Steiner Predicts

Some "ancient" events actually occurred quite recently, as judged in the context of multi-million-year-long planetary history. “The Atlantean period was no more than about nine thousand years ago." [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 50.] Nine thousand years is such a short span, humans, the Earth, and planets such as Mars would have been much the same then as they are now. Or so science tells us. Hence, although I may seem benighted to any Anthroposophists reading this, I will toss in some scientific facts about the planets. Such facts do not always demolish Steiner's statements (many of which have no reference to reality), but they do provide an interesting context.

Beginning in the 1960s, the USA, the Soviet Union/Russia, and the European Union have sent numerous space probes to Venus. Some flew past the planet, some went into orbit, and some landed. All these probes reported consistent—and discouraging—news about conditions on the “planet of love.” Venus is constantly shrouded by thick clouds of sulfuric acid. The temperatures on the surface approach 900 degrees Fahrenheit. There is, of course, no water on the surface (any that may have been there in the past has long since boiled away). The atmospheric pressure at the surface is almost 100 times greater than on earth—any mammal set down there would be instantly crushed (and then eaten up by sulfuric acid). It’s a hellish place.

No such considerations, however, dissuaded Rudolf Steiner from describing the colonization of Venus by human beings, long ago: “[D]uring the Lemurian epoch of earth-evolution only very few human beings had outlasted, on the earth itself, the happenings of this evolution...the majority of souls withdrew from the earth to other planets, continuing their life on Mars, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and so forth.” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36.] Lemuria preceded Atlantis, so the trip from Earth to Mars, etc., occurred well before 9,000 years ago. But the trip back was yesterday, cosmically speaking: “[D]uring the Atlantean epoch, these souls gradually came [back] down to earth ....” [Ibid, p. 36.]

Let's look out farther into space. Take Jupiter. Astronomers report that Jupiter is a colossal, rapidly rotating ball of gas. It is five times Earth’s distance from the Sun—the feeble sunlight reaching it produces little warmth. The tops of Jupiter’s clouds are about -250 degrees F. Extreme winds hurl the clouds into maelstroms. Farther down, the atmosphere grows progressively thicker in the increasing gloom, and the winds are proportionately fiercer. There is no planetary surface. Instead, far down, the atmosphere becomes so condensed that it turns to liquid. At the dismal level where gravity is two-and-a-half times Earth’s, the temperature is approx. 70 degrees F.—cozy, except for the literally crushing pressure. Below that, hotter, super-compressed liquid, far greater pressures, pitch dark. All in all, not a hospitable place for humans. But I'm being too literal, maybe. Could human souls, clad in unearthly bodies, survive “on” (or around, or in) Jupiter? Sure. We can imagine that, or almost anything else. Imagination is flexible, as Steiner showed. I'm recklessly injecting a little reality into the discussion, knowing that reality is irrelevant to Steiner. But let’s see what Steiner himself had to say. (Don’t get excited. It’s not illuminating.)

“If you were now to imagine bodies of men forming out of the clouds and flying down to the Earth, that would be a picture of how the new Beings come forth from a kind of cloud-mass on Jupiter...Just as we on Earth are pervaded by air, so everything on Jupiter is pervaded by
wisdom. Wisdom there has substantiality, streams in the atmosphere, discharges itself like rain on Jupiter...Herein live the Cherubim, who in this realm of existence gather up and give shape to the karma of human beings.” [Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. II (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 48.]

“On Jupiter human beings will no longer have physical hands that are mobile organs [sic], for they will be fixed. On the other hand [sic] their astral and ether hands [sic] will be in part able to move outside those physical hands. As a result, Jupiter man will not merely think with his brain, for his fixed hands will enable him to reflect into [sic] the elements now united with his physical hands.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS (SteinerBooks, 1986), p. 152.]

For additional references to conditions “on” Jupiter, see the following Steiner books: ANGELS; COSMIC MEMORY; THE FIFTH GOSPEL; CORRESPONDENCE AND DOCUMENTS (“The consciousness soul can only unfold because the forces which will later be developed fully on Jupiter already throw their shadow [sic] ahead....”); GUIDANCE IN ESOTERIC TRAINING; FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER; OCCULT SCIENCE; AGRICULTURE; ACCORDING TO LUKE; THE MEANING OF LIFE AND OTHER LECTURES ON FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES (“The animals perish in their earthly forms, but the animal group-souls are fertilized and appear on Jupiter having been prepared for a higher existence....”); ROSICRUCIAN WISDOM [sic]; CHANCE, PROVIDENCE, AND NECESSITY; THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD; NATURE SPIRITS; ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ; ISIS [sic] MARY SOPHIA; CHRIST AND THE HUMAN SOUL; LOVE AND ITS MEANING IN THE WORLD (“The beings who will wander about on Jupiter, just as human beings move about on Earth, will find love exhaling from all creatures...”); GUARDIAN ANGELS; THE INFLUENCE OF SPIRITUAL BEINGS UPON MAN; THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL; AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE; THEOSOPHY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS; OCCULT SIGNS AND SYMBOLS. ART IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM; WONDERS OF THE WORLD (“[A] Spirit advances with the souls of men towards existence on Jupiter....”); and THE MISSION OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL (“For we will be different beings on Jupiter. These so-to-speak Jupiter men exist already now just as we existed upon the Moon....” )

Saturn, now. There’s a vacation spot. Pretty rings. Otherwise, Jupiter’s smaller sibling, almost 10 times Earth’s distance from the Sun. Cold (cloud tops: -290 F). Dim. Toxic (helium, ammonia, etc., above liquid metallic hydrogen, above iron and...). Crushing gravity. Nasty.

“Even on the planet Saturn man was present. Saturn did not shine, but it sounded and could have been heard...[I]t gradually vanished away, was for a long time invisible, and then shone out as the Sun. The planet Sun [sic] passed through the same process and reappeared as the Moon...Saturn-man was very different from the human being of today...he would not have been visible to physical eyes...The human form was like a kind of auric egg [sic], and within it was a remarkable scaly structure, a sort of vortex, shaped like a small pear and as though made of oyster-shells [sic].” [Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDING A SCIENCE OF THE SPIRIT (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 73.] Not helpful, but intriguing, no?

As for Neptune man and Uranus man: Nothing. Steiner is silent. I think he missed a trick there.

Let’s get serious. The moon is not, of course, a planet—it is earth’s natural satellite (probably created by the collision of Earth and a stupendous asteroid (debris from the collision fell into a ring around the Earth, after which it amassed at the moon)). Low gravity. No atmosphere. Little if any water (none on the surface except, perhaps, a little at the poles). Extreme temperatures: during each 14-day-long day, 260 F.; during each 14-day-long night, -280 F. Lifeless.

“If one looks at the Moon man as a whole, he consists of three parts: a physical body, an ether body, and an astral body. The physical body is tripartite; its partition is the result of the work of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon forces...Through the absorption of the astral body on the Moon, man has become capable of a life of sensation...the Moon man can regulate his behavior entirely in accordance with the images which arose in his image consciousness.” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 219.] Comments, anyone?

“But there is nothing mineral in this Moon-man, hence he cannot be seen with physical eyes but only with spiritual sight.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE OCCULT MOVEMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (SteinerBooks, 1973), p. 75.] How convenient.

“I know Moon man has become earth man, but this effect still holds its original cause within it, we still have Moon man in us. Looking upon this Moon man we are able to say: ‘He is what we call the dreamer in us.’ Yes, indeed....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS, (Steiner Books, 1986), p. 216.) (This is as folksy as Steiner gets.)

“Thus the third stage of consciousness was reached on the Moon, and it may be compared with the present dream-filled sleep, but it was much more vivid and real.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, (Steiner Books, 1977), p. 169.) I find I feel I need to repeat what I’ve said previously and perhaps even in prior lives: Bear in mind, Steiner tried to wriggle away from the explicit meaning of his statements by claiming that he was talking about stages of development, not—for the most part, although somewhat, “in a sense”—actual, physical orbs. His lectures lean as far away from rationality as possible: Overcoming rationality is central to dogmas that endorse clairvoyance, imagination, and intuition (which are sometimes “in a sense” the same thing).

And recollect: “[T]he majority of souls withdrew from the earth to other planets, continuing their life on Mars, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and so forth.” If he meant this to mean “they passed through the ‘Mars’ phase, the ‘Saturn’ phase, etc.,” he might have said so. Instead, he tried to have it both ways. He trafficked, after all, in mysteries. The more mystifying his doctrines, the better—for him. Obfuscation was his modus operandi: Give the people stunning visions, but keep them guessing, too: If they wanted “truth,” they had to come to him, the greatest source of supersensory blather. The only way we can sensibly affirm Steiner’s teachings is to assert that language has no real meaning—don’t take words literally. But this is a poor defense of Steiner, since it entails the admission that Steiner’s statements have no real meaning—they are, in sum, nonsense. (I’ve said that before, too.)

Like the Moon, the Sun is not a planet (no matter what Steiner said). It is a tremendous ball of glowing gases (glowing from nuclear fusion; and note that “tremendous” is a relative term: the Sun is only average size for stars: some are far bigger). Situated about 10,000 light years from the center of the galaxy (in all, the Milky Way has 100,000,000,000 stars; and there are probably more than 100,000,000,000 galaxies: we ain’t nowise central). One orbit by the Sun, around the galaxy, takes about 250,000,000 years. Temperature at the “surface”: 10,000 F. (at the core: 27,000,000 F.). Quite toasty.

Of course, in emphasizing the physical conditions that actually prevail on the celestial bodies that actually exist in the actual universe, I am missing Steiner’s point. He quite clearly was not talking about anything actual.

“We have the dreamer in us who has brought Moon nature into us, and we also have a Sun man in us from Sun evolution. This Sun man, however, is no longer able to dream. His conscious awareness if [sic: is] of the same kind as that of plants. We have within us a plant or Sun man, who is asleep. And then we have in us a Saturn man who is completely dead, as dead as a stone.” [THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS, p. 224.] Drat. I sort of liked Saturn man. Anyway, note that here Steiner is semi-clearly referring to evolutionary stages. But wait:

“Man's physical body was prepared on Saturn; on the Sun was added the etheric or life body...It took what the physical body had already become by itself, and worked on it further. On the Moon was added the astral body; this still further altered the form of the [physical] body. On Saturn the physical body was very simple, on the Sun it was much more complicated...On the Moon the astral body was added, and on the Earth the ego....” [Rudolf Steiner and Richard Seddon [him again], RUDOLF STEINER (North Atlantic Books, 2004), p. 29.]

How did they say on Star Trek? Does any of that compute? Is there a scintilla of sense in anything Steiner said? Maybe I’m not the one to say. So I’ll turn it over to you. What do you think?