing and publication.
This continues back into the centuries, with Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions occurring around the birth of King Ludwig of Bavaria (1845), the deaths of Goethe and Kaspar Hauser (1832-3) and the death of the Count of St. Germain (1784). One might wonder what this year’s conjunction in Sagittarius portends? The last time the conjunction occurred in Sagittarius was in 1771, around the birth of Novalis and the beginning of the public career of Goethe. This time period marked the beginning of the Romantic Movement, a cultural renaissance that swept Germany and England in particular. In France it saw the intersection of the careers of Louis Claude de St-Martin, Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, and Martinez de Pasqually, resulting in the creation of the Martinist stream of French Hermeticism. And it was just after this time period that the American and French Revolutions would begin. The Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in Sagittarius inaugurated a time of cultural revival in many parts of the world.
The previous Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in Sagittarius took place in the years 1521-22. Interestingly, the last time Saturn and Pluto were conjunct in Sagittarius was a few years prior, in 1518. This time period saw the end of the lives of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, the zenith of the artistic phase of the Renaissance. The years between 1518-22 were the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation, with Martin Luther’s 95 theses and the resulting Diet of Worms. This time period also inaugurated the Age of Discovery, with Ferdinand Magellan accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the globe during exactly this time period. The years immediately following the 1520s would see the first major scientific revolution, hinging on the astronomical observations and deductions of Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler. Once again, Jupiter and Pluto in Sagittarius seemed to herald a brand new global culture, bolstered by the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in this same sign…
And what about this Great Conjunction? When were Saturn and Jupiter last conjunct in Capricorn, as they are this year? This is a tricky question. In the year 1961, something very unusual happened. While geocentrically, Saturn and Jupiter were conjunct in Capricorn, heliocentrically they were conjunct in Sagittarius. Therefore, in one sense one could say the last Capricorn conjunction was in 1961, but from another perspective it hasn’t occurred for a much longer time period, nearly 800 years. Around the time of the 1961 conjunction, a spiritual battle manifested itself on the physical plane in the conflict between President Kennedy and his strivings for peace, and the ever-looming threat of the intelligence agencies and their lust for war with Russia. It is difficult to say how consciously President Kennedy was operating as a public representative of the emerging Grail Culture; however, I can aver after a great deal of struggle in the “inner forum” of intuitive conscience that the intelligence agencies, both then and now, were conscious agents of the so-called “dark brotherhoods of the West” referred to many times by Rudolf Steiner.
At that time, there was a mismatch between the geocentric and the heliocentric; something attempted to manifest on Earth (geocentric) that wasn’t actually ready in the spiritual world (heliocentric). President Kennedy took his stand: after the CIA failed to embroil him in war with Cuba in the Bay of Pigs debacle, he vowed that he would “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds.” The intelligence agencies won in the end: their assassination of John F. Kennedy (with those of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Bobby Kennedy soon to follow) stood as a warning to any future President and other influential public figures that they hold all of the power, and the consequences of making decisions independent of them are deadly. We stand at a similar juncture at this time. Perhaps with Saturn and Jupiter conjunct in Capricorn both geocentrically and heliocentrically, that which attempted to manifest in 1961 can make a second, successful attempt. (Footnote: one could make similar queries and comparisons in regard to the Catholic Church ca. 1961 vs the modern day; e.g. see the writings of Malachi Martin [we might see Carlo Maria Viganò as carrying on the work of Martin in modern times])….
We stand at a threshold: for 200 years, the Great Conjunctions occurred in Fire Signs (Leo, Aries, Sagittarius). Over the course of the 20th century, they transitioned from Fire to Earth Signs. As of this year’s conjunction, this transition period will be over; the last Fire Sign conjunction was in the year 2000, in Aries. For the next 200 years or so, they will be in Capricorn, Virgo, and Taurus…. the last time period in history during which the Great Conjunction occurred in Capricorn and subsequently inaugurated a series of conjunctions solely in Earth Signs…covers the 12th-13th centuries AD: the height of the Middle Ages, with its Gothic architecture, Knights Templars and Cathars, Saints Francis and Thomas Aquinas, the Troubadours and Minstrels.
Going further back, the previous change from Fire Sign conjunctions to Earth Sign conjunctions occurred in the 3rd-4th centuries AD. This was the time of the Prophet Mani, of the Neoplatonists, and of the great theologians of Alexandria. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and Byzantium became the new center of the Roman Empire as Constantinople.
Prior to this was the 6th-5th centuries BC, the heart of the Axial Age. Here we see the beginnings of Greek philosophy, architecture, sculpture, drama and social forms. It is the age of Buddha, Zarathustra, and Pythagoras. The Hebrew people were taken into captivity; Daniel and Ezekiel became pupils of Zarathustra at this time—at the origin of ancient astrology. Cyrus the Great set the Hebrews free, and they returned to their homeland, rebuilding the temple under Zerubbabel.
The Capricorn Great Conjunction that set off the sequence of Earth Sign conjunctions prior to this occured in October/November 1516 BC. According to the research of Paul Marx, this coincides more or less with the birthdate of Moses—therefore, the life of Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt and back to the Holy Land unfolds under the Earth Conjunctions of the 2nd millennium BC.
And prior to this, we have the 24th-22nd centuries BC. This was the end of the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Mesopotamia, when Sargon of Akkad united the Akkadians and Sumerians into the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia. This was a culture dedicated to the Divine Feminine, Inanna. The first poet in history whose name is known comes from this culture and time period: the princess and priestess Enheduanna. This culture would later become Assyria and Babylonia, and Inanna would become Ishtar, the goddess of Love—known in Greece as Venus. This time period also saw the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt—the Dynasty that would transition out of the height of Egyptian culture that constructed the pyramids, sun temples, and the Sphinx, into the tumultuous and unstable Middle Kingdom.
In summary: the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in Sagittarius heralds a time similar to the late 18th century and the early 16th century. Saturn and Pluto in Sagittarius also recalls the early 16th century. And a Great Conjunction in the early degrees of Capricorn recalls the Middle Ages, the Neoplatonists, Pythagoras, Moses, and ancient Egypt. We are entering into a massively propitious time period—one that reminds us of the words of the Anonymous author from the 11th Letter-Meditation on Force:
The Virgin, the Force of our Arcanum, is the principle of springtime, i.e. that of creative spiritual élan and spiritual flourishing. The prodigious flourishing of philosophy and the arts in ancient Athens took place under the sign of the Virgin. Similarly, the flourishing of the Renaissance at Florence was under the vernal sign of the VIrgin. Also, Weimar at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a place where the breath of the Virgin perceptibly moved hearts and minds.
In ancient Egypt the woman of the mysteries of death was attributed to Osiris, and that of life—including language, writing, law and the arts—was attributed to Isis. Thus, Isis was the soul of the civilization of ancient Egypt, which we are still admiring after more than twenty centuries.
Perhaps Saturn as Virgin—as Isis, Mary, Sophia—is the key to understanding “the sign of the Virgin” referred to above. We are entering a time that is also under this sign. Rudolf Steiner spoke (in the tradition of Trithemius of Sponheim) of 355-year time periods ruled over by seven archangels in succession. The time of 1524 through 1879 was under the rulership of Gabriel, the Lunar Archangel. This time saw the development of man’s intellectual powers, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment that led to an exact perception of nature. Yet this time period led to the Cartesian split between the so-called “objective” outer world—a world that was considered “real”—and the “subjective” inner world—a world considered “arbitrary.” This latter sphere became the realm of the Romantics and revolutionaries. Two spheres developed that had no relation to each other: romantics and revolutionaries on the one hand, and scientists and technocrats on the other; neither sphere any longer had a relationship to the sphere of morality, to the spiritual world.
Rudolf Steiner saw that this Cartesian experience of the world achieved full maturation in the mid-19th century. Since then, it has been a backwards, retarding force on human spiritual progress. Since 1879, we have been in the time of Archangel Michael, the Solar Archangel. We must discover a new fundamental paradigm, one that is a “Sun” to the “Moon” of the scientific, abstract intellect. It is this new paradigm that was experienced and described by Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung, and the Anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot—amongst many others. This is described in vivid detail in Richard Tarnas’s Cosmos and Psyche—what is needed is a leap into the realm of the transpersonal, the archetypal, and the synchronous: a realm in which art, science, and morality find their mutual source.
Steiner emphasized that the opening of the window to make this leap was a relatively brief period of time—unlike prior developments in cultural evolution, this would not be a step that would happen unconsciously and automatically; it would require the conscious choice of participatory human beings. Perhaps the year 2020 heralds a kairos, a “now or never” moment. The first 140 years of the 355 year-long Age of Michael have been a struggle to relinquish the past, to tear ourselves away from the claws of the Dragon. Perhaps this struggle has been directly tied to the vacillation of Great Conjunctions between Fire Signs and Earth Signs. Perhaps only now can we truly take our shared destiny in hand, and move forward into a time under the “vernal sign of the Virgin.”
I also include here the commentary for December 21, 2020, from pages 216-18 of the same volume:
December 21: Jupiter conjunct Saturn, 5°22’ Capricorn.
Today concludes the journey of Saturn—Mary—Sophia and Jupiter—Holy Spirit over the course of 2020. We began with Saturn conjunct Pluto, the meeting of the Virgin Mary, the Mother, with the Divine Love of the Father. Often in human history, the meeting of these two is a difficult time for humanity as a whole. We come to realize how far we have abandoned the path laid out for us by the Wisdom of the Cosmos; we find out how little we have honored our Father and our Mother, and are induced to return to the path.
Jupiter and Pluto then met in the middle of the year. This meeting of the joyous Holy Spirit with the Plutonic Fire of Love generally results in a celebratory time for humanity; sometimes this celebration can bleed over into a kind of mania. Finally, we come to the end of the year as Jupiter (the Holy Spirit) unites with Saturn (the Virgin Mary). The image that is created out of the meeting of these two is Whitsuntide, when the Virgin Mary became the vessel through which the Holy Spirit could descend in tongues of fire onto the circle of twelve apostles. In this event, the cosmic unity was divided into twelve. Each apostle contained within him and could bring to expression a completely personal, heartfelt iteration of what up until that point was a transpersonal, lofty spiritual reality.
Historically, the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions—also known as Great Conjunctions—portend cultural shifts. These occur on a smaller scale, within the approximately 19.86-year rhythm of the conjunctions. More broadly, longer rhythms hold sway. The conjunctions take place for approximately 214 years in the Earth signs of Capricorn, Virgo, Taurus; then 214 years in the Air signs of Aquarius, Libra, Gemini; then Water, then Fire. After approximately 854 years, the cycle starts over again.
At the time of the Magi, and the birth of the Solomon Jesus, the Great Conjunction took place in the sign of Pisces. This took place over the course of the gestation of the Jesus child in BC 7 (he was born March 5, BC 6). By the time the Magi actually arrived at the house of Mary and Joseph, the child was already over nine months old. The three Magi brought their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh on December 26, BC 6. While the Great Conjunction had occurred the previous year in Pisces, the Sun on the date of the Adoration of the Magi was at 6° Capricorn, very close to today’s Great Conjunction.
At the time of Christ, the cycle of Great Conjunctions was shifting from Water signs to Fire signs. A kind of cosmic “Changing of Water to Wine” was taking place, as the clear Water of the old Law was transformed and fulfilled through the Fire of Love into New Wine. The same transition was taking place at the time of Parzival, who was very likely born close to the Great Conjunction in Pisces on February 15, AD 789, and whose redemption took place in the first half of 810, just after the Great Conjunction in Scorpio in 809.
In our time, however, it is a transition from Fire signs into Earth signs. All that has been inculcated into humanity from fiery spiritual realms can now begin to come into earthly manifestation. The 20th century was the center of this vortex: heliocentrically, the conjunction of 1901 was in Sagittarius, a Fire sign, but then that of 1921 was in Virgo, an Earth sign. Subsequently, the conjunctions of 1940 and 1961 were in Aries and Sagittarius, respectively (again, heliocentrically). The 1981 conjunction was in Virgo, but the 2000 conjunction was in Aries. The entire century wavered back and forth between Fire and Earth. Beginning with today’s conjunction, we have our first sequence ahead of us entirely in Earth signs: Capricorn in 2020, Virgo in 2040, and Taurus in 2060. Today is not just a minor cultural shift within a 20 year rhythm; it marks a transition to a greater cycle of over 200 years.
The last time humanity stood at this threshold was in 1166, just prior to the magnificent time of the Knights Templar and the awesome Gothic Cathedrals, the Cathars, the School of Chartres, Aquinas and Francis, the troubadours and bards. The time before that was in AD 253, around the time of the rise of Coptic Christianity and the School of Alexandria, of the Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Manichaeism. Somewhat later came Emperor Constantine, and the concrete institution of Christianity in Constantinople. Prior to this were the Earth conjunctions of the 6th century BC, the peak of the Axial Age—Buddha, Pythagoras, and Confucius all taught during this century. This was the time of the Hebrew exile in Babylon, as well as their eventual return.
Prior to that we come to the conjunction of BC 1516, marking the birth of Moses; before that, the 24th century BC, the height of Ancient Egyptian culture and the construction of the pyramids. What we can conclude from this vast surgery is that the transition out of the Fire signs into the Earth signs in terms of the cycle of Great Conjunctions marks an entry into a time of outer cultural flourishing, of renaissance and renewal. Under this sign, humanity has amazing prospects to fulfill the destiny laid out for them in the great age of Archangel Michael, which lasts until 2234. The first half of this age (which began in 1879) has been consumed with the struggle of transition from Fire to Earth; perhaps the second half will consist in humanity properly manifesting a truly Michaelic culture, the new culture of the Holy Grail: Michael Sophia in Nomine Christi!
Keeping in mind the indications from the previous section, we can also look to the individuality of Abel—Solomon—Mary Magdalene—Response de Schoye.
In the book Through the Eyes of Mary Magdalene, Book II: From Initiation to the Passion, Estelle Isaacson writes of Magdalene’s three-day initiation in the cave by Christ just prior to the Passion, bold emphasis mine, editorial in brackets:
“The three days of initiations were also a preparation, a seed-planting, both for her future and for that of humanity as a whole. The three days’ initiations corresponded to the following three and a half millennia of her incarnations, as well as the incarnations of humanity as a whole.
The Friday initiation prepared the soil and planted the seeds for her incarnations during the first thousand [approximately 1181] years. This initiation corresponded to the trial, scourging, crowning with thorns, bearing of the cross, crucifixion, death, descent into hell, overcoming of Satan, and everything these events encompassed—every action, every feeling, every word, spoken and unspoken.
The Saturday initiation was a preparation for the second thousand years of her incarnations [ending around the year 2394]. This corresponded to the washing and anointing of the body of Christ, the enshrouding, the visiting of the souls imprisoned in the underworld, the ascent to the souls in paradise, and the entombment—as well as everything these events encompassed.
And the Sunday initiation had to do with the third thousand years [ending approximately 3575]. This corresponded—and corresponds still in our day—to the opening of the tomb, angelic vigil, emergence from cosmic midnight, resurrection, reunion, and ascension to the Father; to walking, partaking, communing, and touching through the resurrection body—and to everything these events encompassed, including the ability to transcend time and space.
I understood that the three days of initiations, in addition to their correspondence with the three days of the Passion and the ensuing three [and a half] millennia of incarnations, corresponded also to the three and half years of Christ’s ministry. If we take the three and half years of his ministry and correlate it to the millennia of Magdalene’s incarnations, we arrive somewhere near the year AD 3500 [3575].
At the conclusion of these three millennia of incarnations I saw the individuality of Magdalene become a new kind of human being, surrounded with light as was Jesus at the Transfiguration, although I do not know if that is the proper term to describe the transformation I beheld. I cannot say that the individual I saw was a woman—but the incarnation was primarily of a divine feminine nature.
I was shown that the Word, or the seeds planted in the individuality of Magdalene during her initiations, would come to manifestation toward the close of her “Sunday night” of incarnations! She appeared in that coming time as an angelic human being.” (pp. 39-40)
Robert Powell writes in Christ and the Maya Calendar: 2012 and the Coming of the Antichrist of the gradual incarnation of Sophia into an etheric body, building on the visions and indications of the Russian mystic and visionary Daniel Andreev (contained in his magnum opus, The Rose of the World). This is the incarnation of the very being written of in Revelation 12, the woman clothed with the Sun, with the Moon under her feet, a chaplet of twelve stars on her head.
For the journey of Sophia into incarnation takes place gradually from the far reaches of the cosmos. She descended from the Central Sun, the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, and united herself with the starry heavens of our local Sagittarius Arm of the spiral (“chaplet of stars”). This occurred in 1775, around the time of the cultural renaissance and revolution of which I wrote in the previous piece—the time of Goethe, Novalis, Schiller, etc. She will descend to the level of the Sun sphere, uniting with our Sun 600 years later—in 2375, at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius (“clothed with the Sun”). A further 600 years later she will enter the Lunar sphere, uniting with our Moon, in the year 2975 (“the Moon under her feet”). Finally, virtually coinciding with the transition to the Slavic-Russian cultural epoch in 3575, she will incarnate in an etheric body here within the Earth herself, as a being Daniel Andreev calls “Sventa Zventana”: the “brightest of the bright and the holiest of holies” (for much greater elaboration, see Chapter 9: The Rose of the World, in Christ and the Maya Calendar).
It is my intuition that the vessel for the incarnation of Sophia into an etheric body around the year 3575 will be provided by the individuality of Mary Magdalene. It is this event that will bring about a Transfiguration-like event for this individual, transforming her into an angelic being. She will work very closely with the reincarnated Lazarus in order to bring about the fulfilment of European culture in the Baltic/Scandinavian regions, setting the stage for the Slavic-Russian culture which will be inaugurated by this transformative incarnation in 3575.
Let’s remember that the goal of the Age of Aquarius is to fully engage manas cognition, just as the goal of the Age of Pisces was to fully engage ego-consciousness. The year 3575 will be comparable to the year 1414, inasmuch as Northern Europe will be prepared to undergo a “Spiritual Scientific Revolution” equivalent to the scientific revolution of the 16th century. Increasingly, spiritual visionary activity will become commonplace. This is the cultural milieu in which the Magdalene spirit will be active—indeed, it is just what she has been preparing herself for.
Rudolf Steiner’s words from 1915 are important to remember in this context:
“What we see there in Goethe himself is a character trait of the German people. It can give an indication as to the mission given to human beings. The mission is, and we can present this very clearly to our souls, that true benefit for the progress of mankind will arise only if within a certain group of people a harmonious relationship is established between Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
It is possible to visualize Eastern Europe expanding westwards, across Central Europe, by brute force. It is possible to visualize this happening. That, however, would be equivalent to a situation where Joan of Arc had not done her deed in the 15th century and England had annexed France in those days. If it had come to that, and I state this emphatically, something would have come about that would not only have brought calamity to France but would have meant calamity also for England. And if German culture were now to suffer through what may come from the East, this would be to the detriment not only of German culture but also of the East. The worst that can happen to the East is that it might expand for a time and have an adverse effect on German culture. For as I said, the souls formerly incarnated in Western Europe or on the Italian peninsula and now growing up in the East unite with the Christ impulse as though instinctively, in the unconscious depths of the astral body. Yet the Christ impulse that is to grow within them can never arise through linear progression of the instinctive element that lives in their souls under the name of orthodox catholicism which, on the whole, is Byzantine of course, for this is a name not an impulse. It is just as impossible for this to evolve into what it is predestined to become as it is impossible for a woman without a man to have a child. What is preparing in the East can only come to something if Central Europe strongly and consciously — that is in a state of full awareness — unites the force of the human ego and human powers of insight with the Christ impulse, out of what souls are striving for out of egoic nature.
What has to come about for the civilization and culture of the future will only come about if the German folk spirit finds souls that transplant the Christ impulse into their astral body and ego the way it can indeed be implanted there in a state of full conscious awareness. It has to come about through harmony being established, by uniting with that which is consciously achieved in Central Europe — more and more consciously.
This will need not just one or two centuries, but a very long time. The time needed will be so long that we may reckon on about two thousand years, I would say, counting from the year 1400. Adding two thousand years to 1400 we get the approximate time when something will emerge in the evolution of the earth that has had its seeds in the German life of the spirit, ever since there has been such a life of the spirit. We therefore realize that we have to consider a future lying not just centuries ahead but more than a thousand years. And the mission of the Central European, the German folk spirit, a mission already before us, is that there will have to be more and more of that nurturing of the life in the spirit through which men take up in conscious awareness — right into the astral body and ego — a comprehension of the Christ impulse that in earlier times moved through the peoples of Europe as a living but unconscious impulse. Once evolution takes this course then the East, too, will gradually, by twining upwards, reach the level reached in Central Europe because of what is already inherent there. That is the intention of the cosmic intelligence. We only interpret the intention of the cosmic intelligence rightly when we say to ourselves: It would be the greatest misfortune also for the East of Europe to harm the very spiritual power it needs to use as a support in twining upwards, a power the East should indeed revere, revere in friendship, foster and cherish. It will have to come to this. For the moment the East is very far indeed from achieving this.”
Hand-in-hand with the gradual incarnation of Sophia is the gradual establishment of the Rose of the World. One way in which this will present itself is the increasing rapprochement of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Just as the past 500 years leading up to Christ’s fifth sacrifice have seen a rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches in the Eastern Catholic confessions, so the years from 3500 – 4000 will see the even greater reconciliation of Catholicism with Russian Orthodoxy. It is this reconciliation, along with the integration and dissolution of the Footwashing rite of the Age of Aquarius, that will facilitate the emergence of the Rose of the World (again, for more details see Chapter 9: The Rose of the World). This too is precisely what the individuality of Magdalene has been preparing for, and will continue to prepare for over the next 1500 years.
The Age of Aquarius—and the life-cycle of Philosophia—will culminate in the year 4535. Somewhere around the year 4000 AD will see the sixth sacrifice of Archangel Jesus and Christ. The Archangel Jesus will offer up his manas body in order to create a vessel for budhi, for Life-Spirit to enter Spirit-Self. It is at this point that there will no longer be a necessity for the Sophianic communion—the Church of the Mother, the Milk and Honey, the Footwashing of the Johannine service, will have done its work. With the attainment of budhi, what will gradually dawn on humanity is not just spirit vision, but actual dialogue, conversation, and active collaboration, with hierarchical, elemental, and disincarnate human spirits.
Six members of the human being will then have fully precipitated out of the spiritual potentiality held by the Higher Self and the Guardian Angel—with only the Resurrection Body still gestating, which it has been doing ever since the fourth sacrifice of the Mystery of Golgotha:
Around 4443 will see the last incarnation of Maitreya Boddhisatva, as Maitreya Buddha. From this point onward, it will be the work of Skythianos that is of key importance. Among other tasks this will entail the struggle to reintegrate the Anglican/Protestant communions back into the Catholic Church (the Rose of the World). To be sure, by this point the Catholic Church will be transfigured—on its way to becoming a New Jerusalem—having integrated into herself the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches, as well as the Aquarian/Sophianic Church of the Mother. It will be akin to the difference between the primal sacrifice of Abel’s best lamb to Yahweh versus the fully elaborated rituals of the Ancient Hebrews at the time of Moses.
We already have a prefiguring of this reintegrated Anglican/Protestant Church in the Christian Community developed by Lutheran anthroposophists under the guidance of Rudolf Steiner almost 100 years ago. A Christian Community service can give one a presentiment of a future Church that has integrated Roman Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Protestantism, the Johannine service of the Aquarian Age, and even Freemasonry. Like the agape feast of Melchizadek and Abraham, it is a necessary cultivation for the sake of a future time.
In summary, here is our timeline heading into the future:
Current day – 2375 AD: The culmination of the mission of Mani/Parzival. The appearance of the Etheric Christ. The confrontation with the incarnation of Ahriman. Humanity dimly feels the birth of Manas-cognition (imaginative clairvoyance). Sophia descends to the sphere of the Sun from the realm of fixed stars
2375 – 3095 AD (“Mars Years” of Philosophia, 42-49): Neo-Goetheanism arises in the northern regions of Europe. The Johannine/Aquarian Church is wedded to this movement. Manas-cognition comes to the point of the metamorphic consciousness of Goethe becoming relatively commonplace. Sophia descends to the sphere of the Moon. The Lazarus individuality (Rosicrucianism) comes to the fore after the Mani-Parzival individuality (Manichaeism).
3095 – 3815 AD (“Jupiter Years” of Philosophia, 49-56): Neo-Anthroposophy arises along the European/Russian border, in Finland in particular. Manas-cognition comes to the point of the fully visionary clairvoyance of a Rudolf Steiner becoming relatively commonplace. Sophia unites with the Earth, and incarnates into the etheric body of the Magdalene individuality, who transfigures into an angelic being. The reunion of the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches begins in earnest.
3815 – 4535 AD (“Saturn Years” of Philosophia, 56-63): Both the Manas-cognition exercised over the past 2,000 years as well as the Johannine (Sophianic) Mass culminate in the sixth appearance of Christ, around the year 4000. The Archangel Jesus offers up his perfected Manas-cognition as the vehicle for Christ to offer his Budhi or life-spirit to human beings as a whole, which has been gestating for the entirety of the Aquarian age. The human being will now have six fully elaborated members and one that remains in gestation—the Resurrection Body, the transformed physical body whose seed was planted at the Mystery of Golgotha. The final incarnation of the Maitreya Buddha takes place in 4443; the Sophianic Mass and Eastern Orthodoxy are subsumed into the Catholic Church. The end of the biography of Philosophia, which lasted from 1945 BC – 4535 AD.
The Age of Capricorn begins 4535 AD, while the Anglo-American cultural epoch begins 1199 years later, in 5734 AD. This is the time of Skythianos, who is the guardian of ancient Atlantean mysteries in terms of moral technology: the sub-natural (technological) forces of the Earth by this time will be responsive to the power of the moral word or moral ether bestowed on humanity by the Maitreya Buddha. Skythianos will lead the charge of the “white magicians” of moral technology against the “black magicians”, the Sorathic foes who attempt to enslave humanity in a transhumanist state of permanent mineral attachment. The Sorathic impulse is to escape the wheel of death and rebirth by permanently affixing the soul to the mineral world (i.e. the Singularity), whereas the impulse of the white magician is to de-mineralize or de-materialize the physical body through Christ (i.e. the Eucharist), in order to return to the pre-Lemurian state of continual transformation and metamorphosis.
This goal will be accomplished to some degree by the year 6000 AD or so, at which point the Moon will reunite with the Earth. The body of the human being at this point will only mature to about the age of 14; sexual reproduction will no longer be a possibility. One will either have developed oneself to be able to “put on the Resurrection Body” of alchemically wedded life and death; or one will have to rely on science and technology in order to create new (materially incarnated) human beings. See here: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA204/English/AP1987/19210513p02.html.
By this point, the Church will have become truly Catholic, having reintegrated the Anglican Communion. When the seventh appearance of Christ occurs around the year 6000 AD, the Archangel Jesus will offer up the perfected Budhi, and the Resurrection Body (or “Atma”) which had been gestating since the Mystery of Golgotha will become fully available to humanity. The human being will at last fully engage with other spiritual beings in intuitive union; it will be a seven-foldness that can withstand being absorbed by, and absorbing—co-inhering—an eighth, i.e. another spiritual being, in full consciousness:
The Catholic Church will begin to transform into the New Jerusalem, finding its home—under the guidance of Mani-Parzival, who will have by this point ascended to the position of Manu—in the etheric region of what is currently the Pacific Ocean. The untransfigured portion of humanity will destroy itself in the “War of All against All,” a global Trial by Air (juxtaposed to the Trial by Water of the Great Flood that destroyed Ancient Atlantis and the Trial by Fire that destroyed Ancient Lemuria).
It will be the mission of this transfigured portion of humanity over the course of the Sixth Age, after the War of All against All, to not only redeem and rescue fallen humanity, but to transform (i.e. dematerialise) all of Nature. By the end of the Sixth Age, the Sun will have reunited with the Earth—and the whole Earth will have become the New Jerusalem in her entirety.
I will attempt, at some point, to make available a graphic representation of these complicated themes.
“And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman garbed with the sun, and the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a chaplet of twelve stars, And she was pregnant, and she cries out, enduring birth-pangs, and in an agony to give birth. And another sign was seen in heaven, and look: a great flame-hued dragon who had seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems, And his tail drags along one third of the stars of heaven, and he cast them onto the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that, when she should give birth, he might devour her child. And she bore a son, a male child, who is about to shepherd all the gentiles with a rod of iron, and her child was seized away to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, there where she has a place prepared by God, so that they might nourish her for twelve hundred and sixty days. And war broke out in heaven: that of Michael and his angels waging a war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war, And did not prevail, nor was any place still found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, the one that is called Slanderer and Accuser, the one that leads the whole inhabited world astray—it was cast down into the earth and its angels were cast down with it. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now has come about the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed, because the persecutor of our brothers, the one prosecuting them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they conquered him by the blood of the suckling lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their own soul all the way to death. For this reason be glad, O heavens and those tabernacling therein; alas for the earth and sea, because the Slanderer has descended into you with a great rage, knowing that he has little time.” And, when the dragon saw that he had been cast down into the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she might fly to the wilderness, to her place, there where she is nourished—for a season, and for seasons, and for half a season—away from the serpent’s face.”
A great deal of history is condensed—and foreseen—in these first fourteen verses of the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, if only we know how to read the images that are written there.
First of all, who is the woman crowned with stars, clothed with the sun, standing on the moon? She is Sophia, yes, but in what role specifically? She is Sophia as the Soul of Europe, the Divine Ideal of Europe. Her threefold garment of stars, sun and moon are the threefold social organism of Europe: Liberty for the individual, Equality under the law, and Fraternity in our work. She is Columbia, the guiding light of the revolutions of the late 18th/early 19th centuries. We could say that she is intimately bound up with the Goethean enlightenment that flourished during this time period in the Germanic/Austro-Hungarian region of Europe.
This woman is in labor, bearing a son who is to “shepherd all the Gentiles with a rod of iron.” And this is no mere image or symbol, but quite literally this child existed. For who was the “Child of Europe”? None other than Kaspar Hauser; and as we pointed out in the previous section:
“South Germany should have become the new Grail-Castle of the new Knights of the Grail and the cradle of future events. The spiritual ground had been well prepared by all those personalities whom we know of as Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Herder and others. Kaspar Hauser was to have gathered around him, as it were, all that existed in this spiritual ground thus prepared.” (Rudolf Steiner, communicated to Count Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, November 1916).
And so this Goethean culture that developed during the late 18th/early 19th century was the earthly expression of this Sophia-Europa, as the vessel for a new Knights of the Grail led by Kaspar Hauser, the Child of Europe. But just as it is written in Revelation, the dragon waited by the lady’s feet in order to consume this child. Let’s look at the full quotation of Rudolf Steiner’s from November 1916, of which only a portion is quoted above:
“Those circles which conceal everything and today still try to conceal what happened in connection with Kaspar Hauser’s destiny, are those members of western Lodges and Jesuits who have worked together in their leading organizations for more than 150 years, but demonstrably since January 1802. The latter, therefore, do not want to have exposed what they have staged as an experiment, as an elaborate attempt to separate the individual in question from his mission and to hold him in a twilight zone, not completely spirit and not altogether a man on earth, but diverted from his mission and kept as though in spiritual exile; that is to say, to build a body, but not be able to take hold of it as an individual ego. This experiment, however, did not succeed and that is the reason why Kaspar Hauser had to die. The people concerned were forced to experience that their experiment achieved just that which they had tried to avoid: the awakening of the individuality, yes, even that he became conscious of reincarnation and karma. But that was just what should not have been. South Germany should have become the new Grail-Castle of the new Knights of the Grail and the cradle of future events. The spiritual ground had been well prepared by all those personalities whom we know of as Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Herder and others. Kaspar Hauser was to have gathered around him, as it were, all that existed in this spiritual ground thus prepared. But that was not wanted by those circles (the western Lodges and the Jesuits). They could not tolerate a centre that was awakening to consciousness if they were not to relinquish their power and designs for power. A spirit such as Goethe’s frightened them. Napoleon forced them to unite and form a league for the aspired-to world domination in the sphere of ideology and commerce. Napoleon had already thwarted their effort; it was he who fundamentally forced the two currents into union. From that time onwards the tasks allotted to each were clearly circumscribed. But for that their clearly defined goal of world domination became all the more effective. The ideological and spiritual affairs were given exclusively into the hands of the Jesuits; the commercial ones into the hands of the Anglo-American Lodges of the West. These plans, however, will lead to ever more tragic catastrophes, because none of them take human development into account. What was intended to happen through Kaspar Hauser was overthrown by mankind. On these “planned” ruins the black-and white principle gained ascendancy. The black-and-white principle, however, is something constructed, something exclusive. This is also the tragedy of Bismarck himself, who was quite well able to construct the model for a Federal State, the constructive idea of a true Central Federation, but could not supply the supporting idea, that which would have made a state construction of this kind appear necessary and justified. It was that which Bismarck was seeking in Frankfurt, too, the Goethean spirit, that which could have developed in the region of southern Germany through Kaspar Hauser but did not come about. It was in Frankfurt, actually, where Bismarck encountered the principle of black-and-white and all that then bound him to the King of Prussia. It was from then on that the era of the lawyer began, but politics is not a legal problem.”
It is fascinating to realise that in 1832—the year before the assassination of Kaspar Hauser—the Rothschilds (western brotherhoods) made a donation the equivalent of $70,000,000 in modern value to the Holy See (Jesuits):
And so, indeed, the Child was “seized up to God and his throne.” After this, there is the War in Heaven between Michael and the Dragon. We might wonder if Kaspar Hauser himself was a part of this war in the spiritual world? We know from Rudolf Steiner that this war took place during the years 1841-1879, after which the Slanderer (Satan in Hebrew, Ahriman in Persian) was thrown down to Earth. This corresponds almost exactly with the birth of Joseph Stalin in December 1878, who in his subsequent incarnation would be the vessel for in the incarnation of Ahriman (this is alluded to in Chapter 13 of Revelation, with the Beast who rises from the sea as Joseph Stalin, and the Image of the Beast as his reincarnation, the vessel for Ahriman).
The Slanderer pursues Sophia-Europa, and she is given the wings of an eagle to go into the wilderness for 1260 days (or, “a season, seasons, and half a season”). We can understand this to indicate that sometime after 1879—and throughout the 20th century—the Soul of Europe disappeared. More precisely, she entered the “wilderness” in order to be protected from the destructive forces of the Slanderer, the dragon, until the allotted time period has passed.
In the Lord’s Prayer Course, Valentin Tomberg describes the seven archetypal countries of Europe in relation to the seven lotuses. He gives brief descriptions of the spiritual tasks of each of these countries, and the nature of their guiding archangel or folk spirit. These countries are:
Saturn—Crown—Poland
Jupiter—Brow—Germany
Mars—Larynx—France
Sun—Heart—Italy
Mercury—Solar Plexus—(Spain/Portugal, according to Robert Powell)
Venus—Sacral—Netherlands
Moon—Root—England
Now, in this section, Valentin Tomberg makes an interesting statement regarding Germany and America:
“GERMANY – JUPITER. Germany – here the Archangel works through the element of warmth, both inner and outer warmth.
Warmth is bound up with two sources:
digestion and the blood (one warms oneself at the fire or through eating); and
through the ideals which the human being has.
The mission of Germany was to make the self (the source of ideals) so strong that it masters the digestive system.
However, the contrary took place.
Digestion and the blood rose up and created their own ideals, which had the consequence of driving the Archangel away.
This refers to Nazi Germany, where the ideal of pure, Aryan blood was promulgated, and the Archangel of Germany was obliged to withdraw its field of activity to America.
The highest warmth from the human being is in the Word from the Cross:
My god, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Human beings must develop a warmth from within in order to seek the highest: God. Then, through the initiative of the 2-petalled lotus flower, all the other lotus flowers also come into vibration by way of resonance.
The most lonely warmth is bound up with the mission of the self.”
And so we see, due to the consequences of the rise of the Dragon (Nazism), the archangel of Germany—which is meant to be the leading culture of the Age of the Consciousness Soul in Europe—fled to America. The “woman fled into the wilderness” indicates the Germanic archangel fleeing to America (the wilderness indeed!).
Now the Nazism that drove Sophia-Europa into America was not an isolated being, but rather the external, militant branch of the cooperation between the western brotherhoods and the Jesuits (dark powers of commerce and ideology). The true source for both the Nazi and Bolshevist disruptions in the 20th century come from the “mastermind” of England, where the western brotherhoods have operated for centuries. Indeed, they left their signature, as the Nazis chose the swastika (traditionally related to the root chakra) as their icon—and England is the “root chakra” of Europe.
The occultism of England suffers an identity crisis, a kind of Cain-like jealousy for the “Abel” of true European (Germanic, Goethean) culture. You see, Rudolf Steiner makes the following relationships clear throughout his lectures in the 1910s:
Italy is a recapitulation of the sentient soul culture of Ancient Egypt
France is a recapitulation of the intellectual soul culture of Ancient Greece/Rome
England is the first experience proper of the consciousness soul culture
The Germanic/Austro-Hungarian nations are the Ego of Europe
Finland as the conscience of Europe
And the Slavic/Russian countries are the still gestating spirit-self
The occultists of England have understood this role as consciousness soul for centuries, and therefore from the very beginning of the Age of the Consciousness Soul (see for example the events surrounding Joan of Arc) have attempted to rule Europe and determine her destiny. At first they did this more overtly through the British Empire, but through blackmail and subterfuge (i.e. primarily through intelligence agencies) they have maintained a stranglehold on world culture. The United States of America may seem as though they are the primary culture of modern times, but ever since the end of World War II, they have been playing a very similar role to Nazi Germany before them: the attack dog, the external arm of the western brotherhoods originating in England.
But this is all a great misunderstanding. For England, in another sense, is not properly part of Europe at all, at least not the current mission of Europe. For her mission will not come about for thousands of years, during the Anglo-American epoch from 5734 – 7894. England and America are meant to work together, and be the primary culture in the world—but not for a long time. We can even see this astrogeographically, as the projection of Taurus covers virtually the entirety of Europe except for the U.K. (and Spain), which are under the projection of Aries.
In mis-perceiving themselves as the cultural leader of the current time period, British occultists have facilitated to a great degree the incarnation of Ahriman, as they have attempted to arrest the development of both the 5th and 6th cultural epochs (European and Russian respectively) and are wittingly or unwittingly attempting to bring about the Anglo-American cultural era 4000 years too soon. And this era is the time period when “mechanical occultism” will face off against “transhumanism”; when the moon reunites with the Earth and sexual reproduction will become impossible; when the “white magic” of those who have cultivated the resurrection body (and therefore only incarnate physically, not materially) will attempt to rescue those who will become increasingly enmeshed in matter and sub-matter. This time period culminates with the “War of All Against All,” a war fought primarily in the elements of the air (just as Lemuria was destroyed by fire, and Atlantis submerged in water, our age is destroyed by the polluting, poisoning and weaponising of the air). Do we not see all of these future events attempting to rear their heads too soon, in our own age?
This fleeing of Sophia-Europa to the wilderness of America was also expressed in the gesture of the guiding light true occultism throughout the 20th century. It began in the Germanic countries with the Anthroposophical Society; Valentin Tomberg (as well as Walter Johannes Stein, Willi Sucher, and Karl Koenig, among many others) transferred this activity to the U.K. over the course of the 1930’s-40’s. Then individuals like Willi Sucher and Karl Koenig made the leap to the USA (following in the footsteps of individuals like Ehrenfried Pfeiffer) in the 1960’s.
So this middle period of the 20th century was a transition, a migration west. This reached its apotheosis in the 1990’s, when a British anthroposophist—Robert Powell—founded the Sophia Foundation with Karen Rivers in California. The true spirit of Goethean culture could and still can be found in the Sophia Grail celebrations cultivated there for the past twenty-five years. More than anywhere else, it was the American Camphills and the Sophia Foundation who protected the seed of true European culture, the Sophia-Europa, from the encroachment and attacks of the Slanderer.
Can we still see in our time a Napoleonic force that is driving the Jesuits and western brotherhoods to work together, to an ever great fusion? Do we begin to see cracks in the armour? As unsavoury as the modern conservative populist movement may be, represented as it is by figures such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, what we are seeing is Europe released from the clutches of the UK. And if Europe is released from the clutches of the UK, she can begin to relate more equitably with Russia. The future of Russia—and of humanity—depends on this healthy interaction. If the UK leaves Europe alone, then the USA and the UK can begin to relate to each other equitably. The future of Anglo-America—and of humanity—depends on this healthy relationship developing. And a healthy separation of USA/UK from Europe/Russia will lead to, if not friendship, then at least a respectful cooperation between USA and Russia. (Anyone who claims that Russia is actively attempting to disrupt the USA or Europe is either delusional or deliberately spreading (MI6/CIA/Mossad) disinformation. Beware who you trust.)
Now, it is indicated that Sophia-Europa enters the wilderness only for a transitional time (as pointed out by Friedrich Weinreb in his excellent Roots of the Bible, “three-and-a-half” is a number used in the Bible consistently to indicate a transition, specifically through the Sabbath to the “eighth day” the Promised Land). We can trust in the spiritual world that at some point, perhaps quite gradually, it will be the right time for Sophia-Europa to return to her homeland—to leave the United States. But when she returns, it will not be to the same regions. We can think of the seven archetypal countries of Europe laid out above by Valentin Tomberg as prototypes, in a way, of the true Europe to come.
In this lecture from 1914 (and the preceding lectures in this series), Rudolf Steiner describes the relationship between the forms on the columnss of the Goetheanum and the different European cultures: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA287/English/UNK1958/19141024p01.html. He indicates here that the second column relates to southwestern Europe (Spain/Portugal), the third column is related to France, the fourth to England, and the fifth to the Germanic countries. But he goes on to address the question: what about the northern countries, like Norway, Denmark, Sweden?
He then makes the interesting claim that the more southerly/westerly European cultures are simpler vs those of the northern/eastern nations. He points out that Norway is like England transformed by Germany; Denmark like France transformed by Germany; and Sweden like Spain/Portugal transformed by Germany. We might think of the original seven (Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, England) as all more-or-less still under the strong influence of the Roman system from the prior Greco-Roman cultural era, like cultures in-between. A new group of seven will begin to arise, centered around the Baltic Sea: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. These nations will be “in-between” in the opposite sense: they will build the bridge to the sixth cultural epoch of the Slavic-Russian peoples. They are the seven archetypal European nations transformed by the Germanic spirit—by Sophia-Europa.
In my own astrogeographical research, which will appear in As Above, So Below: Star Wisdom, vol 3 (available Nov 2020), I elaborate on the following map of stellar projections onto Europe (a larger and clearer version will be available in the article “Finding Future Grail Sites”):
We can imagine Europe like someone (perhaps Martialis, the youth of Nain?) being raised from the dead. We can imagine the regions along line A (totally horizontal) to be of particular importance during the Greco-Roman era (747 BC – 1414 AD); those along line B to be of particular significance during the Age of Pisces (215 – 2375 AD); and those along line C to be of particular importance during the European-Germanic era (1414 – 3574 AD).
Then line D is of particular significance during the Age of Aquarius, from 2375 – 4535 AD. It will be in between lines C and D—in northern Germany, Poland, Norway, and Denmark—that the “Neo-Goethean” culture will arise, as Sophia-Europa returns to her homeland, over the course of the 3rd millennium. Line E becomes of significance at the start of the Slavic-Russian era, from 3574 – 5734 AD. We can imagine this totally vertical line as the youth of Nain risen from the dead, ready to walk—heading east, through the Russian nation. Here we see that it will be in the nations between lines D and E that the “Neo-Anthroposophy” will arise—Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Sweden—in the 4th millennium, transitioning into the Slavic-Russian culture.
It is interesting that in the midst of the global panic in response to covid-19, most of the world went into severe economic depressions due to unjustified lockdowns. But there is one part of the world that seems to be doing ok, because by and large they did not engage in such extreme, hysterical measures:
The northeastern region of Europe—the nations surrounding the Baltic Sea—seem to have weathered this final showdown with Ahriman with their heads on their shoulders. In terms of biological, social, and economic health, these countries are going to be in much better shape than the rest of the continent, and perhaps the rest of the world. Perhaps we can see the rising of the new sun, of the New Age of the Etheric Christ, in the area around the Baltic Sea?
And so these are the regions that requires “christening” through the Footwashing ritual in order to prepare them for their future missions over the course of the next 2000 years (the Age of Aquarius), leading up to the appearance of Christ in the astral realm (the sixth sacrifice of Jesus and Christ)—just as Joseph of Arimathea prepared the southern and western regions of Europe for the Age of Pisces in preparation for this very moment in human history.
We can also consider the fact that there are three key individualities now and into the future—each of them raised from the dead by Christ. Salome, the daughter of Jairus, will be the guiding individuality for the Age of Capricorn, bridging the Slavic-Russian cultural epoch with that of the Anglo-American. We can imagine Salome to be in close relationship with the Skythianos individuality and impulse—the protector of the Atlantean mysteries of “mechanical occultism,” of working with nature forces. Lazarus will be the guiding individuality of the Age of Aquarius—he is in close relationship with the Maitreya Boddhisatva, bridging the Germanic-European culture with the Slavic-Russian through the Rosicrucian impulse. And in our time, in the Age of Pisces, it is the Youth of Nain, Martialis, who is the guiding individuality, building the bridge from the Greco-Roman to the Germanic-European culture through the Manichaean impulse.
This individuality’s incarnation stream, according to there research of Robert Powell, was 1) Mani in the 3rd century AD; 2) Parzival in the 8th-9th century AD; and Kaspar Hauser in the 19th century AD—the “Child of Europe” we spoke of earlier! Rudolf Steiner indicated that this individuality would incarnate in our time. Considering that we are approaching the threshold of the Age of Pisces, heading into the Age of Aquarius (2375), perhaps the time is at hand for this individuality to realise that which could not be achieved in the 19th century—to found a new Knighthood of the Holy Grail, not in southern Germany, but in the region of the Baltic Sea…
Tree/House 