Variable stars

Variable stars can be regarded as fixed stars in a stage comparable to the Old Sun evolutionary stage of our solar system. The cosmic breathing process of the spiritual entities going through the human stage (Condition of Consciousness level 4) emits light during the exhalation phase, followed by periods of darkness corresponding to the inhalation phase.

Lecture coverage and references

Vreede p 319 breathing on Old Sun

1909-04-13-GA110 describes the breathing process

.. on Old Saturn

During the Old Saturn evolution it was possible for the Archai to transmute external warmth into inner warmth. The process was not stiff or hard, but was one of inner movement. In fact, the Archai were continuously

• producing these eggs of warmth
• and letting them dissolve again.

And now we shall be able to imagine the process more exactly.

Let us suppose that you made that journey over and over again; you would have noticed that

• there were times when there was no outer warmth to be felt, only that inner feeling of comfort;
• then again times when those eggs of warmth appeared.

You would have realised something like a breathing of the whole being of Old Saturn, but it was a breathing of fire.

• You would have thought: ‘Sometimes I am within this Old Saturn in such a way that I feel that all external warmth has turned inward, has withdrawn and I experience only that feeling of inner comfort.’ And you would have said: ‘Now Old Saturn has in-breathed all the warmth.’
• And coming back another time and finding all those eggs of warmth you would have said: ‘Now Old Saturn has breathed out his inner warmth, all is external fire.’

You must understand that the ancient Holy Rishis gave this idea to their pupils; they transported themselves in spirit back to the times of Old Saturn, and made their pupils realise how a whole planet was able to produce something that resembled an expansion and contraction in breathing. They evoked in their pupils the conception that fire when it flows out forms countless bodies of warmth and when the fire is sucked in, it becomes the inner Self, an I, of the Archai. Therefore, they compared the life of this planet to an in and out-breathing, but on Old Saturn it was only a breathing of fire. Air as yet did not exist.

.. and on Old Sun

Thus your ball of warmth has transformed itself into a shining orb; a sun has come into being. One is fully justified in calling it a sun; the orbs that are suns to-day are now passing through this same process, inwardly they ate masses of streaming gas, and on the other side they cause that gas to turn into light; they shed abroad light through space. Thus, light was really first formed in the transmutations of our earth, light appeared then for the first time.

In the warmth of Old Saturn, the Archai had first the possibility of 'becoming human'. In the light which now streamed from Old Sun those beings of the spiritual hierarchies, whom we call Archangels could 'become human'.

In fact, if you could have approached Old Sun then, not only as a man of today but as a clairvoyant man, you would not only have perceived light streaming from it — not light only — but also the actions of the Archangels would have streamed towards you with the light. But the Archangels had brought with them something in exchange as it were. The Archai had found pure warmth on Old Saturn. The Archangels, who were first able to become human on Old Sun, also found there gas or smoke. What had they to do in order to secure a footing on the Old Sun, to establish a dwelling-place there? They formed their own souls, they wove their inner being, their soul-bodies out of warmth into light, and they joined to these soul-bodies the gas that was there, a external body. As you have today a body and a soul, so the Archangels as men had

• an inner life of warmth which rayed forth light, and
• an outer physical body which consisted of gas and air.

As Man of today has a body consisting of earth, water, air and fire, so did those Archangels consist of air, and inwardly they consisted of light. The fire element they, of course, brought over with them: for this was the element which developed into smoke and light. The whole of their being consisted of light, warmth (or fire) and air (or smoke).

By means of the light they let their shining force stream out into universal space; by means of fire they lived their inner life, they experienced the comfort of warmth. Through the life they led in their gas bodies they lived in the Sun planet itself. They could now differentiate their own body of gas from the general substance of the Old Sun body.

They jostled against each other, and through this contact developed a kind of consciousness of self. This self-consciousness Archangels could develop further and further only because it pleased the Archangels better, if one may so express it, to dwell in their bodies of gas and smoke, or at any rate to leave them in the general Old Sun substance. For these Archangels during alternating conditions of Old Sun, had inhaled all the gas, all the smoke which was around them, they had taken it into themselves.

We have now a process of real breathing. You would have felt those currents of gas on Old Sun as a process of breathing. You would have found there

• certain conditions, when there was an absolute stillness and you would have thought that the Archangels had now breathed in all the gas.
• Then the Archangels began to breathe it out again, inner currents began to flow and at the same time light came forth.

The interchange of conditions on the Sun was as follows:

• the Archangels inhaled gas and stillness followed, darkness also — it was the Suns night ...
• They exhaled and the Sun was filled with streams of smoke, at the same time it sent forth its light outwards — it was the Sun's day.

Thus there was a process of real breathing of the whole body of the Sun.

• Exhalation: — the Sun's day, illumination of the surrounding world.
• Inhalation: — the Sun's night, oncoming darkness in the world.

You have here the description also of the difference between Old Sun and the sun of today. Our present sun shines always, and darkness is produced only when some object is placed in front of its light. This was different with Old Sun. It had in itself the power to produce the interchanges of light and darkness, illumination and obscurity, for that was its process of exhalation and inhalation.

Let us now vividly imagine how one would see those happenings externally.

• Let us take the condition of exhalation. Light is then shed around, but at the same time Old Sun is filled with smoke. These forms and currents of smoke are like regularly recurrent pictures, they are imprinted on the substance of the Sun with every exhalation. That which formerly was only egg-shaped, the eggs of warmth, changed into all sorts of regular images. Quite distinct smoke pictures with an inner life and inner regularity were produced. If I may use the expression: the eggs were hatched. That was really to what this solidifying process might be compared. Just as the chicken comes out of the eggs, so were those eggs of warmth split in two, and regular forms came out of them, figures of smoke which were the densest bodies of the Archangels. They inhabited the Sun in bodies of gas, smoke, and air. Thus they moved about as men on Old Sun.

We have now the spiritual idea of a fixed star, of a sun world, which is a sun through its own power, which can produce the interchange of day and night by its own power. Like an exhalation and inhalation it produces the interchange of light and darkness. For at that time Old Sun was a sort of fixed star.

Everything in our universal space that shines of itself sends out into that space together with light the life of spiritual messengers, the Archangels. What, then, have the primal Archai accomplished through their own evolution, what have they established? It is mainly through them that Old Sun appeared. While otherwise only an Old Saturn existence would have appeared in evolution, while otherwise only the Archai, who had filled Old Saturn with warmth, would have existed, now, because the Archai had surrendered the external eggs of warmth, Old Saturn was transformed into Old Sun, on which the Archangels found it possible to pass through their human stage. They were the heralds who announced to the world: ‘The Archai (or 'primal beginnings'), were our forerunners. As messengers, we proclaim to the universe in rays of light, the former existence of warmth-filled OldSaturn. We are the messengers, the heralds of the Archai. Angel means Messenger, Archai means the Beginnings. The Archangels were nothing else than the heralds of the deeds of the Primal Beginnings or Archai of former times. Therefore, they are called Angels of the Beginnings, ‘Archai-Angels’ which, in English, has become Archangels. These Archangels were the men of the Sun.

Related pages

• Astronomy
• Worldview Spiritual Science
• Cosmic breathing

References and further reading

Elisabeth Vreede: 'Astronomy and Spiritual Science' - Letter 7 of year three 1930