Sun

Through the ages the Sun has been regarded a Threefold Sun: not only the visible physical sun (and source of life on Earth through warmth and light), but also the spiritual sun and source of higher ethers (and specifically life ether), as well as the source of love through the Logos or Christ.

The etheric Sun is the dwelling place of the higher spiritual hierarchies, and this encompasses the influences of the warmth, light, chemical and life ethers. The gaseous body in the state of the element air is the body of the Christ being, who during the Old Sun stage detached himself in a body of air. (1911-08-26-GA129)

The Sun we see every day in the sky, is believed by mineral science to be a huge sphere of gas where nuclear fission takes place. Spiritual science states that where the Sun is, there is no warmth, no space or matter at all, but rather attraction as in counterspace (see etheric formative forces). The Sun is a hollow space that sucks in everything; it is spiritually closed off all around, and something can rush in only at intervals through the sun spots. (1924-05-17-GA353). For more on suction, see also Mathematics of the etheric. Hence the Sun is enveloped by a ponderable shell (see FMC00.334 below) but goes ever more into the imponderable, in the sense it is a hollow sphere with no cosmic matter but negative matter inside (1921-01-18-GA323 below) - see also the gradient sketched in Spectrum of elements and ethers.

The current Sun is one of the seven 'planetary bodies' in the esoteric solar system, in which a planetary body refers to a home and community of spiritual beings at a certain level of development, and the corresponding etheric sphere (see Schema FMC00.003 below) of which the physical mineral body is only a material dent.

Aspects

the three aspects of the Threefold Sun
the Sun as a reflector - see 1921-11-06-GA208 below and Schema FMC00.266 on Threefold Sun
the spiritual Sun clairvoyantly shows four chambers, corresponding to different streams of spiritual beings, and these can be mapped to the four chambers of the human heart with a correspondence with the heart's two blood circuits, see Schema FMC00.034 (1914-07-05-GA286). See also Overview Golden Chain
the current Sun body separated from the Earth in the early Hyperborean epoch, and will reunite with the Earth at a later stage.
- This means our current physical solar system studied in contemporary astronomy is a relatively recent stage in the whole of the Earth planetary stage of evolution, see FMC00.057C on Evolution of Earth and FMC00.298 on Earth rounds perspective (for the split off of the various planetary bodies).
the Sun is filled with life forces. The heat develops when the sun's rays move through air and other matter (1922-09-27-GA347)
the Sun absorbs or 'eats' comets and develops warmth (1922-09-30-GA347)
relation to the Second Hierarchy (H2) of spiritual beings, and the seven Spirits of Form (or Elohim in the Bible)
- the Christ as the Sun God and Jehovah (oa 1908-05-20-GA103)
aspects from previous cultures, eg Sun-God Ra in the Egyptian culture

sunspots

their rhythm of 11 years:
- records show sunspots were observed already by the Chinese over 2000 years ago, the earliest records of the cyclic pattern in sunspot activity are by Horrebow in (1718-1776) in 1775 and Schwabe (1789–1875) in 1843, with the foundational study made by Rudolf Wolf (1816–1893) (hence the Wolf sunspot number)
- mineral science has researched the earlier evolution of sun activity over a period of some 10.000 years through indirect deductive methods, showing a longer term period and recurrent minima
recent phenomenum: there were none millenia ago, the number has increased enormously in the course of centuries, and it will continue to do so, meaning in a few millenia the Sun will radiate less and less strongly and finally become completely dark and cease to radiate any light at all (1924-08-08-GA237, 1924-09-13-GA354)
their esoteric meaning and relation to the regency of archangel Michael
- the increase in sunspots and very gradual darkening of the sun is the outer manifestation that the cosmic power of the Michael intelligence is decreasing. This is the result of the emancipation of the planetary intelligences from the Sun Michael intelligence that took place through the counsels of planetary archangels under leadership of Oriphiel, and through which the Michael Sun intelligence and the planetary intelligences gradually came into cosmic opposition one with another.
- cosmic iron thrown out of the Sun (1923-11-17-GA231)
- link with quality of wine vintage years, and appearance of comets (1924-09-13-GA354)

Sun rays

The sun's rays, as we see them, are not actually a reality; but something where you look through a mist at something that is less dense, an empty space. The sun is not really physical matter, but spiritual, a hollowed-out form created in space (a big hole, just as with fizzy water you always have air, a hole, wherever there is a bead). (1924-06-04-GA353)

rhythms

the platonic year of 25.920 Earth years for the Sun to go through the twelve signs of the zodiac, see 25920 for more info on how the rhythms of Earth and Man relate
a number of sources state that the visual physical sun rotates around its double, with corresponding periods of 24.000 years (which could be linked to the Cosmic year of Zarathustra of 12.000 earth years in the context of Lemniscatory time and space). For more info, see also:
- Sri Yukteswar: 'The Holy Science' (1894)
- C.G. Harrison's 'The Fourth Mystery' (1929)
- Dr. Albert Richard Riedel, aka Frater Albertus: 'Man and the cycles of the universe' (1970) and 'The Seven Rays of the QBL'.

Inspirational quotes

1921-11-06-GA208

.. in order to achieve freedom, humanity had to come to believe that a sphere of gases moved through the universe out there, though physicists who would be able to go there would be really surprised, for instead of a sphere of gases they would find an empty space, indeed less than space.
They would discover that the sun out there is not a sphere of luminous gases (which is a nonsense) but in the first place just a reflector, unable to radiate light and at most merely reflecting it.
In the spirit, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and the moon radiate light. Physically the sun appears to be shining on them, but in reality they radiate light towards the sun, which acts as a reflector. This is the physical reality.

1924-06-04-GA236

Physical science speaks of a movement of the Sun: within the spatial picture of the cosmos which surrounds us, we perceive by certain phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image of the true Sun-movement, an image cast into Space.
If we are speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves in space; for space itself is being radiated out by the Sun. The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself. And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created space.
Outside of space it is a movement in time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the time-evolution of the Sun-Being.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.334 is a tentative schematic representation of the Sun (Robert Mc Cracken, 2001) illustrating the generation of warmth and light, then sound waves, and finally solid wind. See 1921-01-18-GA323 below and Spectrum of elements and ethers.

Schema FMC00.116 shows the symbol for Good Friday and Easter: the spiritual sun in the physical sun.

Schema FMC00.156 shows drawings by Walter Russell based on his framework and terminology (more info on Walter Russell topic page).

Compare with FMC00.034.

Schema FMC00.034 is taken from The heart's two blood circuits as Man's microcosm (heart with four chambers) is mapped to the macrocosm and the Sun's four chambers.

Schema FMC00.411 groups illustrations from sources describing the Sun as a double star

Lecture coverage and references

Double star - and Zarathustra's great cosmic year of 12.000 years

Sri Yukteswar - The Holy Science (1894)

Sri Yukteswar describes the Sun rotating around a double in his 1894 book 'The Holy Science', and that there is a cyclic effect caused by the movement of the sun in its revolution round its dual .. and its relative position to the 'grand center'.

.. the sun takes some star for its dual and revolves round it in about 24.000 earth years, a celestial movement which causes the backward movement of the equinoctial points around the zodiac. The sun also has another motion by which it revolves around a grand center, the seat of Brahma, the creative power.
...
.. each of these periods of 12.000 years brings a complete change, both externally in the physical world, and internally in the mental world, and is called one of the Daiva Yugas"

Note:

Rudolf Steiner refers to cosmic year of Zarathustra of 12.000 earth years in 1915-12-31-GA165, talking about a 'cosmic new year' that started around 6000 BC, and explaining a mingling of Man's soul's consciousness passing through the astral consciousness of our body.
E. Vreede comes to cyclic periods of 21.000 years in her essays on the movement of the apsides, and links this to the ice ages and the Zodiac clock.

C.G. Harrison

In 'The Fourth Mystery' of 1929 (Ch. 7, see more on pages 81-83), Harrison writes:

It is not generally known that our sun is a double star.
As its companion is a dark body and has consequently never been observed, the idea would be laughed at by the very competent astronomers on the staff at Greenwich, though we may at any time read in the newspapers the discovery of a new star nearer than Proxima in Centaur - perhaps this time in the Northern Hemisphere.
It is probably smaller than the sun, though many times larger than Jupiter, and it is not year near enough to shine with reflected light.
When discovered, it will be announced as a new planet far more remote than Neptune, thus defying Bode's law of periodic orbital proportion of distances. We know that the stability of our solar system depends on attraction, and it has been somewhat hastily assumed that it is a universal law which applies throughout space. But attraction and repulsion are, in fact, alternate.

Frater Albertus or Dr. Albert Richard Riedel (1911-1984)

describes the same, see figure from 'Man and the cycles of the universe' (1970).

This booklet is to be read alongside with his book 'The Seven Rays of the QBL', where he covers the same subject matter in Chapter 5.

Lecture extracts

1911-08-26-GA129

.. whereas the upper gods, those who, in the sense we explained yesterday, were the representations of the others, only wished to live in the finer elements - in the warmth, light, chemical and life elements - [the Christ], who later through the Baptism by John in the Jordan descended to Earth, out of the most profound wisdom took with Him the forces to which our Earth evolution had already advanced on the Old Sun. .. the condensation of the warmth element to air (warmth being the essential feature of the Old Saturn stage) had already taken place during the Old Sun stage. Whereas the other beings among the upper gods refused to take the air element with them when they withdrew from development as a whole into cosmic space, this being did take the air-element with him, so that he remained related to the Earth. Thus through this being there was outside in cosmic space all the time for all future evolution an clement akin to the Earth, the element which had already on the Old Sun condensed to air or gas. If we gaze up into space to the sun, as though with the eye of Zarathustra of old, we have to see it primarily as a survival of the Old Sun, so to say as the Old Sun planet come to life again, repeating in the present what existed during the Old Sun stage of evolution.
Thus, expressed in terms of spiritual science, we have in the first place to see in the sun the dwelling place - or part of it at any rate, for this dwelling-place extends to the other planets as well - the most essential part of the dwelling-place of the upper gods, whom we designated yesterday as one stream of the divine world. But if you look at this whole sun with the clairvoyant eye, you see that everything in it which is those upper gods is there only in etheric form, from the warmth ether upwards to the light ether, the chemical ether and the life ether.

But the sun as it moves in space today is not only there for clairvoyant sight as an etheric structure, it is also a globe of gas, it is condensed to the state of air. The sun would never have condensed to the state of air had not the being who descended to Earth with the dove in the baptism by John in the Jordan, during the Old Sun stage detached himself in a body of air and not merely in an etheric body. Thus when we look up at the sun we have to say: ‘The warmth, light and chemical impulses in the sun are connected with the other Beings, those who are only the ideas or representations of the lower gods; but the gaseous element in the sun is actually the body of Christ.’
Our modern materialistic science will one day come to learn once more the ancient doctrine of Zarathustra, will one day have to say to itself: ‘The sun as a globe of vapour outside in space is not merely what our astro-chemistry makes of it, not merely what our spectral-analysis reveals, but the sun as a globe of air or vapour there outside in the heavens is the pristine body of Christ, who was associated with the other upper gods, but was also connected with the being of the Earth.’

1914-07-05-GA286

is Lecture 4 in the cycle 'Ways/Architecture' titled 'True Aesthetic Laws of Form'

.. I want to speak of one matter that will help to stimulate our perception of what underlies the laws of true aesthetic form, on the one hand in the cosmos, and on the other in the microcosm, in the constitution of man. Before very long, the so-called science of today will undergo an overwhelming expansion, and only then will there be understanding of the true and deeper laws of aesthetic form.
In order to evoke a concrete perception of what I have here mentioned in mere abstract words, let us consider the following. I am going to place before you something that corresponds to a cosmological fact, a mighty cosmic fact. The drawing can of course only be diagrammatical.
[refer to Schema FMC00.034]
Let us suppose that this diagram represents, here the Sun, here the Earth and here the Moon. The sketch is only diagrammatical, for naturally I cannot express the dimensional proportions and distances of the heavenly bodies. That, however is not the point at issue. When the clairvoyant consciousness of the occult seer enters into a certain relationship with these three heavenly bodies, that is to say, with what they represent spiritually, the whole universe seems to be pervaded through and through with the interplay of the spiritual content of these various heavenly bodies. Beings have their home on all the heavenly bodies, as you have often heard; not only so, but they send forth their workings. Higher beings inhabit the heavenly bodies for long ages; subordinate beings are sent from one heavenly body to another and are the cause of currents being set in motion in the cosmos. These currents are often nothing less than the beings who are sent forth by certain elementary or higher beings from one cosmic body to the other. In the first place, therefore, clairvoyant consciousness perceives how magnetic or electric currents in the cosmos flow from one heavenly body to another; in more exact observation this resolves itself into a host, a stream, a swarm of spiritual beings passing from one heavenly body to another.
Now these three heavenly bodies (see diagram) stand in a certain mutual relationship to each other; they reveal their activities to each other and I want to speak of one particular aspect of these activities. To this end I will first divide the Sun diagrammatically as it actually appears to the occult seer when he directs his attention to these things. The Sun is seen divided into a kind of cross, into four chambers. The remarkable thing is that in the first moments of vision we see a kind of streaming current, but closer scrutiny reveals the fact that here we have to do with hosts of beings passing to and fro.

We can see such a stream of spiritual beings passing from a certain “chamber” of the Sun to the Earth, penetrating the Earth and vitalising the Earth with solar essence, that is to say, with the spiritual force of the Sun, and thence streaming to their own chamber in the Sun. This is cosmic reality but one sees still more.

One sees migrations of hosts of spiritual beings who are flowing around and through the Moon. They proceed from another chamber of the Sun, but they also flow in the other direction and pour through the Moon. Up to this point we are perceiving the activities of the inhabitants of three chambers in the Sun.

Another migration or stream arises from the fact that these beings always return to the Sun after having passed through the Moon;

thus a double stream has arisen.

On the one hand the beings return into the fourth chamber in the Sun after having poured through the Moon, but

another stream is formed because certain beings do not take part in the migration to the Moon; before reaching the Moon they turn back again to the Sun.

This configuration reveals to us a kind of mirror-image in the cosmos, but we will leave this image out of consideration for the moment. It would be formed by a symmetrical expansion of the figure that is engraved there in the cosmos. This means, in effect, that there is revealed to clairvoyant consciousness a marvellous combination of forms, a figure engraved in the cosmos representing the interplay between the forces of Sun, Moon and Earth.
Now I will draw the diagram rather differently, with the Sun rather turned (Diagram II). The cross must also be turned. The line connecting with the Moon Moon must now be drawn differently. I am representing the same streams as in the first diagram only the Sun is turned a little. The lines are somewhat different but they arise within and flow into the same heavenly bodies.
Now I will draw the diagram again differently (Diagram III). Here I have assumed hypothetically that Ahriman and Lucifer have entered, bringing disorder in their train. I will draw the Sun, Moon and Earth more irregularly and again trace the connections between them. What have I now drawn? Exactly the same thing as in the other diagrams, only somewhat distorted as a result of the intervention of Ahriman and Lucifer. I have now drawn a sketch of the blood circulation in man, a sketch of how the blood flows from the left ventricle of the heart through the body, on the one hand through the brain on the other through the rest of the body, returning as venous blood; you also see the course of the small circulatory stream through the right ventricle and lungs back again to the so-called left auricle.
Thus we can read from the cosmos what man is as a microcosmos, only it must be remembered that Ahriman and Lucifer have approached him. Man is bound up with the cosmos; he is an actual expression of all the great cosmic connections. Now you need only think of the heart in man as the microcosm of the Sun, the lungs as the microcosm of the Earth (of this particular hierarchy of forces) and the brain as the microcosm of the Moon, and you have something both highly suggestive and significant.
If a figure were made of this diagram — that is to say, a figure copied from the cosmos and expressed in some motif — we should have before us a profound cosmic mystery merely in the combination of form. When a certain combination of lines underlies a figure of this kind — where perhaps only a few of these lines are expressed and the others drawn in quite another way — those who have real feeling and not merely intellectual understanding, will perceive a cosmic mystery in the very form itself. They will say to themselves:
‘What is it that this form expresses? I do not actually know, but I feel that it expresses a mystery.’
It is this that inspires our souls and makes our hearts glow when we look at certain forms. We cannot always be conscious of what lies behind them, but our astral body, our subconscious being, contains the mysteries of the cosmos and senses them in the depths just as it contains the secrets of mathematics, as I told you in the previous lecture. When a man says, ‘I feel beauty here, but I cannot explain to myself what it really is,’ something is taking place in his astral body. This he may express by saying that he senses the existence of deep and mysterious secrets of the cosmos which do not take the form of ideas and thoughts but are expressed in a feeling, ‘Ah, how beautiful this form is.’ The reason why he feels this as warmth pouring through his heart and soul is that if he were as conscious in his astral body as he is in his I he would have a deep knowledge of the cosmos.
These things must teach us to understand how art has gradually developed in human evolution and to realise that true works of art in the Goethean sense are ‘a manifestation of higher laws of nature than the ordinary intellect of man can divine.’
...
Human evolution proceeded from conditions of primitive, atavistic clairvoyant consciousness. Man gradually worked his way upwards through the different civilisations until, during the Graeco-Latin age, his ego came to birth in the intellectual or mind-soul. We are now living in an age when the ego rises into the consciousness soul (spiritual soul) and has then gradually to rise to Spirit-Self or Manas. In the ages preceding the birth of the ego, of the ego consciousness, art proceeded from direct inspiration which flowed into man from the spiritual world, and all the different forms in art were an expression of this.
[Quote Goethe golden vessels]

Suppose a man went out into the on-coming night and looked at the moon. The atavistic clairvoyant consciousness he still possessed gave him the knowledge that here was a revelation of the connection between his brain and the moon, that his lungs breathed in all that the earth's being was communicating to him. The sun had set, but he knew that in the pulsating beat of his heart he bore the sun workings within him. Then man felt — or rather he ‘saw’ it in the atavistic clairvoyance of those ancient times — he felt: ‘Yes indeed there is a connection between earth, sun and moon. Spiritual Beings are hovering up and down between the sun and moon!’
“Like heavenly forces rising and descending,
Their golden urns reciprocally lending.”
(From Goethe's Faust. Scene I.)

1920-04-17-GA201

(SWCC)

The same applies to the solar system, and also to the solar system in its relation to the whole visible stellar Universe. For the Sun, Moon, Earth and other planets are only parts of the whole system.
Why should the Sun be considered as an isolated body?
There is absolutely no reason why we should imagine the Sun to be merely just where we see it, limited by the boundaries within which our eyes perceive it.

In this connection the philosopher Schelling was quite correct when he declined to ask the question, ‘Where is the Sun?’ with any other meaning than ‘Where is his influence felt?’ If the Sun acts upon the Earth, the effects of such activity must belong of necessity to the sphere of the Sun; and it is very wrong to extract a part from a whole and study that part by itself.

But this is the very thing the modern materialistic conception of the Universe has set out to do, and its influence has grown stronger and stronger ever since the middle of the fifteenth century. This it is against which Goethe always fought, when he was alive, in his labours in the realm of natural science, and against which all true followers of his science must also fight. Goethe found himself compelled to draw attention to the fact that we must not study Nature without Man, without keeping in mind the relation of Nature to Man. The study of natural phenomena outside Man must have its basis in the understanding of the nature of Man.

The following example will show you the value of some of the assertions made by modern astronomy. Modern astronomy endeavours, with the use of all manner of arguments, to speak of an elliptic path of the Earth around the Sun; asserting that this motion was in the first place initiated by that tangential propulsion of which I spoke yesterday in connection with the gravitational attraction of the Sun. But Astronomy cannot, and does not, deny the fact that when speaking of attraction, not only does the Sun attract the Earth, but the Earth must also attract the Sun. This, however, obliges us to conclude that we cannot speak of a revolution in an elliptical path of the Earth around the Sun, for if the attraction be mutual we cannot have a one-sided motion of the Earth around the Sun, but both of them must revolve round a neutral point. In other words, this revolution cannot take place in a manner that would allow us to look on the Sun's centre as the pivot, but the pivot must be a neutral point situated between the centre of the Sun and the centre of the Earth. In telling you this I am not raising objections to astronomy, I am merely telling you what you can find for yourselves in astronomical books. Thus we are compelled to admit the existence — somehow or other — of a pivot between the two spheres.
Our astronomy, by way of consoling itself, maintains that this pivot or point lies within the Sun itself. Both Earth and Sun, then, revolve around this point. And so, once again, we get no direct revolution of Earth round Sun, but the Sun also revolves, revolving however around a point lying within itself. Thus exoteric Astronomy has come so far as to assume as pivot a point that is not the centre of the Sun, but lies in the line connecting Sun and Earth, yet still within the Sun. But now we are confronted with another difficulty. The size of the Sun has first to be calculated. (The truth of the above assumption depends upon the calculated size of the Sun.) Upon the result of such calculation is built a conclusion which must of course possess a certain limited validity (the calculations being made from evidence of the senses), but which need not necessarily be the criterion by which we judge the real being of what lies behind nature's phenomena.
Thus it is necessary to keep a strict eye upon modern astronomy, as well as on other sciences, in order to discern the places — and they are numerous — where science over-reaches itself, and gets into difficulties.
This difficulty cannot be settled by studying the outer aspect of the phenomena; we can only arrive at a true result by examining the Universe in its relation to Man. We must, in the first place, take note of the previously explained connections between the Universe and Man; and then we must add a good many other facts, before we can produce a perfectly true world-picture. We have said before that we must imagine, first of all, ordinary ponderable matter — matter that can be weighed. Light we cannot weigh; it does not belong to the realm of ponderable matter, neither does warmth (heat). First then, we must imagine the ponderable, then we must set over against this the ether. We said it is wrong to consider the Sun as consisting of ponderable matter like the matter of the Earth. The Sun is something which is actually less than space — so to speak, a ‘hollowing out’ of space; it is something that sucks in, in contradistinction to the pressure of ponderable matter.
And we have to do not only with an aggregation (in the Sun) of this absorbent ether in the outer Universe, but also with the fact that this ether is distributed far and wide, Everywhere we find, coexisting with the force of pressure, the absorbent force. We ourselves carry this force of suction in our own etheric bodies.

1921-01-18-GA323

(Astronomy Course)

On Earth there are many phenomena the characteristic of which is that they work outward from the given center to the wide circumference, - out into cosmic space We interpret them accordingly. How must we then interpret similar phenomena - or rather, phenomena that seem superficially similar - when we are looking, with or with-out the help of optical instruments, towards the Sun? Truth is, the empirically observed phenomena will only reveal themselves in their true light if we then take our start from some such idea as this:
whilst on the surface of the Earth an eruption or the like will naturally be interpreted as tending up and outward (Figure 1a),

a process on the Sun - a sunspot for example - must be interpreted rather as tending from without inward (Figure lb).

Continuing this line of thought: Just as we have to imagine that if we went through and beneath the surface of the Earth we should get into dense matter, so shall we have to imagine that if we moved from outside the Sun towards the Sun's interior we should come into an ever more attenuated state of matter And we nay truly say: Look at the Earth an'! the whole way it is placed into the Universe. It manifests as so much ponder-able matter in the Universe. Not so the Sun. Here we shall only come near the truth if we imagine. that as we go from the circumference towards the interior we get ever mere remote from ponderable matter and ever more and sore into the imponderable. We have precisely the opposite behavior as we draw near the middle point.
The Sun must be conceived as a hollowing-out shall we say, of cosmic matter, a hollow space, a hollow sphere enveloped by matter, - in contrast to the Earth where we have denser matter enveloped by more attenuated As to the Earth, we think of air around it. Air is outside and denser matter inside.
For the Sun it is the opposite; as we go inward we go from relatively denser matter into more attenuated and at long last into the very negation of matter whoever takes the phenomena with open mind and puts them all together will be obliged to recognize that this is so. The Sun is not only a more attenuated heavenly body, of a materiality less dense than earthly matter, but if we call the Earth's materiality positive, then in the Sun - in the Sun's interior - we shall have negative matter in a certain sense. We only do justice to the phenomena if we conceive that there is negative matter in the inner space of the Sun.

1921-06-24-GA205

I have often pointed out to you how surprised the physicists would be if they were able to ascend to the place where the sun is. Physicists regard the sun as something comparable to a large gas oven without walls, more or less like a burning gas. If one arrived at the place in the cosmos where the sun is, one would not find such a burning gas. Instead one would find something totally unlike what the physicists imagine. If this (sketching) encloses the space that normally we picture as taken up by the sun, not only are there none of the substances found on earth, but there is even an absence of what we call empty space.
Imagine, to begin with, filled space. On earth you always have a filled space around you. If it is not filled by solid or liquid substances, it is permeated by air, or at least by warmth, light, and so on. In short, we are always dealing with filled space. You also know, however, that it is possible, at least approximately, to create an empty space by extracting the air from a container with an air pump.
Imagine we have a filled space that we will designate with the letter A, preceded by a plus sign: +A. Now, as we make this space emptier and emptier, A will become smaller and smaller, but as the space is still filled we continue to use the + sign. We can imagine — although this is not actually possible under earthly conditions, for we can render space only approximately empty — that it would be possible to produce a completely empty space. Then, in this part of space that we have made empty, there would only be space. I will designate this with 0. It has 0 content. Now, we can do with this space the same thing that you do with your wallet: if your wallet is filled with money, you can take more and more out until finally there is nothing in it. If you want to spend more money, you cannot take anything more out of your wallet, as it is already empty. You can, however, go into debt. You have -0 in your wallet if you incur debts. You can think of this space in the same way: it is not only empty but you could say that it exerts suction because there is less than 0 in it: -A. It can be said of this space exerting suction — which is not just empty but has a content, which is the opposite of being filled by matter — that it is occupied by that space which one must imagine as filled out by the sun. The sun therefore has an inward suction; it does not exert pressure like a gas. The sun space is filled with negative materiality.
I only present this as an example in order for you to see that earthly lawfulness simply cannot be applied to the extraterrestrial cosmos. We must think of totally different relationships in the extraterrestrial cosmos from those we have learned to know in our environment on the earth.

1921-11-06-GA208

[Current view of the Sun]

It is true that in order to achieve freedom, humanity had to come to believe that a sphere of gases moved through the universe out there, though physicists who would be able to go there would be really surprised, for instead of a sphere of gases they would find an empty space, indeed less than space. They would discover that the sun out there is not a sphere of luminous gases (which is a nonsense) but in the first place just a reflector, unable to radiate light and at most merely reflecting it. In the spirit, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and the moon radiate light. Physically the sun appears to be shining on them, but in reality they radiate light towards the sun, which acts as a reflector. This is the physical reality.

1922-09-27-GA347

Now you may object that according to physicists the sun is so terribly hot that, had it been inside the earth, it would have burned everything. Well you know this only from physicists, who would be greatly astonished if they could see what the sun really looks like. If they were to construct a balloon and travel up there, they would not find the sun so very hot. They would find it filled with life forces. The heat develops when the sun's rays move through air and other matter.

1922-09-30-GA347

[Sun eats comets and develops warmth]
Julius Robert Mayer .. found that every year a certain number of celestial bodies that are like comets fly into the sun. .. those are the food the sun takes in. Even to this day, when we look up to the sun, we can see that the sun has a healthy appetite; it consumes a large number of comets every year. Just as we eat and thus develop energy, so the sun eats comets, so to speak, and thus develops warmth.
..
But comets [do not consist of iron but they] are something quite different; they are alive! The sun, too, is alive, has a stomach, and not only consumes comets but eats exactly like we do.
.. only the smallest part of a comet is iron. Yet it is true that the sun consumes them.

1923-11-17-GA231

[Sunspots: Cosmic Iron thrown out of the Sun]
You are, of course, familiar with the phenomenon of the Sunspots which appear with a certain regularity. Dark spots are observed on the Sun. These Sun-spots and their meaning are the cause of much dispute in material science, but a more accurate research would reveal the following. A constant impulse arises from within the Sun to throw out Sun-substance into the Universe through these dark portals.
And the Sun-substance thus thrown out appears within our solar system in the form of comets, meteors and shooting stars. Now it is particularly in our age that the Beings who rule over the Universe from within the Sun are casting forth these comets, meteors and shooting stars. They did so in earlier times as well, but in our time this activity of theirs has a new significance. You will remember I said how in earlier times it was the purely spiritual impulses in the starry system that were particularly at work. In our time it is the impulses contained in the iron thrown out from the Sun that have special significance for human beings. And these impulses are used by Him whom we know as the Michael Spirit, in the service of the spiritual in the Cosmos. In our age there are thus present in the Cosmos impulses which were not working with the same strength in earlier periods of civilisation. This cosmic iron, in its spiritual nature, makes it possible for the Michael Spirit to mediate between the super-sensible and the material on Earth.
We find, therefore, on the one side a spirit of warfare abroad in the world man enters, when in our time he reaches to what lies behind outer sense-existence. When a man crosses the Threshold with super-sensible sight and instead of directing his gaze to matters which concern him personally turns his attention to great affairs of the Universe which underlie our whole civilisation, then he sees warfare and battle, spiritual battle. There is strife, there is war and conflict in the spiritual, behind the veils of existence. And the iron which, even to the point of physical manifestation, is thrown out by the Sun Spirits into the Cosmos — with this iron Michael arms Himself for His task in the cosmic war. For Michael has the task of helping humanity to go forward in the right way in face of these Powers of Strife behind the veils of civilisation. On the one hand — battle and warfare. On the other hand — the labours and strivings of Michael.
Now all this is again connected with the development of man's freedom, man's free spiritual activity. As earthly men we have iron in our blood. If we were beings with no iron in our blood, the feeling and impulse of freedom would still be able to arise in our souls, but we should not have bodies which could be used for putting this impulse into operation. That we are able not only to conceive the idea of freedom, but also to feel in our body the power to make the body itself into a bearer of the impulse of freedom, is due to the fact that in our age we can learn how Michael takes the cosmic iron, which was cast out also in former times, into His service. And we ourselves, if we understand the Michael impulse aright, can learn how to place the iron that we have within us into the service of the impulse of spiritual freedom. Matter in any case has meaning for us only when we learn to understand it as an expression of the Spiritual in the Universe. In this age what we have to learn is to make the right use of the iron in our blood. For wherever iron is, there too is the impulse for the development of freedom. This is true in the Cosmos and true also in man. It was out of a deep instinct that the Initiates of old ascribed iron to Mars — iron which has a significance for human blood, and therewith also a cosmic significance.

1924-08-08-GA237

The evolution of the Michael principle throughout the ages - The split in cosmic intelligence

You know that approximately every 11 years we have a period of sunspots when in the shining of the Sun upon the Earth certain places are darkened, covered with spots or blotches. This was not always so. In very ancient times the Sun shone down as a uniform disc of light. There were no sunspots. Moreover, after some thousands of years, the Sun will have very many more spots than it has today. The Sun is growing ever more spotted.
This again is the outer manifestation of the fact that the Michael power, the cosmic power of intelligence is still decreasing. In the increase of the sunspots in the course of cosmic evolution is revealed the Sun's decay; the Sun within the cosmos grows increasingly dim and old.
And at the appearance of a sufficiently large number of sunspots, the other planetary intelligences recognised that they would now no longer be ruled by the Sun. They resolved no longer to allow the Earth to be dependent on the Sun, but to make it dependent henceforth on the entire cosmos directly.
This took place through the planetary counsels of the archangels. Notably under the leadership of Oriphiel, this emancipation of the planetary intelligences from the Sun intelligence took place.
It was a complete separation of cosmic powers that had hitherto belonged together. The Sun intelligence of Michael and the planetary Intelligences gradually came into cosmic opposition one with another.

1924-05-17-GA353

Many things said in materialistic science today are utterly fantastic. People imagine the sun to be a kind of gaseous sphere, for instance. It is not a gaseous sphere, but really something quite different.
You see, if you have a bottle of carbonated water you get those small beads in there. So one might think: Right, that is carbonated water, and in it are small beads — things that float in it. But that is not how it really is, for there you have your carbonated water, and there it is hollow [drawing]. You have less in there than in the rest of the water. It is of course carbon dioxide gas, with water all around it, but the gas is thinner than the water. With reference to the water, you have a hollow space in there, and compared to water you merely have the subtle nature of the gas.
The sun, too, is a hollow space in the universe; but this is thinner than any gas; it is extremely thin in the place where the sun is. And what is more, when you move around in this world you are in space. But space is also hollow where the sun is.
What does it mean: 'space is hollow? You can see from the following what it means when we say space is hollow.
If you create a vacuum with a vacuum pump, removing all the air [drawing], and then make an opening here, the air rushes in with a tremendous hissing sound.
The situation with the sun is that what you have there is definitely above all a hollow space; empty not only of air but also of heat. It is above all a hollow space. The nature of this hollow space is such that it is spiritually closed off all around, and something can rush in only at intervals through the sun spots.
Astronomers would get a big surprise if they were to go there in a space car or space ship — it could not be an airship, of course, for the air does not go as far as that. The astronomers would expect that when they got up there and arrived at the sun they would enter such a nebula, for the sun, they think, is red-hot gas. And they would expect this red-hot gas to burn them up, that they would perish in flames, for they believe they would find a temperature of many thousands of degrees. But you do not get the opportunity to burst into flames, for the sun is hollow also as far as heat is concerned. There is no heat either! One would be able to tolerate all this. One would also be able to tolerate the temperature if one went to the sun in a giant space ship.
But something else could not be tolerated. The situation would be similar to the air rushing in with a hiss —rushing in, not out — and you would immediately be drawn into the sun and would instantly turn to dust, for the sun is a hollow space that sucks in everything. You would be completely absorbed. It would be the most certain way of disappearing.
The sun is thus seen entirely in the wrong light by materialistic scientists. It is a hollow space with regard to anything else; and this really makes it the lightest person among all the stars nearest to us out there in space, lightest of all.

1924-06-04-GA236

see longer quote Pentecost#1924-06-04-GA236

Physical science speaks of a movement of the Sun; and it can do so, for within the spatial picture of the cosmos which surrounds us, we perceive by certain phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image of the true Sun-movement — an image cast into Space.
If we are speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves in space; for space itself is being radiated out by the Sun. The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself.
And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created space.
Outside of space it is a movement in time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the time-evolution of the Sun-Being.

1924-06-04-GA353

Question: How do the sun's rays come about? Is that a substance? And how does it happen that they come to earth in a curve?
Rudolf Steiner: Am I right in thinking that you see the sun's rays as something real? And perhaps you can go a bit further and explain why you think they come to earth in a curve.
The questioner said he'd heard that they did not come to earth in a straight line but in a curve.
Rudolf Steiner: It's like this. The sun's rays, as we see them, are not actually a reality; but if we consider the sun the way it is, it is not really physical matter, it is in fact spiritual, a hollowed-out form created in space.
Now, you must get a real mental image of what such an empty space means. If you have a bottle of fizzy water — I have used this comparison before — the bottle is filled with water and one really hardly sees the water; we know there is water in there, but what we do see clearly are the beads in the water [drawing]. But you know that when you pour the water from the bottle those beads evaporate; they are in fact air. Being air, they are thinner than water. One is not seeing something denser than water, but one clearly sees the thinner element of air in there. That is how it is with the sun up there. Everything around the sun is really denser than the sun, and the sun is thinner than anything around it; and that is why you see the sun.
It is an illusion to think that the sun is 'something' in space. In reality there is nothing there in space; you have a big hole there, just as with fizzy water you always have air, a hole, wherever there is a bead.
This immediately tells you that there can be no question of rays coming from that hole. The rays develop in a completely different way. You can understand this if you consider the following. Let us assume you have a street lamp, and there is a light in this street lamp. If you go out into the street and look at this lamp and the night is bright and clear, you'll see the lamp in steady, beautiful radiance. But imagine it is a foggy night, with mist and fog all around — then it will seem to you that rays come from the lamp, from the light! You then see those rays in there. But in fact you do not see rays of the light, for then you would also see them on a really good night. They do rather come from around the lamp; and the more mist and fog there is, the more do you see those rays. And so the sun's rays, too, are not something real, but something where you look through a mist at something that is less dense, an empty space. Can you understand this?
Now to go on. Looking into the distance through a mist, the object one looks at always appears in a different place from where it really is. If we are down here on the Earth and look through the air at the sun, which is really empty, then, as we look, the sun actually appears lower down than it really is — it will be lower down in the emptiness of space. As a result, something which is not real anyway appears to be going in a curve [drawing]. So it is only that way because we look through the mist. That is the reality in this case. One can only be amazed, over and over again, that physicists today present the matter in such a way as if there was a sun there and rays were going along there, when in fact neither the sun nor the rays are outer, physical reality. And in that space, which is empty inside, there you do indeed then have something spiritual. And this is something one must always take into account.

1924-09-13-GA354

Has Mars' proximity to the earth anything to do with the weather?
The weather conditions which have shown such irregularities through the years, particularly in recent years, do have something to do with conditions in the heavens, but not specifically with Mars. When these irregularities are observed we must take very strongly into consideration a phenomenon of which little account is usually taken, although it is constantly spoken of: I mean the phenomenon of sunspots. The sunspots are dark patches, varying in size and duration, which appear on the surface of the sun at intervals of about ten or eleven or twelve years. Naturally, these dark patches impede the sun's radiations, for, as you can well imagine, at the places where its surface is dark, the sun does not radiate. If in any given year the number of such dark patches increases, the sun's radiation is affected. And in view of the enormous significance the sun has for the earth, this is a matter of importance.
In another respect this phenomenon of sunspots is also noteworthy. In the course of centuries their number has increased, and the number varies from year to year. This is due to the fact that the position of the heavenly bodies changes as they revolve, and the aspect they present is therefor always changing. The sunspots do not appear at the same place every year, but - according to how the sun is turning - in the course of years they appear in that place again. In the course of centuries they have increased enormously in number and this certainly means something for the relationship of the earth to the sun.
Thousands of years ago there were no spots on the sun. They began to appear, they have increased in number, and they will continue to increase. Hence there will come a time when the sun will radiate less and less strongly, and finally, when it has become completely dark, it will cease to radiate any light at all. Therefor we have to reckon with the fact that in the course of time, a comparatively long time, the source of the light and life that now issues from the sun will he physically obliterated for the earth. And so the phenomenon of the sunspots - among other things - shows clearly that one can speak of the earth coming to an end. Everything of the earth that is spiritual will then take on a different form, just as I have told you that in olden times it had a different form. Just as a human being grows old and changes, so the sun and the whole planetary system will grow old and change.
A good or bad vintage year, for example, is connected with phenomena such as sunspots, also with the appearance of comets. Only when they are observed in connection with phenomena in the heavens can happenings on the earth be studied properly.

Walter Russell

... Hydrogen is the most plentiful substance, which the sun generates in its outer atmosphere, and the most plentiful of our outer atmosphere beyond twenty miles.
Water, air, hydrogen, and oxygen are not things; they are conditions of the light of the sun and the dark of space from which they sprang.
... Hydrogen flames leap for thousands of miles into the sun’s atmosphere, yet there is no hydrogen at all upon the sun’s surface until the time of its leaping into flame. If the amount of hydrogen which explodes from the sun’s surface in one week existed upon the sun, there would be no sun. It would explode. The sun generates hydrogen and burns it simultaneously.

Discussion

Note 1 - About Schema FMC00.034

This schema is clearly insightful in view of, in a broader context, the (Overview) Golden Chain and, more specifically: The two etheric streams. That is: how the Earth is influenced by the streams from Sun and Moon (whereby the Moon represents reflected or Sun-penetrated influences).

The outer left drawing shows five streams:

[1] - vitalizing Earth
[2] - flowing back from Earth to Sun
[3] - to Moon
[4] - flowing back from Moon
[5] - Sun to Sun (no Moon]

On the second drawing from left, certain streams are split up or rather drawn double symmetrically. However this is not necessary for explaining the two drawings on the right, representing the heart's two blood circuits.

Note that besides the physical blood streams, one also has to consider the etheric streams, see Etherization of blood Schema FMC00.044 and FMC00.033A.

Related pages

References and further reading

Karl Otto Kiepenheur: 'Die Sonne' (1957)
Walther Bühler: 'Die Sonne als Weltenherz' (1966)
Georg Blattman: 'The Sun - the ancient mysteries and the new physics' (1985 in EN, original in DE 'Die Sonne - Gestirn und Gottheit', 1972)
Günther Doebel: 'Die Sonne, Stern des Lebens' (1975)
Theodor Landscheidt: Sun-Earth-Man (1989)
- (one of many) tentative approach(es) to understand solar cycles (eruptions, sunspots) and their impact on Earth and Man

Hartmut Ramm: 'Der Sonne dunkle Flecken... Die Jahrtausendwende im Zeichen eines jungen kosmologischen Symptoms' (1998)