Planetary Cycles of Time and the Solar System for the Earth Cycle by Rev. Michaël Merle

report by John-Peter Gernaat

This talk was presented on 13 June 2021 and a second part of the talk was presented on 25 July 2021.
​
The description given by Rudolf Steiner of the human being at the time of the Garden of Eden was of a fiery being. The human form may have resembled a fire-cloud. The human being would have experienced an inner life with the soul slumbering in the cloud. By the time of Atlantis, the human being would have had a cartilaginous structure. Bones would not yet have developed. The atmosphere, also, was watery in constitution, and we would have swum through the atmosphere. In the Post-Atlantean Epochs the human form developed to what we would now recognise as human, but the way that humans related to each other began to develop only in the Second Cultural Epoch. This was the Epoch when being human developed. When archaeologists look at sites their interest in human beings is for evidence of musical instruments (bone flutes), art (including shell necklaces) and the burial of the dead.

Humanity has always included rituals. The Act of Consecration of Man is a ritual that is relevant for today. But everyone, even atheists practice rituals, which may be as mundane and everyday as a morning coffee ritual.

The Sumerians were the first human culture to record their star gazing. They looked up and saw a whole world speaking to them. They had a very particular relationship to the night, a consciousness that was heightened by the night. They were able to observe the planets, picking them out from among the stars. Their perception was in some way guided. Their experience was of the earth as central to the cosmos. This reality remained through to the time of Dante.

The Sumerians observed the Moon as nearest to earth, followed by a planet they called Mercury that we now name Venus, followed by Venus that we now call Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and then Saturn. Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877) mathematically predicted the existence of Neptune, which was eventually observed in 1846. He also 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. Einstein said that there was no need for a planet based on space-time relativity. However, the existence of a planet that has not yet materialised but exists as a spiritual reality, was already a subject of esoteric study. The planet was named Vulcan. Vulcan worked with the power of the sun to forge for the gods. He was the consort of Venus.

When we study the activity of the sun we observe hydrogen atoms fusing (nuclear fusion) to form helium. Hydrogen exists in plasmatic state on the sun that in the collision forms atoms. This material process is a representation of a spiritual reality. These processes were intuited as gods. There were three principal gods and lesser gods.

Rudolf Steiner has been able to place existing information into a comprehensive system. As the Divine creates, beings appear. The first of these beings were the Seraphim, that appear as a fire cloud, the seven flaming torches described in Revelation, beings of love. They came into being before space and time. The first appearance of space and time was Old Saturn. Old Saturn was not a planet that could be “seen”, rather one could feel it to perceive it.

The creative beings of Old Saturn were the Thrones and the development was focused on the Archai.

The creative beings of Old Sun were the Kyriotetes and the development was focused on the Archangels.

The creative beings of Old Moon were the Dynamis and the development was focused on the Angels.

The creative beings of Earth are the Elohim and the development was focused on the human being.

The foundation for a physical body was already developed on Old Saturn. By the time the evolutionary cycles have progressed to Vulcan the human being will have fully developed Spirit Human, the highest of the Spirit bodies that we develop though the Ego working into the lower bodies of the Astral, Etheric and Physical. By the end of the Vulcan Cycle the human being will have become the 10th Hierarchy.

When Jacob falls asleep he sees angels ascending and descending.
​
Jesus tells Nicodemus that no being can ascend who has not descended.

In the Jupiter Cycle the creative forces will be the Beings of Personality (the Archai).

In the Venus Cycle the primary creative beings will be beings we know as Archangels.

In the Vulcan Cycle we will experience the Angels as the creative agents.
​
In the Act of Consecration of Man we hear that the Christ receives from the Father and fulfils through the Spirit in all cycles of time.

We are currently in the 5th Age of the Earth (the Post-Atlantean Age) and in each Age there are 7 Epochs. We are in the 5th Post-Atlantean Epoch.
​
The experience of the Earth Cycle of time is a duality of violence from Mars and the racing of time from Mercury.