Christ Module 10 - Tenth Hierarchy

This module is about the future of Man and how Christ is the representative and enabler of that development.

The future of humanity is to become the tenth spiritual hierarchy (after the nine spiritual hierarchies that developed before Mankind): Mankind is to become the hierarchy of the Spirits of Freedom and Love.

No true Love is possible without Freedom. And Man is the first class of spiritual beings who is not acting upon higher divine impulses and guidance, but who - thanks to the Luciferic influence - has freedom of choice. This means that with Man, something new enters into the cosmos.

The 'design choice' for this development in our solar system evolution implied the Fall of Man and the required intervention of a divine being - Christ - to 'correct' or overcome this, to balance out the gift of Freedom with the overriding gift of Love, the choice for the Good.

The evolution of spiritual hierarchy such as humanity is a development along a 'CoC-ladder' of different Conditions of Consciousness (as explained further on that topic page), and the concepts we denote by planetary spirit and zodiac are stages along such future development. See also Schema FMC00.570A on the IAO topic page.

Aspects

the great mission of Man is to bring Freedom into the world, and with Freedom firstly that which one calls Love in the true sense of the word. For Love without Freedom is impossible. The earth is the Cosmos of Freedom and Love and humanity is in process of development to become the tenth of the hierarchies, the Spirits of Freedom of Spirits of Love (1909-04-18-GA110)
the Mystery of the Earth is expressed in the words: ‘To make the Trinity into a Quaternary': when an absolute equilibrium comes about between the three forces of Thinking, Feeling and Willing, a fourth element is added and that element is Love. (1910-06-11-GA121)
until the 12-13th centuries, people could talk about Man being the Fourth Hierarchy and bringing life, after the first three hierarchies H1, H2, H3 brought the elements and ethers in the previous planetary stages of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon (1924-01-04-GA233A (and 1924-01-11-GA233A))
freedom and love:
- we attain freedom by irradiating the life of thought with will,we attain love by permeating the life of will with thoughts. We unfold love in our actions by letting thoughts radiate into the realm of the will; we develop freedom in our thinking by letting what is of the nature of will radiate into our thoughts. And because we are a unified whole, when we reach the point where we find freedom in the life of thought and love in the life of will, there will be freedom in our actions and love in our thinking. Each irradiates the other: action filled with thought is wrought in love; thinking that is permeated with will gives rise to actions and deeds that are truly free. Thus, you see how in the human being the two great ideals, freedom and love, grow together. (1920-12-19-GA202)
see also The great journey of humanity (PDF file) which provides an introductory overview with a selection of Schemas from the site, and zooms into the pivotal phases of the four epochs between the third and sixth epoch on Earth, and the crucial period of the next 3000 years which is pivotal in the transition of humanity between the current and the next sixth epochs.

Inspirational quotes

Luke 17:21

The kingdom of God is within you.

John 10:34

Jesus answered them: "Is it not written in your Law, "I said, "You are gods"'

Genesis 3:5

"You will become like the Gods"

Psalm 82:6

I have said, “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

1909-07-02-GA112

Christ answers: In the inmost recesses of the human soul there is the germ of the divine. It is something godlike.
How often have we stated that the fourth principle (the I) in the being of Man is the germ of the God in him.
‘Ye are Gods!’ That means: A divine principle dwells in you!

1932 - Henri Bergson

in 'The Two Sources of Morality and Religion' (original In FR 'Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion'), published in 1932

and quoted by o.a. Jean Dubuis in 'The experience of eternity'

the Universe is a machine to manufacture gods

paraphrased: evolution is not just mineral-physical or biological but also creative and spiritual .. the universe's complexity and progression can be seen as a force driving beings toward higher states of awareness or even divinity .. life is not a static phenomenon but a dynamic process continually evolving and refining itself.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.564: a Schema by DL, who made this up - some inspiration for meditation.

What was there before our solar system, as described in spiritual science? What happened before Old Saturn? Why do we start there, with what is described?

Imagine the divinity as The three Logoi, it has as its intrinsic nature that it wants to know itself, and it is characterized by a cosmic breathing pulse. Through this breathing, the logoic principle gives rise, in consecutive cycles, to a new combination of consciousness, life and form, which is called a spiritual hierarchy. The Seraphim are still closely tied to the nature of the third logos (L3), then follow Cherubim and Thrones.

The triad is characterized by a threefoldedness in how the natures of the three hierarchies interrelate (between themselves), and relate to the three logoi: consciousness, a rhythmic life pulse, and an extension which gives it form. In following cycles a ladder is led down of such triads (see upper left of the drawing) thereby extending a ladder of currently Twelve Conditions of Consciousness. In each cycle, an additional hierarchy is added below in an extension of complexity of the Cosmic Fractal.

This can be mapped to the start of our current solar system evolution (lower right) starting with the Thrones sacrificing and the angels being the last hierarchy, and we find back the stages of Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon. See Schema FMC00.077 and variants. A 'linking pin' chain element closely ties the lowest hierarchy of triad N and the highest of the next triad N+1.

The drawing is only a high level sketch of a complex multi-dimensional dynamic. Below the horizontal line, the future is developing. Within our solar system 'cycle' of the spiral, one could say the horizontal line on the lower right corresponds to the CoC=4 'human stage' type of consciousness, but one can also imagine that the nature or complexity of the condition of consciousness shifts with each spiral arm, so it jumps with steps of 4.

Compare the three triad blocks on the lower right corner for Old Moon stage, to the same block on Schema FMC00.077B.

Extending the horizontal line on the lower right, one sees that Earth and Future Jupiter are two intermediate stages that reach a sort of cycle conclusion stage on Future Venus - see also Schema FMC00.022 on that page. This is maybe also why Rudolf Steiner says that no human mind or language can today imagine Vulcan, and hence why it is not talked about: creation and the state of consciousness is beyond what we can take in scope for grasping with current intellectual thought and waking consciousness.

The spiral and ladder of consciousness is not fixed or stable, but very relative, as one can look at it in many ways. For example in the next three planetary stages, humanity will be in the roles represented by the colour green on Schemas FMC00.077 A and B. After that comes a graduation to become creator at a higher level, emanating substance through sacrifice; to get an idea: like the Thrones gave rise to the Archai on Old Saturn. See again Schemas FMC00.077 A and B - this schema does not show this (but it could be depicted in a future grid version).

Schema FMC00.055 gives a more schematic representation centered on the Development of Man. In the first three planetary stages, the development of the lower bodily principles and a scaffold for Man's higher triad. The last three stages are the spiritualization of the lower to the higher spiritual Man. The I stands central to this evolution on the current planetary stage Earth.

More on: Overview of solar system evolution

Schema FMC00.428A adds the explanation from Rudolf Steiner's narrative in the sources listed, against the background of Schema FMC00.428.

It shows how "the Christ Impulse triggered a reversal of the influences of the two crossing streams", and gave Man independence in love and allowed for a spiritualization of love, as love without true freedom is not love.

Note: all texts originate from the GA244 sources listed, but were aggregated into a single schema explanation.

See more on: Human character - the I and threefold soul

Lecture coverage and references

1904-10-22-GA089

see: Planetary spirit#1904-10-22-GA089

Human beings .. today ... are in the process of dhyanic evolution.
...
The human being is in the process of becoming a planetary spirit. At present he is image of the godhead only in mineral terms, for he must still develop his astral, rupa-mental and arupa-mental nature. Then, at the end of the seventh round, he can become an angel of orbital period. The highest of the dhyan chohans will then say to him: ‘All animals and plants are given into your care.’
This will thus happen on the 7th day of creation. The human being will then be a dhyan chohan, a dhyanic cosmic spirit (chohan = cosmic spirit).

1904-10-25-GA089

On completion of all 343 states [in the evolution of this solar system, see Three dimensions of evolution] ..
the human being will be what we call a `god'. This is not the supreme god but 'the third Logos', which is in truth the Logos of form when it will have gone through the 343 metamorphoses. It is form at its most advanced stage. These different configurations of conscious awareness are form again on the higher plane. Conceived as a whole, these 343 forms are thus the third Logos.
The second Logos will represent life at its highest stage, and the first logos, conscious awareness at its highest stage. The stages of form are represented in colours and signs for esoteric students, the stages of life in sounds, life sounding forth. No characterizing signs exist in the physical world for the stages of conscious awareness.

1908-06-25-GA104

[Development of the I and mission of the Earth and humanity: freedom and love]
This conception of the “I” offers difficulty to many people. It has become clear to us that this “I” of man has developed from a group-soul nature, from a kind of all-inclusive universal “I” out of which it has been differentiated. It would be wrong if man were to crave to go down again with his “I” into some sort of universal consciousness, into some sort of common consciousness. Everything which causes a man to strive to lose his “I” and dissolve it into a universal consciousness, is the result of weakness. He alone understands the “I” who knows that after he has gained it in the course of cosmic evolution it cannot be lost; and above all Man must strive for the strength (if he understands the mission of the world) to make this “I” more and more inward, more and more divine. True anthroposophists possess nothing of the empty talk which continually emphasizes the dissolution of the “I” in a universal self, the melting into some sort of primeval sea. True anthroposophy can only put forward as ..
.. the final goal, the community of free and independent I's, of I's which have become individualized.
It is just this that is the mission of the earth, which is expressed in love, that the I's learn to confront one another freely.
Love is not perfect if it proceeds from coercion, from people being chained together, but only when each “I” is so free and independent that it need not love, is its love an entirely free gift. It is the divine plan to make this “I” so independent that as an individual being in all freedom it can offer love even to God. It would amount to Man being led by strings of dependence if he could in any way be forced to love, even if only in the slightest degree.

1909-04-18-GA110

gives a grand finale of that lecture cycle (SWCC)

We therefore see how in fact the World development does not simply repeat itself, but that new things enter. For a human stage such as is lived by men at present was never met with before, not with the Angels, nor the Archangels, nor the Archai. Man had a completely new mission to fulfil in the world, and for the sake of this mission he has descended into the world of the earth. And the Christ came into the world as a free Helper for him, not as a God acting from above, but as a first-born among many.
Thus at last, we understand all the dignity and all the importance of Man as a member of our Hierarchies, and when we glance upwards to all the nobility and the glory of the higher Hierarchies we say to ourselves: Be they ever so great, so wise, so good that they never err from the right path, yet the great mission of man is to bring Freedom into the world, and with Freedom firstly that which one calls Love in the true sense of the word. For Love without Freedom is impossible. A Being who blindly follows an impulse, just follows it; but for a Being who can also act otherwise, there exists but one force which he could follow, and that is Love. Freedom and Love are two poles which belong to each other. If Love is to enter into our Cosmos, it can happen only through Freedom, that means, only through Lucifer and those who conquer him; and at the same time through the Saviour of men, through the Christ. Therefore, the earth is the Cosmos of Freedom and Love, and therefore, the essential thing is, that we, without tempting man away from humility, must learn to reckon the Hierarchies as they ever have been reckoned in Western esotericism: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; these follow the direct impulse of the Godhead, having the sight of God. The Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and of Form, these are as yet so bound to the higher powers that they have to be given ‘adverse-commands’ in order that evolution should have the possibility of proceeding further. The Archangels and the Archai also cannot fail, cannot, through their own free will, sink into evil. Therefore, the spirits of the Hierarchies next above man were called Messengers and Arch-Messengers to show that they did not fulfil their own tasks but the tasks of those who stand immediately above them. But in men a Hierarchy is maturing which will fulfil its own tasks.
Through the Future Jupiter, Future Venus and Future Vulcan developments, Man will be always maturing towards accomplishment from out his own Impulses. Even if today he is not yet so far advanced he will ultimately attain it.
Which are the Hierarchies? We begin: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; the Spirits of Wisdom, who exercise their dominion only so far as they act in the direction of the impulses they receive from the gods; then the Spirits of Motion, who have their power only because they receive it from above; it is the same with Spirits of Form. Were they to become evil, they could become so only according to the decision of Divinity. We come then to the Archai, to the Arch-messengers and messengers and have now descended almost as far as to men. And what can be said of Man if we place him in the ranks of the Hierarchies? After the Archangels and Angels, the Arch-messengers and messengers, we will have to rank the Spirits of Freedom of Spirits of Love; for this, beginning from above, is the tenth of the Hierarchies, which although in process of development, yet belongs to the Hierarchies.
In the universe we have not to do with repetitions, each time that a cycle is passed, something new is added to the world's evolution. And to introduce the new element, is always the mission of that Hierarchy, which is at its human stage of development.

1910-GA013

see also longer extract here: Love#1910-GA013

In the future, the independent human I, which was received through the Spirits of Form, will exist in harmony with the beings of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan, because of the power that the Earth stage injects into Wisdom.
This is the power of love, which must begin in human beings on Earth. The “cosmos of wisdom” is developing into a “cosmos of love.” Everything that the I can develop within itself must turn into love
Just as wisdom, which formed earlier, discloses itself in the forces of the senseperceptible earthly world, in present-day forces of nature, love itself will appear as a new natural force in all phenomena in the future.
This is the mystery of all future evolution: that our knowledge and everything we do out of a true understanding of evolution sow seeds that must ripen into love.
The greater the power of the love that comes into being, the more we will be able to accomplish creatively on behalf of the future. The strongest forces working toward the end result of spiritualization lie in what will come from love. The more spiritual knowledge flows into the evolution of humanity and the Earth, the greater the number of viable seeds will there be for the future. Through its very nature, spiritual knowledge transforms itself into love.
The wisdom for which the groundwork was laid on Old Saturn, POld Sun, and Moon works in the human physical, etheric, and astral bodies, presenting itself as cosmic wisdom.
In the I, however, it becomes inner wisdom. Beginning with the Earth phase of evolution, the wisdom of the outer cosmos becomes inner wisdom in the human being. Internalized in this way, it becomes the seed of love.

Wisdom is the prerequisite for love; love is the result of wisdom that has been reborn in the I.

1910-03-26-GA119

1910-06-11-GA121

Man is interwoven with this mission of the earth, in order that he may bring about this balance between thought, feeling, and will, first of all in his own inner being. At the beginning of the earth period man was indeed in this respect an inharmonious fabric of thought, feeling, and will. Everyone who possesses a little self-knowledge can feel that the inner balance of present-day man is not yet complete but is still in a state of disharmony and disorder. Man is called upon first of all to bring about an equilibrium between thought, feeling and will within himself, by means of which he can from within radiate and carry over on to the earth what this equilibrium between thought, feeling and will signifies.
In occult symbolism this mission of the earth has always been expressed in quite a special way by means of a geometrical figure. If you go through all geometrical figures, you will find none which so exactly corresponds to this balance of the three activities as the equilateral triangle. If you merely draw it, you will find the three sides equal, the three angles equal, each angle is equidistant from the others and all are equidistant from the centre. The centre of the equilateral triangle is an absolute symbol of a balance of forces, so that when the occultist looks at an equilateral triangle, he can see in it a symbol of the absolutely balanced co-operation of those elements which, in the three earlier incarnations of our earth, had each for a while, the upper hand. The deeds of the ‘I’ in man signify nothing else than the creating of an active centre in his nature, whereby this state of equilibrium can be prepared from within. So that man is indeed called to something great upon the earth, namely, to bring about from within, first of all through his whole being, a balance between what formerly, for a time, was dominant in various ways and at various times.
That is in the first place a very abstract definition of our Earth-mission, but it consists in just what I have said. The secret of this mission is expressed in the fact that through this co-operation, through this equilibrium of the three forces, the inner being actually produces something new. A fourth element is thus really added to the three preceding ones, and this fourth is the element of Love. Love can only develop in the world when an absolute equilibrium comes about between the three forces which in earlier ages were each in turn the ruling power. We shall have more to say about this in the next few days. For the moment just take it as an abstract description.
Thus our planet is the planet of Love, and therefore this equilibrium which, so to speak, is established in the co-operation of these three forces, produces as an effect the “activity of Love,” and this is to be woven into the whole of evolution throughout all the following incarnations of the earth by this very mission of earthly activity. In this way the Trinity becomes a Quaternary, and the latter begins with its fourth element at the lowest stage, it begins so to speak with the lowest form of love which is cleansed and purified up to the state when, at the end of the whole evolution of the earth, love will appear as an element standing on just the same level as the others. To fulfill the mission of equilibrium which belongs to our earth-planet is therefore in reality ‘to make the Trinity into a Quaternary.’ It is for this reason that the Mystery of the Earth is usually expressed occultly in the words: ‘To make the Trinity into a Quaternary.’ The fourth element is naturally today still very imperfect; but when the earth shall have fulfilled its mission it will appear just as bright and shining as the Sacred Triangle, which in its state of perfect equilibrium shines before us as the highest symbol we possess for our earth-ideal, in so far as we remember the past of the earth.
This cooperation of the elements of thought, feeling and will within man works first of all in such a way, that the actual inner being becomes the substance of love. That is what we may call the really productive, the inwardly productive element in earthly existence. We must therefore also call the Spirits of Form (because they have this very mission, of bringing the three former conditions into equilibrium), collectively the Spirits of Love.
If we consider the earth-existence in this way, we have then in the first place characterized will, feeling and thought, and the working of Love outside our earth-planet; and we have been able to describe as the special task of the Spirits of Form, the imprinting of Love, which results from equilibrium. Therein consists the whole mission of the earth. In order to produce this force of Love which is to impregnate the earth, the mutual interaction and co-operation was necessary, of all that we have described as the work of the lowest hierarchies.
We have already begun to describe in our preceding studies what we might call the tissue, the network of love; and this web of love must be so woven, that the principal threads are woven into it by the normal Spirits of Form, that being their fundamental mission. Then the abnormal Spirits of Form, who are in reality Spirits of Motion, weave into it that which produces the races. Then the normal and abnormal Spirits of the Age weave into it the historical evolution, and the Archangels, both of normal and abnormal evolution, the several peoples and languages; and lastly those Beings who put man into his right place on the earth, the Angels, also co-operate in the weaving. In this way is spun this mighty fabric of Love.
The fabric of Love which is woven as the real mission of the Earth, is only visible on earth as a reflection, a maya.

1920-12-19-GA202

The end of lecture 1920-12-19-GA202 talks about the path to freedom and love and their importance in the universe (after buildup see eg 1920-12-18-GA202 and morality as a source of world creativity)

.. precisely where substance passes away in us and becomes appearance, and where new substance arises, the possibility of freedom exists, and the possibility of love. Freedom and love belong together as mentioned in 'The Philosophy of Freedom'
A worldview in which substance is seen as a constant, leaves no room for either freedom nor love. The feeling of love, devotion to something uncompelled by the past, and freedom, which is to act out of something that is not predetermined, are only possible because the past dies is us entirely, becoming appearance, and the future arises anew, in entirely germinal form. Freedom and love can actually only be understood by a science of the spirit. Their real nature is beyond the grasp of other outlooks.

1924-01-04-GA233A

And now we come to the Fourth Hierarchy. (I am telling it, you remember, as it was thought of in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.)
We today do not speak of the Fourth Hierarchy; but men still spoke in that way in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What is this Fourth Hierarchy? It is Man. Man himself is the fourth Hierarchy. But by the Fourth Hierarchy was not meant the two-legged being that goes about the world today, ageing year by year! To the true man of knowledge of those times, present-day man would have appeared as something very strange. No, in those times they spoke of original Man, of Man before the Fall, who still bore a form that gave him power over the Earth, even as the angels and archangels and archai had power over the Old Moon existence, the second hierarchy over the Old Sun existence and the first hierarchy over the Old Saturn existence. They spoke of Man in his original Earthly existence and then they were right to speak of him as the Fourth Hierarchy. And with this Fourth Hierarchy came — as a gift it is true, of the higher hierarchies, but the higher hierarchies have held it only as a possession they did not themselves use but guarded and kept — with the Fourth Hierarchy came Life. Into the world of colour, into the iridescent world of changing colour, of which I have only been able to give you the merest hints and suggestions, came Life.
You will say: Then did nothing live before this time? My dear friends, you can understand how it is from the human being himself. Your I and your astral body have not life, and yet they exist, they have being. That which is of the soul and the spirit does not need life. Life begins only with your etheric body. And the etheric body is something external, it is of the nature of a sheath. Thus only after the Old Moon existence and with the Earth existence does Life enter into the domain of that evolution to which our Earth belongs. The world of moving, glancing colour is quickened to life. And now not only do angels and archangels and archai experience a longing desire to carry darkness into light, and light into darkness, thereby calling forth the play of colour in the planet; now a desire becomes manifest to experience this play of colour as something inward, to feel it all inwardly; when darkness dominates light, to feel weakness, laziness; when light dominates darkness, to feel activity. For what is happening really, when you run? When you run, Light predominates over darkness in you; when you sit and are lazy and indolent, then darkness predominates over light. It is a play of colour, an activity of colour, not physical, but of the soul.
Colour permeated with Life, in its iridescence streamed-through with Life — that is what appeared with the coming of the Fourth Hierarchy, Man. And in this moment of cosmic becoming, the forces that became active in the play of colour began to build contours, began to fashion forms. Life, as it rounded off and moulded the colours, called into being the hard, fast form of the crystal. And we have come into Earth existence.
Such things as I have been describing to you were fundamental truths for the mediaeval alchemists and occultists, Rosicrucians and others, who flourished — though history tells us little of them — from the ninth and tenth on into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and of whom stragglers are to be found as late as the eighteenth and even the beginning of the nineteenth century — always however in these later times regarded as strange and eccentric people.
Only with the entry of the nineteenth century did this knowledge become entirely hidden. Only then did men come to acquire a conception of the world that led them to a point of view which I will indicate in the following way. Imagine, my dear friends, that here we have a Man. Suppose I cease to have any interest in this Man, but I take his clothes and hang them on a coat-hanger that has a knob here above like a head. From now on I take no further interest in the man and I tell myself: There is the Man! What does it matter to me what can be put into these clothes? That, the coat-hanger with the clothes, is the Man! This is really what happened with the Elements. It does not interest us any longer that

behind Warmth or Fire is the first hierarchy,

behind Light and Air the second hierarchy,

behind what we call Chemical Ether or Colour Ether and Water the third hierarchy,

and behind the Life Element and Earth the Fourth Hierarchy, Man.
The peg, the hanger and on it the clothes. That is all!

1924-01-11-GA233A

discusses the original plan in case the luciferic infection would not have happened (SWCC)

.. Man ought not to be born in the earthly way he now is, but Man ought really to come to being in his etheric body through the interworking of Sun and Earth, and only afterwards, going about the Earth as an etheric being, give himself earthly form. The seeds of Man should grow up out of the Earth with the purity of plant-life, appearing here and there as ethereal fruits of the Earth, darkly shining; these should then in a certain season of the year be overshone, as it were, by the light of the Sun, and thereby assume human form, but etheric still; then Man should draw to himself physical substance — not from the body of the mother, but from the Earth and all that is thereon, incorporating it into himself from the kingdoms of the Earth. Thus — they thought — should have been the manner of Man's appearance on the Earth, in accordance with the purposes of the Spirit of the Worlds.
And the development that came later was due to the fact that Man had allowed to awaken within him too deep an urge, too intense a desire for the earthly and material. Thereby he forfeited his connection with the Sun and the Cosmos, and could only find his existence on Earth in the form of the stream of inheritance. Thereby, however, the Demon of the Earth began his work; for the Demon of the Earth would not have been able to do anything with men who were Sun-born. When Sun-born man came to dwell on the Earth, he would have been in very truth the Fourth Hierarchy.
And one would have had to speak of Man in the following manner:

First Hierarchy (H1): seraphim, cherubim, thrones

Second Hierarchy (H2): SoW, SoM, SoF

Third Hierarchy (H3): angels, archangels, archai

Fourth Hierarchy: Man — three different shades or gradations of the human, but none the less making the Fourth Hierarchy.

But because Man gave rein to his strong impulses in the direction of the physical, he became, not the being on the lowest branch of the Hierarchies, but instead the being at the summit of the highest branch of the earthly kingdoms: mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human kingdom. This was the picture of how Man stood in the world.
Moreover, because Man does not find his proper task on the Earth, the Earth herself has not her right and worthy position in the Cosmos. For since Man has fallen, the true Lord of the Earth is not there. What has happened? The true Lord of the Earth is not there, and it became necessary for the Earth, not being governed from herself in her place in the Cosmos, to be ruled from the Sun; so that the tasks that should really be carried out on Earth fell to the Sun. The man of mediaeval times looked up to the Sun and said: In the Sun are certain Intelligences. They determine the movement of the Earth in the Cosmos; they govern what happens on the Earth. Man ought, in reality, to do this; the Sun-forces ought to work on Earth through Man for the existence of the Earth. Hence that significant mediaeval conception that was expressed in the words: The Sun, the unlawful Prince of this world.
And now reflect how infinitely the Christ Impulse was deepened through such conceptions. The Christ became the Spirit Who was not willing to find His further task on the Sun, Who would not remain among those who directed the Earth in unlawful manner from without. He wanted to take His path from the Sun to the Earth, to enter into the destiny of Man and the destiny of Earth, to experience Earth events and pass along the ways of Earth evolution, sharing the lot of Man and of Earth.

Discussion

Note 1 - Man as part of the next fourth triad of spiritual hierarchies

This topic will cover how to imagine Man after the Vulcan stage.

As a basis, see:

Schema FMC00.048 Twelve Conditions of Consciousness as it related to Schema FMC00.077 and variants A, B on Creation of solar system
Schema FMC00.564 and what's on Logoic principle
Schema FMC00.067A and B on Creation by the three Logoi

Introduction

Consider the evolution of the hierarchies across planetary stages, as per schema FMC00.077A. On Old Saturn already a range of spiritual hierarchies was in existence and evolution. One can 'extrapolate backwards' the pattern in the latter to a previous solar system. See Schema FMC00.564.

Taking care about assumptions of patterns related to this solar system evolution that may be specific to this cycle (and hence not the same before this).

Now consider the Monad, and relate this concept in context of the properties of the three logoi, the monad being an emanation of the logoi. Observe that a threshold lies between - on the one hand - the dual monad and, on the other - the initial creation of the spirit world, in which the third element of Man's higher triad (manas or life-spirit) first provided individual self consciousness.

Contemplate the characteristics of each triad of spiritual hierarchies, H1 to H3. Notice on Old Saturn the Thrones brought an individual contribution, the two others infused their influences. In H3 on Earth, the lowest angelic hierarchy is individual, the higher archai is at a much higher level.

From the above, contemplate how Man will also rise to become the first and highest of the next H4 triad hierarchy, and what this may mean or encompass.

Note 2 - multiplicity in creation

This note is on getting an appreciation of multiplicity (and/or fractal nature).

Copied here (into this context) from Trinity#1912-04-07-GA136.

The question sometimes arises if there are many parallel universes, how to extrapolate from our current solar system to the whole cosmos. This note approaches this with a guided though exercise for contemplation, starting from and based on the materials from spiritual science on this site.

Thought exercise

See Schema FMC00.564, and contemplate H3 in relation to H2, then H2 in relation to H1.

One can imagine that between every triad in the spiritual hierarchies, a new level of complexity is spawned off.

So the H1 were 'sowing' when the Thrones started with the Cherubim and Seraphim as the zodiac, they were the 'central star'. See also the yellow line at Condition of Consciousness CoC=8 on Schema FMC00.077A.

Therefore one can imagine that many such solar systems were created, and there was not just one set of Thrones and one solar system.

Maybe in trying to do so in one's imagination and contemplation, it can helps to view movies of Mandelbrot fractals, to appreciate the fractal nature.

Rudolf Steiner explicitly mentions this multiplicity (of the Cosmic fractal) when describing "the fixed stars of planetary systems", and how the "different planetary systems" represents the sheaths of the divine spiritual hierarchies in the quote 1912-04-07-GA136.

For the thinking mind, considering this in scope also for contemplation and meditation, it can be logically imagined that a myriad of such systems were spawned off not only at the Old Saturn stage, but actually at every planetary stage of evolution when a hierarchy 'graduates' off at the highest level of CoC, and is able in the next stage to perform such creation (re lecture referenced in Schema FMC00.048).

How this is done is explained on Creation by the three Logoi and Logoic principle. Another way this is depicted is with Schema FMC00.329 on IAO

After Vulcan, when humanity reaches the same CoC, and can go off to become creators in the new cycle, they will be able to do something similar as the Thrones did at the start of Old Saturn. However, creation will be vastly different and at an un-imaginable level of complexity compared to all we know today.

At this point, you could now contemplate (study and meditate) Schema FMC00.568 on Creation by the three Logoi, and 'see' how this is happening all the time along the evolutionary development happening, as sketched in the Schema FMC00.564. This is also the idea depicted differently with the circle on the IAO schema referenced above, as the hierarchies grow along the ladder of twelve conditions of consciousness.

This Schema FMC00.568 is a pyramidion principle of the three logoi and the Cosmic breath of Brahma, the core of the Cosmic fractal, conceptually speaking.

Notes

1/ The above is not a note to just quickly read, it will only make sense when one is interested enough to take to mind and soul the contents of the topic pages and schemas pointed to above in all its meaning.

2/ Note that Rudolf Steiner actually mentioned that the above sketched sequential process of spawning off takes place not just at the Conditions of Consciousness (that one can relate to the planetary stages of evolution used to describe the solar system evolution for humanity), but also at the level of Conditions of Life - see Three dimensions of evolution.

Illustration is the quote " 'our' Christ is the 25th, in every kingdom the Son principle reveals itself once, 49 times in a planetary chain" (1904-07-10-GA090A), more on this on Logoic principle

Related pages

References and further reading

Athys Floride: 'Der Weg zu den Hierarchien. Das Ziel der Entwicklung als vierte Hierachie' (1996)
Wolf-Ulrich Klünker: 'Die Erwartung der Engel. Der Mensch als neue Hierarchie' (2010)