Nebulae

With nebulae are meant non-stellar astronomical objects, they are typically categorized in different groups such as planetary nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies, emission nebulae. Also called deep sky objects, they typically require advanced cameras and long exposures to make visible the intricate details.

Rudolf Steiner points out these have to be considered as the shining off of the lowest astral conditions, as an example given: the astral body of Man while asleep looks similar to the Orion nebula, like a whirl or cosmic world nebula. (1905-02-06-GA090B).

The way how images are rendered from the astral world into light is explained in 1920-03-09-GA321.

Aspects

• see Messier and NGC catalogues of deep sky objects, these objects are described by an M or NGC number as part of these catalogues.
• well known nebulae mentioned by Rudolf Steiner are the Orion nebula (M42/43), M51 galaxy in Canes Venatici
• see also the nature of light from the astral condition
  • at the Mystery of Golgotha, the Earth began to shine astrally, and later it will become shining physical visible light - see Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension

Inspirational quotes

1920-03-09-GA321

... that which belongs to this other side has to insert itself into the realm from which we have just passed. .. or I might say: I observe the gas, it extends to here where I have colored with blue .. but from the other side comes that which inserts itself, interpenetrates it from the cosmic cycle, but appearing there only as a picture. It impregnates the gas, so to speak, and manifests as a picture. .. form appears in the gas as tone

Lecture coverage and references

1905-02-06-GA090B

Nebulae in astronomy have to be considered as the shining off of the lowest astral conditions. The astral body of Man looks similar to the Orion nebula, like a whirl or cosmic world nebula.

see more on Human astral body and Symbols

1906-09-04-GA095

The sign of this stage of development, when one culture is ending and another is beginning, is the vortex. There are such vortices everywhere in nature; in star nebulae as, for example, the Orion nebula. There too, one world is falling into ruin and a new one is coming forth

1906-11-30-GA121

This spiral we find in the Orion nebula as well as in the form of living beings. Human and animal embryos have a spiral form in the early stages of their development. One part is a picture of the physical; the other part, which spirals around and into the first, is the astral. The start of a new stage in human history is also symbolized by the sign of two spirals joined together - this is the zodiacal sign of Cancer. When the ancient Indian subrace originated after the submergence of ancient Atlantis, the Sun rose on the first day of spring in the zodiacal sign of Cancer. When we learn to read the esoteric script, we learn to orient ourselves in the astral world.

1920-03-09-GA321

this extract, here SWCC, needs to be read in context of the lecture, but explains why Rudolf Steiner referred to deep-sky astrophotographical pictures of nebulae as astral phenomena that are closer to our world of dreaming than that of physical mineral matter

What happens if we do a similar thing in this other realm?

Then we will pass from solids to the U region and beyond, but as we do this we also come back from the other end of the series and the system becomes a closed one.

when the downward path and the upward one come together to make a closed system, what does that form for us? What happens then?

suppose you really go in one direction in the sense indicated in our diagrams .. we go out from the sphere where, as we have explained in these lectures, gravity becomes negative.

We have, let us say, arrived in one of the realms. From this realm, suppose we go downward, and imagine that we pass through first the fluid and then the solid realms.

Now when we go further, we must really come back from the other side—it is difficult to show this diagrammatically.

Since we come back from the other side, that which belongs to this other side has to insert itself into the realm from which we have just passed.

.. while I pass from the solid to the U region, if I want to represent the whole cycle I must bend what is at the other end of the series around and thrust it in here

From the null sphere I go through the fluid into the solid and then into the U region.

Returning then, I come to the same point from the other side.

Or, I might say: I observe the gas, it extends to here where I have colored with blue (referring to the drawing at end ).

But from the other side comes that which inserts itself, interpenetrates it from the cosmic cycle, but appearing there only as a picture. It impregnates the gas, so to speak, and manifests as a picture.

The fluid in its essence interpenetrates the sphere of the solid, and attains a form.

Similarly, form appears in the gas as tone and this we have indicated in our diagram.

Turn over in your minds this returning and interpenetration in these world-processes. You will of necessity have to think not of a world-cycle only, but of a certain sort of world-cycle. You will have to think of a world cycle that moves from one realm to another, but in which any realm shows reflection of other realms. In this way we get a basis for thinking about these things that has a root in reality.

This way of thinking will help you, for instance, to see how light arises in matter, light which belongs to an entirely different realm; but you will see that the matter is simply “overrun” by the light, as it were. And you will then, if you treat these things mathematically, have to extend your formulae somewhat.

You may, if you will, consider these things under the symbol of ancient wisdom, the snake that swallows its own tail. The ancient wisdom represented these things symbolically and we have to draw nearer to the reality. This drawing nearer is the problem we must solve.

1923-09-30-GA223

One really has to speak in paradoxes if thoughts that result quite naturally from spiritual research are to be carried to their logical conclusion. No one who thinks in line with modern natural science believes that a light shining at a given point in space will appear equally bright at a distance. The physicist computes the decrease in the strength of light by the square of the distance, and he calculates gravity in the same way. Regarding these physical entities, he knows that the validity of what is true on the earth's surface diminishes as we pass out into the surrounding cosmos. But he refuses to apply this principle to his thinking. Yet in this respect thinking differs in no way from anything we can learn about earth matters in the laboratories, in the operating rooms — from anything on earth, right down to twice two is four.

If gravity diminishes by the square of the distance, why should not the validity of the system of nature laws diminish in a similar ratio and eventually, beyond a certain distance, cease altogether?

That is where spiritual science penetrates. It points out that when the Nebula of Orion or the Canes Nebula is to be the subject of research, the same course is followed as though, with tellurian concepts,

Venus, for example, were to be illuminated by the flame of a candle. When spiritual science reveals the truth by means of such analogies people think it is paradoxical.

Nevertheless, in the state in which during sleep we penetrate into the spiritual world, greater possibilities are offered us for investigating the Nebula of Orion or the Canes Nebula than are provided by working in laboratories or in observatories. Research would yield much more if we dreamt about these matters instead of reflecting on them with our intellect.

As soon as we enter the cosmos it is useless to apply the results of our earthly research. The nature of our present-day education is such that we are prone to apply to the whole cosmos what we consider true in our little earth cell; but it is obvious that truth cannot come to light in this way.

1930 - Elisabeth Vreede - Letters 6 and 7

page 297 in reference book below

Related pages

• Astronomy
• Worldview Spiritual Science

References and further reading

• Elisabeth Vreede: 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science' - Letters 6 and 7 of year three 1930.