Ages of the Earth to Come and Further Cycles of Time by Rev. Michaël Merle

reported by John-Peter Gernaat

This talk was given on 25 July 2021 and comprises part 2 to the talk given on 13 June 2021.
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In June we looked at the Great Cycles of Time. A sense for these Cycles of Time goes back in recorded history at least as far back as the Ancient Indian Culture, when they carried a strong association with cycles of time rather than linear time. The Great Cycles are also cycles of the Divine in relationship to the earthly. A strong picture of seven Cycles of Time emerges from the Mesopotamians, the Second Post-Atlantean Cultural Epoch. The ancient Sumerians understood the relationship to the mobile stars and set them as an indicator of seven stages of passing time, which became for us the seven days of the week.

We begin this cycle with Saturday and end with Friday. Saturday was named for Saturn, the furthest of the mobile stars that could be seen with the naked eye in the night sky. This gives us the Great Cycles of Time of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon and now we find ourselves in the Earth Cycle. We know that Earth does not come up as a day of the week because the Earth Cycle is a combination of Mars and Mercury. Esoterically the planet we call Venus is Mercury, so this means that Mars and Mercury are to be found on either side of the Earth in the solar system. Our time now is Mars-Mercury, Tuesday-Wednesday, thereafter Jupiter and Thursday and Venus (the planet nearest to the sun esoterically) and Friday. We have considered six cycles and finally we come to Vulcan that has not yet manifested physically in our solar system. The French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877) calculated that there should be a planet between Mercury (what we call Mercury) and the sun. Newtonian physics requires a planet in this location to explain the orbit of Mercury. But because of the proximity to the sun it was not visible. He instinctively called this planet Vulcan after the Roman god of volcanoes and the blacksmiths. Vulcan is the Roman name of Hephaestus, the Greek name of this god.

The mythology of the god helps to understand a quality that exists esoterically for each of these planets. Our Earth Cycle is the combination on either side of us that we call Mars and esoterically what is Mercury.
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Vulcan is an off cast of the planetary cycles of time and we have the prominence of the sun which is an entirely different talk. From our perspective on earth we can recognise the inner and outer planets (those between earth and sun and those beyond the sun) and these correlate with Dante’s writings as the spheres we transcend in our journey of Paradise.

Vulcan, in this picture of the solar system, is an inner planet.
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A large part of this talk will comprise reading from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner and from the book by Prokofiev’s And the Earth Becomes a Sun.

The Vulcan Cycle is the goal towards which we are moving. The Sumerians recognised that anything dealing with seven had to do with the time cycles. All time cycles revert back, in one way or another, to the number seven. When they looked at the Zodiac they recognised that the number twelve represents an ordering of space, it orders the space in which time can unfold. There is therefore no unfolding of time without an ordering of space.

A future picture of humanity that we are working towards is already in some respects a reality, although not fully realised. It is a reality of humanity living in harmony with the world around us. That is the hopeful picture of today.

Vulcan was a blacksmith of the gods. The best mythology is the Greek mythology of Hephaestus. Athena emerged fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Hera, Zeus’ wife, is immediately very jealous. As a jealous response Hera gives birth to Hephaestus. He is not fully formed but emerges as a child. The anger Hera feels towards Zeus results in the child being deformed. Hera sees him as ugly and she throw him off Mount Olympus where he falls into the ocean and is rescued by two sea goddesses, Eurydome and Thetas, who take him and raise him. He becomes an incredible blacksmith. He crafts thrones for the gods of Mount Olympus which he gives them as gifts. He creates a throne for Hera, who he knows is his mother, from metals that bind her to the throne as soon as she sits on it. The gods all beg him to release Hera. Eventually Deionises persuades him but he has two conditions. Firstly, he wishes to be instated on Mount Olympus as the blacksmith of the gods where he will in future craft the palace for Helios, chariots for Helios, for Aries and for Aphrodite and eventually he will craft the tripod serving dishes from which the gods will eat. His second wish is to marry Aphrodite (Venus). Esoterically Venus is the physical planet nearest the sun and Vulcan is even nearer to the sun. Together they live in the sun-sphere. Vulcan creates using fire and from this we get volcanoes and those who study volcanoes are vulcanologists, going back to the name of Vulcan. The qualities described in the legend are relevant for a picture of what is to come in the Vulcan Cycle: our ability to harness the full power of the fire element; to be able to really work with it as a creative way that brings about something new and amazing as a consequence of our work. We will also be wedded to all that Venus carries.

In our Earth Cycle the Esoteric Tree that is of true importance is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is the Tree of which we should not have eaten so early, but was always ours to take into ourselves. The Tree that open up for us the future is the Tree of Life, which is the Tree of the Jupiter Cycle. We are currently between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is the Earth Cycle, and Tree of Life, which will introduce us to the Jupiter Cycle.

Reading from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the Seven Esoteric Trees that also brings in the picture that something of all seven of the Esoteric Trees manifests for us. We are now in the fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. Atlantis was the fourth time frame, the Post-Atlantean Epochs are the fifth time frame. We are already moving, and this is very clear from mythology, we are moving towards our next step, and have as our picture, no longer the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but a picture of the Tree of Life. That is where we are, reimagining what the Tree of Life will be for us in the Jupiter Cycle. That is a lot of the work we as human beings are busy with now.

Berlin, 27 March 1905. Symbols Reflecting Original Wisdom.  This lecture establishes what the Esoteric Trees represent, not only in terms of each Tree becoming a symbol of each Great Cycle of Time: Old Saturn, Old Sun; Old Moon; Earth; Future Jupiter; Future Venus and Future Vulcan, but also how the seven Esoteric Trees speak to the development within the seven Great Time Cycles within the Earth Cycle, how they are recapitulations and then the seeding of the future.

What is the Tree of Being in Harmony with God? Where are we going with this Tree? Earth Eons: The Earth Cycle is the fourth Condition of Consciousness of our Cosmos. It consists of seven conditions of life. The first Condition of Consciousness of our Cosmos was Old Saturn, the second was Old Sun, the third Old Moon. The Earth Eon consists of seven Conditions of Life or Rounds of Time. The first is a recapitulation of Old Saturn within the Earth Eon, the second is a recapitulation of Old Sun within Earth Eon and the third is a recapitulation of Old Moon within Earth Eon. The fourth, that we know as the Atlantean times is the actual Earth Condition. The fifth, which we are living through now is an anticipation of the future Jupiter within the Earth Eon. Rudolf Steiner describes it as Jupiter-Earth. We are already in Jupiter-Earth. The sixth great cycle is an anticipation of the future Venus within the Earth Eon which we can call this Venus-Earth. The seventh is an anticipation of future Vulcan within the Earth Eon that we can call Vulcan-Earth. (To read more find it in GA93a.)

Prokofiev brings an important picture of the goal of Vulcan to consciousness in his book. He draws on many sources of Rudolf Steiner and synthesises it in a way that has real value for us. From the very beginning of this passage Prokofiev makes it clear that what we are dealing with is a picture of the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. It is in our end that we find a new beginning, but the end is the reason why it began in the first place. We are working towards the Omega point in our journey. We are on our way towards something, we are in process of becoming something. What we are to become has relevance for us because we are already in the Jupiter-Earth time, where we are working on ourselves in such a way that we are anticipating that which is to come. We are already in these Post-Atlantean Epochs always working with an image, a mythology of the Tree of Life; be it the incredible Banyan Tree on the banks of the River Ganges; be it the Tree of Life planted in the Water of Life surrounded by two Kar-fish which protect it; be it the tree out of which the first man and woman emerged (part of the Egyptian mythology, known as the Tree of Life and Death); be it the Cross, which is the Tree of Death and Life ( a reversing of the Egyptian picture); be it the Tree of Life from Kabbalistic Judaism, these images of the Tree of Life surround us in all our cultures in all of our Epochs because this is what we are working with now, a movement towards that which we will live out in the great Jupiter Cycle.

Quoting from Sergei O. Prokofieff And the Earth Becomes a Sun, The Mystery of the Ressurection:​

Thus at the beginning of his cycle on the Book of Revelation for the priests of the Christian Community Rudolf Steiner indicates in his commentary on the words of Christ — ‘I am the Α and the Ω, the beginning and the end’ (1:8) — that they encompass the whole of world evolution from Old Saturn to the future Vulcan and that man will reach this highest stage of evolution only at the end of the age of Vulcan. He describes in the following words what man’s situation will be like then: ‘By gradually taking into himself everything that is world and uniting his whole being with it to the point where on Vulcan he will be completely at one with the full extent of the world, with the great universe to which he belongs, he will have become what he was at the beginning of Saturn evolution plus the whole world. Man will be Alpha and Omega, and in him everything is united that is world. By saying “I am Alpha and Omega” in the way that John does in the Book of Revelation, we have defined what man will be at the end of the Vulcan age. At the end of Vulcan evolution man, too, will be permitted to say: ‘I am Alpha and Omega’ (GA 346,7 September 1924; italics Rudolf Steiner).
 
Through Christ’s deed in the Mystery of Golgotha this sublime stage of world evolution has already become a complete reality. ‘Let us look at what we have imagined to ourselves as being the beginning, middle and end of mankind’s evolution, let us look at this in conjunction with the Mystery of Golgotha. In the Being who incarnated in Jesus through the Mystery of Golgotha roughly in the middle of human evolution [between Old Saturn and Vulcan], we have a Being who is already at the stage of world evolution that man will have reached at the end of Vulcan evolution’ (ibid.). And yet even when mankind has scaled these cosmic heights of its evolution, it will by no means have attained what Christ attained for all ages and world epochs in the Mystery of Golgotha. Rudolf Steiner gives a very clear indication of this when he adds the following decisive distinction to the words that have just been quoted: ‘We have a Being as a God such as man will be as a human being at the end of Vulcan evolution’ (ibid.).
 
Thus Christ as a God has through the Mystery of Golgotha established the final goal of the whole cosmic evolution of mankind for all future ages in the middle of this evolution. In order, however, that man may engender sufficient inner strength to make this aim a reality, the adversaries have been placed in his path; for only by overcoming them will he develop his soul and spiritual powers to the point where he can ultimately indeed fulfil his cosmic and earthly destiny.
 
Even on Vulcan Christ will by virtue of His central deed in the Earth aeon — the Mystery of Golgotha — illumine mankind as it evolves further as a guiding and strength-bestowing star. And when at the end of Vulcan it will possess the power to form the new zodiac out of its own forces, in order in the midst of this new zodiac to engender a cosmic system arising out of itself, it will not have reached that stage which John described in the prologue of his Gospel: ‘All that exists has come into being through this same [Word], and nothing that has come into existence has done so except through it’. For what man will have attained in the cosmic dimension by the end of the whole of evolution is something fundamentally different from what Christ as the Son of God and the cosmic Word created in the cosmos and on the Earth in the Mystery of Golgotha. In the Mystery of Golgotha Christ did not only work out of the evolutionary stream of time in which mankind will reach the last stage of its evolution, the Vulcan condition, but He accomplished His deed directly out of the forces of eternity, that is, out of that sphere which lies ‘beyond’ or ‘above’ the whole sevenfold evolution from Saturn to Vulcan.
 
However, because Christ voluntarily united Himself with the whole of mankind on the Earth, humanity’s entire further evolution is inseparably connected with the Mystery of Golgotha. For in this event we find the highest model for all future, cosmic human creativity. Rudolf Steiner describes this as follows: ‘During the Vulcan stage all the beings who have evolved out of the small beginnings of Saturn existence will have been spiritualised to the highest degree. Together they will have become not just a Sun [which has absorbed all planets into itself] but an Over-sun. Vulcan will be more than Sun, and it will therefore have reached the maturity for sacrifice, the maturity necessary for self-dissolution’ (GA 110, 14 April 1909 - II). Rudolf Steiner explains what this means, and what will proceed to happen next, in the following words: ‘The [Over-] sun will sacrifice itself, dissolve into the cosmos and send forth its being. … It then becomes periphery and itself becomes a zodiac’ (ibid.). And this new zodiac will then from the cosmic periphery ‘itself give birth to and e a new solar system’ (ibid.).
 
Rudolf Steiner calls this process which concludes the Vulcan age the ‘great cosmic sacrificial service’ (ibid.), a state of being to which mankind will eventually rise. And for this cosmic sacrifice which it will then have to make, it will need to draw upon the power from the Mystery of Golgotha. Only because in the middle of the whole of world evolution (on the Earth, between Old Saturn and Vulcan) the creative cosmic Word itself became man, and thereby introduced the power into earthly evolution through which alone mankind will eventually reach the goal and purpose of Vulcan, has its future ascent to the sacrificial service in the universe that has been described become inherently possible. Thus Christ's sacrificial deed on Golgotha has sown the seed for this subsequent 'cosmic sacrificial service' into the evolution of humanity. Only through the fact that the Mystery of Golgotha guarantees to human beings a direct access to the forces of the Logos which 'was in the very beginning' (John 1:1) can the cosmic future that has been described become a reality.
 
For on the hill of Golgotha the Alpha and the Omega of world evolution (Old Saturn and the future Vulcan) were — as has already been described at some length elsewhere — directly connected with one another, though not through the twofold stream of time (its earthly and spiritual aspects) but directly through eternity itself:

​Only if one approaches the Mystery of Golgotha in this way on the foundation of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual research can one gain an initial sense of its true dimension and global significance; for there is, in truth, no world perspective that is too wide for the Mystery of Golgotha, in that it surpasses everything that we can conceive of in this direction. Hence Rudolf Steiner says that the whole second half of Earth evolution will be necessary in order to understand this mystery of an incarnated God. Nevertheless, a significant step forward on this path must be taken already in our time with the help of anthroposophy.
 
Rudolf Steiner speaks in a variety of places of how the events of the Turning Point of Time — and above all the Mystery of Golgotha itself - were of decisive significance not only for human beings on the Earth but also for the Gods in heaven, that is, for all the divine-spiritual hierarchies. This — one might say — divine-spiritual perspective of Christ's deeds Prokofieff then addresses.

Fundamentally, through the Mystery of Golgotha we are able to begin living and anticipating all the seeds that will take us through Jupiter, through Venus, finally to being in harmony with God and the Universe on Vulcan.

From Question Time: The New Jerusalem is an incredible picture of our Jupiter Cycle. The picture of the New Jerusalem is still strongly associated with the picture of the Tree of Life, within a crystalline form are the Trees of Life, where we have become the Tree of Life on the banks of the Water of Life. That is the seed picture for the new Jupiter Cycle. Then there is another picture of the Trees that must manifest, which will be the Tree of the Word for the Venus Cycle, where the human beings will be able to hear the inner word and live out of mystic insight. And then for Vulcan it is the Tree of Being in Harmony with God in the Universe.