Christ Ascending: the Ten Heavenly Hierarchies, the study of the Ascension Festival

by Rev. Michaël Merle with input on the Seraphim by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger reported by John-Peter Gernaat

There are three Hierarchies of angelic beings and within each Hierarchy there are three Realms.

The first Hierarchy is associated with the Father God, the second with the Son God and the third with the Spirit God. However, within each Hierarchy each Realm is connected with one of the Trinity. The order of this connection is not the same in each Hierarchy.

The First Hierarchy
The Seraphim

In the first Hierarchy the first Realm are the Seraphim. The singular is a Seraph. The Seraphin are connected with the Son God within the Hierarchy associated with the Father God. In the Orthodox church the servers carry images of Seraphs that are inclined towards the priest when the Gospel is read. This reveals an understanding of the connection of the Seraphim to the Son God.

The first Hierarchy are described by John in Revelation as attending the Throne of God.

The word “seraph” is derived from Hebrew and means the burning one. Isaiah describes the Seraphim in detail as having six wings, two that cover the area above the head, two that cover down to the feet and two with which to fly.

The Seraphim had fully developed before what Rudolf Steiner refers to as Old Saturn, that is before time. As beings of fire or warmth they would have had a close connection with the development of Old Saturn.

Thomas Aquinas describes the Seraphim as having the three qualities of a candle flame: they lift upwards and rise; they permeate warmth, and they radiate light. They can also be described as beings of fire, love and flight.
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When Francis of Assisi fasted for forty days in preparation for Michaelmas, he had a vision of a Seraph on the cross. It was in the presence of this vision that Francis received the stigmata. This emphasises the relationship of the seraphim with the Son God (with Christ).  The artist Giotto made a painting of the vision: 

The Franciscan brothers did the correct thing and tried to heal the stigmata (rather than have them displayed as an achievement), but Francis died two years later still bearing the stigmata.

In Revelation4: 5 John describes the Throne Room of God. He describes seven flaming candle sticks who are the creator spirits. These could be understood as being the Realm of the Seraphim and their connection to the Son God.

Rudolf Steiner describes how we can learn to work with the Hierarchies. He says we can understand the beings of the third Hierarchy through our astral body. This is why an Angel will say: “Do not be overawed”. Awe is an astral body experience. We can understand the second Hierarchy through our etheric body and the first Hierarchy through our physical senses. We can study the crystal realm to aid our understanding of the Seraphim.
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We tend to think of the Seraphim as expansive beings, but we experience them every day as the holding power of the earth beneath our feet. They are the beings that enable contraction and holding. It is for this reason that on Holy Saturday the Christ penetrated the earth to its fiery core.

When we experience the contracting power of pain and go deep into the place of pain, we gain the greatest heights of insight. This power of insight are the six wings of the Seraphim.
Our physical body bears incredible wisdom. The Seraphim are the beings behind this wisdom. We live with the Seraphim every day in our physical constitution. We wake up to their presence in our body every morning.

In the Act of Consecration, the contracted crystals of incense placed on the burning coal expand to a mist that fills the whole space. This characteristic of contraction and expansion is a reference to the Seraphim. Each Realm and Hierarchy adds something to the quality that is the Seraphim. The words “fire of love, creative of being” in the Act of Consecration are a reference to the Seraphim in their being and in their task.

In the third Book of Enoch, one of the apocryphal books, we read of three angels who record the sins of Israel. They present their record to the Seraphim to be given to God, but the Seraphim burn the record and present the purified ashes to God. Having the sins purified by the Seraphim has an impact on Israel.

The power to manifest – to have a form in which they may appear – is given by the first Hierarchy to the other Hierarchies.

​The Cherubim

The word derives from ancient Akkadian and means ‘to bless’. In the original language ‘ch’ was pronounced as ‘k’. Therefore, Cherubim would be spoken as “Kerubim”. The singular is Cherub.
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The ancient Hebrews has a one-sided image of the Cherubim. YHWH (Yahweh) instructed that the Ark of the Covenant should be protected by four Cherubim. The images that were carved represented one aspect of the Cherubim only. These images were of human faces with great wings. When the Hebrews were taken into captivity in Babylon they encountered the true image of the Cherubim. The Cherubim guarded the important thresholds in the city of Babylon, such as the Gate of Ishtar that was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. Guarding the threshold were lamassu. These were beings that had in their appearance the face of a human being, the wings of an eagle and their body and legs were respectively either bull and lion, or lion and bull.

John, describing the Throne Room of God in Revelation 4, describes the four living beings as being like a bull, like a lion, like an eagle and like a human being. The Cherubim are the four living beings in one great spiritual being. They circle the Throne of God. This connects them to the Spirit God within the Hierarchy of the Father God.

The Cherubim are represented in the zodiac through the constellations that form a cross: Scorpio, Aquarius, Leo and Taurus. The signs of the zodiac are each connected with an element in the periodic table – see the talks on the Etheric given by Michaël at the Anthroposophical Society. These four constellations form the cross of life as they are connected with hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon. These four elements are the basic building blocks of life on earth. The Cherubim give the world life.

The blessings that the Cherubin bestow can be discovered by studying the plants and the lower animals according to Rudolf Steiner. These lower animals would be those that are plant-like in their being, such as some jellyfish.

While the Seraphim are Spirits of Love, the Cherubim are Spirits of Harmony.

The human being bears the four qualities of the Cherubim.

The lamassus were horned. Moses was horned when he descended from the mountain with the commandments. These horns represent a direct connection to the spiritual world. We carry horns in our spiritual being. Moses was able to manifest them in his encounter with the Divine.

The first Hierarchy spend their time in the Throne Room of God. They do not interact with us directly. We experience them in their working through the other Hierarchies. Around the Throne of God they continually call out: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty” to which each Realm add their own nature. The Cherubim recognise the Almighty as the One who has been, the One being and the One about to come. They create harmony of the past, present and future.

In Christian art the image of the Cherubin is called the Tetramorph:

They are depicted with legs and six wings while the four-fold nature of their being – human, bull, lion and eagle appear among the wings. Each being holds one of the Gospels.
When the four Gospels were chosen, they were immediately identified with one of the Four Living Beings: Mark with the lion, Luke with the bull, Matthew with the human being and John with the eagle. These gospels were identified as representing the full totality of the Gospel in harmony. The four gospels meet where the cross meets.
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As an aside, the ancient Egyptians decorated the sarcophagi of the dead and they added images of children when the deceased was a child. The Greeks and the Romans associated these decorations with Eros and Cupid and they were called putti (singular putto). They were a blessing to the children and as a consequence were called cherubs in English. However, they are not representative of the Cherubim.

The Thrones

by Robyn de Klerk

This article is still being edited.

(Editor: According to Rudolf Steiner we can gain a sense of the blessings of the Thrones by studying the higher animals.
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Michaël told the story of the Phoenix Bird (click here) as a way in which we may imagine the first Hierarchy.)

​The Second Hierarchy
The Kyriotetes

The Kyriotetes are also known as the Dominions. Kyriotetes derives from the Greek “Kyrios” which means Lord and Dominions derives from “Dominus” in Latin that means Lord. The Kyriotetes are also known as the Lords. In order to be a lord, one must master oneself. The name Lord is a sense of being a part of the Divine. Because the Kyriotetes bear Lordship, all the Realms of the angelic world below then also bear Lordship and hence YHWH (Yahweh) of the Elohim bore the name Lord.

The Kyriotetes were the creative beings of Old Sun. They are also known as the Spirits of Wisdom. As the creative beings of Old Sun they has to sacrifice something into the creative process. The creative gift of the Kyriotetes is the foundation of the living formative force body or the etheric body that plants, animals and humans have. The formative forces develop habits that reside in the etheric body. In the animal kingdom these habits are instinctive. In the human being we can form new habits. This requires work, but once established the new habit lives in the etheric body to serve us. The development of habits is a gift of the Kyriotetes.

According to Rudolf Steiner we can gain a sense of the blessings of the Lords by studying the countenance of life. We see the Kyriotetes in the face of another person, when we can see the person taking a hold of the self.

The disciples of Jesus recognised the quality of Lordship in him. This indicates the strong connection of the Kyriotetes with the Father God in the Hierarchy of the Son God. Self-mastery is the gift of the Kyriotetes.

Through the formative forces of the etheric – the gift of the Kyriotetes – we form relationships. This is also true for the relationships we form with technology.

The Kyriotetes provide the possibility for the human “I” to do what it does.
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In the Act of Consecration of Man in the inserted prayer at Christmas we hear the Kyriotetes spoken of as World Guides. They guide us as to how we can be in the world. We also hear how the Christ works in the Realm of Kyriotetes in the words: “knowing Christ in freedom as our helping guide”.

​The Dynamis

The Dynamis are also known as the Spirits of Motion, Spirits of Power and as the Mights. The second Hierarchy are not well described in scripture. In art this Hierarchy is depicted as mighty angels but there is little to distinguish one dimension or level of the Realm from the other. The Kyriotetes are depicted carrying a sceptre upon which there is a ball of light. The depiction can also be as of magicians when their wings are not emphasised. These beings are considered to give the power that enable miracles to occur. Through their power something can happen suddenly, appearing miraculous. The Dynamis were the creative spirits of Old Moon. In the creative process with the Divine they offered something up that gave earthly beings an astral body. (All creation is a co-creation with the Divine; we have received the Holy Spirit in order that the Holy Spirit can recreate the face of the earth through us.)

Our astral body creates movement in our soul. When one looks at a single-celled plant and a single-celled animal together, they look similar but the animal cell has the ability to self-propel. This is an expression of the astral. This gift comes to all earthly beings from the Dynamis.

In Old Moon the beings of focus were the angels. They developed so as to take individual responsibility for an individual human. The Dynamis gifted the angels the ability to help move a human being out of a fixed or stuck position.

We can be conscious of the Dynamis in our movements, but especially in the movements over which we have no control; such as the heart, the breathing and digestion. The heart is not a pump (see the report of the Africa Seminary module on Embryology) but it rather responds to the flow of the blood. This flow of the blood, or rather the pulsating blood islands in the embryo, are the first movements of the human being and reveals the Dynamis at work.

There is a great cooperation between the Realms of the second Hierarchy, which is the Hierarchy of the Son. This suggests how we as human beings should work together.

The power that the Christ brings into Himself to work miracles is the power of the Dynamis. This is the healing power of the Christ. The Dynamis are connected with the Son within the Hierarchy of the Son.

Human beings find themselves captivated by movement; it moves our souls. We can find the essence of the Dynamis in the soul activity and soul movement of animals and human beings.
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Human thinking is meant to be mobile. The education of the child should unfold this mobility of thinking. We create when we are in movement. The ability to be creative is given to us through the Dynamis. The movement that the Dynamis impart is not linear but omni-directional and has the ability to retreat as well as progress.

​The Exusiai

The Exusiai or Elohim are beings of form. They make things lawful. All the laws of nature that we can study are the result of the Exusiai. They provide an ordering and are the inspiration behind, for example, Linnean Taxonomy, the ordering of all living things. The laws of the Exusiai are rightful laws, they are good.

The Exusiai are the creative spirits of this Earth Cycle. They provide a fixed form for everything that exists on the earth. They add the form to the movement and power provided in the previous cycles of time by the other two Realms of the second Hierarchy.

The Hebrew name Elohim is a three-part name that means Gods of Strong Form. El is the name of God recognised by the Canaanite peoples. They called him Ēl ʿElyōn, God the Most High.

We give form to our lives, to our relationships. We are ‘like’ the Elohim (see Genesis 1) in that we give form, especially in the way we form ourselves, we make a free choice. When we allow the astral body to govern our “I” organisation we lose the form given us by the Exusiai. It can happen easily. Leaders can use the astral body to sway large groups of people and in the process infantilise the group.

The Act of Consecration of Man asks us to keep forming ourselves together with others. With form comes enormous freedom. The sermon of the priest should be presented in the form of nourishment for those who listen, and this nourishment should begin when the sermon ends.

There are seven principal Elohim. Six of the creative principals of the Elohim withdrew into the Realm of the Sun leaving YHWH (Yahweh) to sacrifice his further development to bring into being the blueprint that the seven conceived together. YHWH withdrew to the Realm of the Moon. There he waited for a new element to emerge in the human constitution which first emerged in Abram, who become Abraham, and could then unfold under the guidance of YHWH through the generations to Jesus of Nazareth who would stand in the Jordan, and into whom the Christ could enter. The six principal Elohim who withdrew to the Realm of the Sun sacrifice of their substance to create the spiritual body for the Christ to bear. They had already sacrificed of themselves to create the body which would develop so that the “I” could incarnate into it – the Christ to indwell in the human being.
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The work of the Exusiai is already complete and now we live in the times in which they are handing over to the Archai who are the Spirits of Personality and are preparing for the next great cycle of evolution, the Jupiter Cycle.

The Third Hierarchy
The Archai

We have reached the first Realm of the third Hierarchy. Esoterically this Realm was known as the Azuras but when a group rebelled against their further development and retained the name of Azuras, those that continued their path of development became known as the Archai. The Archai are the great Time Spirits. There are seven principal Time Spirits with whom the other Archai work in collaboration. Yet, these seven principal Archai work separately, each bring their own influence to bear on human development before withdrawing to primordial distances to allow the next Time Spirit to shine through.

The Archai were the beings of focus during Old Saturn, at the beginning of time, occupying the place that humanity now occupies in this Earth Cycle. The Hierarchies above the Archai, which we have already studied, developed before time and the first two realms of the first Hierarchy completed their development before time. Our ability to grasp this is lacking because our language and all our concepts are time-bound.

During this period of development on Old Saturn when the Thrones were the creator spirits, the Archai offered something to the Thrones. The Thrones accepted the offering of some of the Archai but not of all of the Archai, not because the offerings were not acceptable, but because, as creator spirits they could work with some of what was offered but not with the rest. Some of the Archai whose offerings were not accepted by the Thrones accepted this and did not see it as a rejection, but a certain group took great exception to their offerings not been accepted and removed themselves from the path of development upon which the Thrones were taking them. These were the ones who retained the name of Azuras. They were already more highly developed than for example Lucifer and Ahriman and are therefore more dangerous to the development of the human being. The Azuras followed an evil that existed before Old Saturn. Their desire is to annihilate the souls of human beings. While Lucifer and Ahriman distract us from our rightful path of development by leading us to one side or the other of this path, the Azuras come at us head on and when we are distracted they have the ability to ‘shred’ our souls. We can recover from the temptations of Lucifer and Ahriman by correcting ourselves back onto the “middle path”, but once our souls have been destroyed by the Azuras we cannot recover, and this will impact our development in all future incarnations. The Azuras were not able to affect the development of the human as much in earlier times, but with the development of the Consciousness Soul they have become active in their mission of destruction. We must work at remaining conscious to avoid the impact of the Azuras.

The third Hierarchy is the first Hierarchy to be affected by internal struggles. Even though the Exusiai, the Elohim, did not all work together in the physical creative process of earth, they supported YHWH (Yahweh) from the Realm of the Sun.

The work of the seven leading Archai was first fully explained by Johannes Trithemius, born Johann Heidenberg, a German Benedictine abbot in the early 16th century. He calculated that the regency of each Time Spirit was 354 years. Rudolf Steiner confirmed the work of Trithemius but gave more precise spans for the Time Spirits in their most recent cycle of regency. The great Time Spirits work closely with the influence of the planetary spheres what give us the days of the week. Their regency is in reverse order to the days of the week. The first influence is Saturn, then Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Moon and Sun. The planetary influence is also a characteristic of the particular Time Spirit and we find that some have a slightly shorter regency than predicted by Trithemius and others a slightly longer regency influenced by their character. Each Time Spirit brings their own influence to bear on the earth. This influence is slow to take hold and still ripples on after their regency ends.

The first great Time Spirit is Oriphiel and his influence is Saturn. His most recent regency was from 200BCE to 150CE.

Oriphiel challenges humanity. His regency is a time of great difficulty for humanity, but human beings develop and grow in love and empathy under his influence.

The second Time Spirit is Anael and his influence is Venus. His most recent regency was from 150CE to 500CE. Under his influence Christianity was established as a state religion and it spread to all the corners of the Roman Empire. But the collapse of the Roman Empire was also his influence because the structures of the Roman influence were too restrictive.

The third Time Spirit is Zachariel and his influence is Jupiter. His most recent regency was from 500CE to 850CE.

These were the Dark Ages in Europe. Zachariel influenced the establishment of monasteries in the Christian world and also in other religions. The vows of the monasteries were poverty, chastity, obedience and permanence. The influence of the monasteries radiated out into the distress of the outer world.

The fourth Time Spirit is Raphael and his influence is Mercury. His most recent regency was from 850CE to 1190CE (only 340 years).

His influence was to heal divisions, especially in Christianity. He inaugurated the times of Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Order.

The fifth Time Spirit is Samael and his influence is Mars. His most recent regency was from 1190CE to 1510CE (a mere 320 years).

His influence helped to bring about the Consciousness Soul and the inauguration of the Renaissance.

The sixth Time Spirit is Gabriel and his influence is the Moon. His most recent regency was from 1510CE to 1879CE (a full 369 years).

Under his influence we have the stirring that led to the American Constitution. This may seem almost opposed to Gabriel who is about births, family and blood lines. Through Gabriel a new kind of family was established that were linked through a bloodline. The American Constitution requires that the separate states in the confederation work together through cooperation.

Gabriel influenced how Christianity sees itself with the family as the central unit.

The influence of Gabriel has to do with how we form families. In Italy he influenced the nationalistic sentiment that led to the unification of Italy with a strong military rule under a single king. This established the dominance of a particular bloodline. Those opposed to this king who was from the north of Italy established La Familia (the Mafia) in opposition to the new order within the Italian state. In Germany, the unification under Prussia bought the Prussian Kaiser to the throne and his family to govern the new unified Germany.

The last Time Spirit is Michael and his influence is the Sun. His current regency is from 1879 to 2233.

His influence is to establish a culture of a common humanity and to expand this across the world. He influences a universality of the experience of being human. Under his influence we are reimagining the meaning of family. The whole world becomes my family. We see the establishment of cosmopolitan cities that are a melting pot of all cultures and beliefs. Blood no longer determines who my family is. There is always resistance to the influence of the Time Spirit whose regency is active.

Michael is the one great Time Spirit who firmly believes that the human being is on track in developing according to the Divine intention. In contrast Oriphiel doubts that we are on track and therefore challenges us extensively. We can do well for our further development to align ourselves strongly with the influence and intention of Michael.

​The Archangels

The Archangels are in communication and converse with each other constantly. This is in contrast to the Archai who work independently. Archangels take care of a group effort by human beings and are particularly interested in the effects and efforts of a language and the culture that arises with a language. Archangels are the Folk Spirits of peoples with a common language and culture. However, Archangels can be drawn towards an enterprise of human endeavour that reaches out beyond the place where it originated. When we think of the work of The Christian Community, we can be aware that an Angelic being is drawn towards each altar and the human endeavour of the community. When congregations are grouped into a Region, such as the Southern African Region this draws in an Archangelic being.
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The Archangels create a chalice in their encircling conversation in which the work of humanity can appear spiritually. The gift is courage, such as we hear in the Ascension Gospel: “have courage, for I have overcome the world”. The Archangels are always in motion as they encircle the earth. The courage allows us to express ourselves which leads to our individuality.

Ahriman was a being of the Archangelic Realm. He wished to express a perspective that was individual and different from the direction in which this Realm of beings was developing. Their development was to be in service to the development of the human being. The whole of the third Hierarchy is in service to the development of the human being in developing into the tenth Hierarchy. In the Son God descending towards the incarnation into a human body, he made three sacrifices before the fourth sacrifice on Golgotha. The three sacrifices brought about the development of the sense organs of the human being as servants to the human being, the development of the internal organs of the human being and the working together of the soul capacities of the human being. The Christ embodied in an Archangelic being to positively influence the development of the human being. This course of the Son God, with whom the Archangels are aligned in the Hierarchy of the Spirit, did not sit well with Ahriman who could not reconcile the transubstantiation of spirit into matter. To prevent the transubstantiation of matter back into spirit Ahriman works to draw us deeper into matter by subverting us into believing that spirit does not exist.

​The Angels

Rudolf Steiner describes the beings of all the Realms of the Hierarchies we have studies thus far as Spirits:

• Spirits of Love
• Spirits of Harmony
• Spirits of Will
• Spirits of Power
• Spirits of Motion
• Spirits of Form
• Spirits of Time
• Spirits of Fire

He describes the Angels as Sons of Light or as the Sons of Twilight. Think of the time before sunrise or after sunset, the time when the sun is not above the horizon, we have the ability to see form but not detail. We rely on other senses to distinguish what we encounter, such as the movement or the gesture to recognise what is approaching us. It is in this light that we are most likely to have an encounter with an Angel.

We each have a Guardian Angel, an Angel who has willingly taken upon himself the task of guiding us in our development. This task continues through life on earth and life after death. For a period during pregnancy our higher self, our higher “I”, is united with our earthly “I” in the womb of the mother. Our mother bears our higher “I”. At birth our higher “I” is lifted into the being of our Guardian Angel and he bears it for us throughout our earthly life. Our Guardian Angel appears as a figure who stands behind each person, taller than the person with his hands on our shoulders giving us strength for our earthly life. Development comes through pain and our Guardian Angel is there to give us the strength to continue.

In the third Hierarchy, where the beings are still developing, it is possible for the task of one of the beings to be completed and for this being to then progress with his development beyond the Realm in which he is currently. So, should a human being develop to a point where he is able to bear the higher “I” within his being even through an earthly incarnation, his Guardian Angel is released from the task of care and moves into the Realm of the Archangels to continue his development. A human being too may develop to where incarnation is no longer needed as a part of further development.

Angels devote themselves to the care of an individual or of a group. We can experience the Angel of our Community. This Angel may be assisted by other Angels who care for one aspect of our expression.
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Lucifer is an Angel who did not want the human being to leave the Spiritual World. He feared the material physical world and the possibility of the human being not being able to return. This is a distraction from our path of development. Lucifer and those angels that would follow him work at trying to distract us from the development of our consciousness and to rather live in a free-spirited way reaching upwards towards our spiritual nature. It is reminiscent of the Tower of Babel when the human being thought he was strong enough to bypass the development of earthly life by building a way back into the spiritual world himself. Lucifer has been redeemed from his wrongdoing, but this redemption will only become effective for his development in the Jupiter Cycle of time.

Michaël described how it is possible to work with the Lord’s Prayer as a way of understanding the working of each of the Realms of each Hierarchy within the sentences of the Lord’s Prayer. As this is only one way of working with the Lord’s Prayer the details of the conversation are not repeated here.

Future Human

Humanity is on a path of unfolding that will lead us to becoming the tenth Hierarchy.

When we turn to the creation story on Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we are confronted by two remarkably different stories. In Genesis 1 the Elohim work together creatively to conceive a blueprint for this Earth Cycle of time. In Genesis 2 we encounter YHWH (Yahweh), one of the Elohim working through the power of the Creator God to bring this blueprint into being. In Genesis 1 everything is created and the human being is created last of all. In Genesis 2 the human being is created first – rather, let us say, we were created in Old Saturn, and in his creating, YHWH forms a body for the human being first – and then creates all the rest of creation with the human being a present observer.

In Genesis 1: 26 the Elohim say: “Let us cast a shadow in which blood will appear”. This is a direct translation, but an interpretive translation would be: “Let us creatively conceive the human being in our shadow or, it could be understood, likeness”. The Elohim are creating out of their likeness to the Divine, who had created them through the Creator God. Therefore we bear a likeness to the Divine, to the Creator God. We have not yet fully realised this likeness.

When Christ took on an earthly body the countenance of the human being became the countenance of Christ. We are the countenance of Christ for each other. This earthly body bears heavenly body that will unfold in us until we bear the full likeness of the Divine.

Following the inpouring of the Spirit at Whitsun the human being now streams the Spirit out from the heart. Rudolf Steiner gave the Foundation Stone Meditation during the meeting for the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas, 1923, in Dornach, Switzerland as a foundation stone to be laid in the hearts of humans rather than a foundation stone that would be laid in the earth. In the first three sections of the meditation everything that is, is presented, the Trinity and the Hierarchies, past, present and future and then the meditation introduces a new period. It begins “At the Turning (or Turning Point) of Time …” In the original German is says the Spirit rays forth from human hearts.

The Mystery of Golgotha, although in essence it was the three days of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, began with the preparation of Holy Week and unfolded until Whitsun. The three festivals of the Son God: Passion, Easter and Ascension flow into each other and then flow into the first festival of the Spirit. This Turning Point of Time allows for our future development to unfold. An important part of this is the development of the Consciousness-Soul, as it will take us further in our development.

The earth has experienced Future Human in the Resurrected Christ. When we develop to that point we will be the tenth Hierarchy and we will be unlike any of the previous Hierarchies in that we will have a body (the Resurrection Body) that will have been imparted to us by our physical bodies.

The first task is for our incarnated “I” to take hold of our astral body and transform it to Spirit Self through the Consciousness-Soul, then, through the Mind-Soul, to take hold of the etheric body and transform it to Life-Spirit and finally, through the Sentient-Soul, to take hold of the physical body and transform it to Spirit Human. The “I” incarnated before the development of the Consciousness-Soul that it helped develop from within, rather than from without. The pathways of the Consciousness-Soul, the Mind-Soul and the Sentient Soul are important in our unfolding.

The seeds of our Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Human already reside within us but we do not yet have the capacity to unfold them. We will begin to unfold them by the end of Earth Cycle but they will continue to develop through the Jupiter, Venus and Vulkan Cycles. Spirit Self will be established by the beginning of the Jupiter Cycle.

There is an expectation in the Spiritual World that we will take on the task that the Angels have for us in caring for the development of those beings that now present as animals on earth. We will take an interest in their further unfolding.

Our journey continues through the gift of the Mystery of Golgotha. Being, growing and becoming is what the human being truly is. This picture is expressed in the Sacrament of Baptism for the child.
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Future human will not unfold without us working on ourselves. Inner work is what is required.