Star

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A star (Latin: stella or astrum; Greek: ἀστήρ ástēr; Old High German: sterno) is a self-luminous celestial body that appears to the naked eye as a point, is astronomically or astrophysically massive, comparable to our Sun, consists of gas and plasma, and whose size is determined by the acting force of gravity and the energy generated in its interior or radiated outwards. Temperatures of often many millions of degrees prevail in the interior. Since the position of the stars relative to each other was long thought to be unchanging, they were also called fixed stars. They are the subject of stellar astronomy.

Stars are recorded in star catalogues with the exact specification of their star words, spectral class, etc. For example, Ptolemy's Almagest, published in the 2nd century AD, contains a list of 1022 stars visible from Alexandria.

From a spiritual-scientific point of view, the stars are colonies of sublime spiritual beings. The fact that they appear sensually at all is due to the effect of Luciferian Spirits of Wisdom. Their material appearance is ultimately, like all matter, only deception (maya). In truth, according to Rudolf Steiner, the celestial bodies are holes in space through which the soul world, the astral world, reveals itself visibly to the senses.

The fixed stars from a spiritual-scientific point of view

According to Rudolf Steiner, a fixed star is an advanced "planet" which has discarded all that no longer corresponds to its level of development in the form of other planetary celestial bodies. Occult knowledge shows that celestial bodies, like human beings, develop through a series of incarnations, ascending from the planet to the fixed star and on to the zodiac. Even our Earth, which now leads a planetary existence, will one day, namely already during its embodiment as the New Venus (see → world evolution), ascend to the fixed star and thus offer man completely different spiritual development possibilities than are given today.

„If we remember what is said about the development of our earth, we know that our earth developed from another planet, the Old Moon. On the Old Moon all beings were different, even the state of the Moon was different from our present state of the Earth; it was not solid, but in a watery state. Before the state of the Moon, the Sun itself was the embodiment of our Earth, and likewise before that was the state of Saturn. Thus our Earth has gone through three embodiments. Now how does the present Sun relate to that planet which before the lunar state was the solar state of our Earth? An advancement has taken place. The Sun, which is now the fixed star, was previously the planet Sun. The best powers and beings separated from this planet Sun, and those who were less highly developed then went on with the Moon, came to Earth and underwent their development on Earth. Every planet will one day become a fixed star.

Our Earth is not merely a dead body, it is an animate being. The souls embodied in the three kingdoms of nature, the human souls and much higher spiritual beings, are connected with our earth.

When a planet develops into a fixed star, the entities embodied on that planet also ascend higher. The best forces and entities of the former Sun have become the fixed star Sun. When our Earth will have passed through the state of Jupiter and, as Venus, will already be almost the Sun, then our human beings will also be similar to the highly exalted beings that inhabit the Sun today. And what will then become of a sun? A sun becomes a zodiac. When a sun has reached its state of maturity, the structure we call a zodiac is formed. A zodiac also comes into being and passes away. Even more powerful, more sublime beings work down from a zodiac than from a sun. The Sun that shines down on us today will one day shine down as the stars of a new zodiac. Creative beings in highest development will be the spiritual beings of this new zodiac: creative souls.“ (Lit.:GA 266a, p. 207f)

„That which a star shows to the observation of the earth is really only an outward appearance which is quite insubstantial for its own existence; while that which the star contains is of a spiritual nature, or if it is of a physical nature, it shows itself as the remainder, one might say, of a spiritual.“ (Lit.:GA 238, p. 106)

„Even in the third post-Atlantean cultural period there were often such intermediate states between sleeping and waking, where these souls looked into the starry world and did not merely see physical stars as they do now, but where the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies, the guides and leaders of the starry destiny and the movement of the stars, were perceived by them. And what was there in the form of old star charts from ancient times, where all kinds of group souls are still drawn, what looked like animals and yet is not animal, that did not spring from the imagination, but was spiritually seen. The souls perceived this in the spiritual. They could carry this spiritual through the gate of death. This vision of the spirit into the world of the supersensible has been lost to the souls. Today, when souls are born, they face the physical world through their bodily sense organs and see only the outer physical.“ (Lit.:GA 140, p. 220)

„What the starry sky is to man in his physical life on earth, that is spiritually his existence in the life between death and new birth, which lies between his complete attachment to the divine-spiritual world and his detachment from it. There appear at the "world border" not the physical celestial bodies, but at every starry place the sum of the divine-spiritual beings, who are in reality the star.“ (Lit.:GA 26, p. 179)

„In the Vienna Cycle of April 1914 I described how man, even in the life between death and a new birth, has a spiritual-soul sense organ through his last earth life to perceive the rest of the world, that is, that he perceives the rest of the world through this earth life. In this world we find our deceased for a long time after death, until they move on to another world, which can only be reached through a later state of development of the soul, even for the human initiate. In this world into which we are moving, many things must strike the observer. One can only say details about this world. You must gather from the various lectures what characterises this supersensible world. What immediately strikes the soul is that the soul, having become free from the body and settled into a new world, first sees the stars go out, feels the stars go out. The soul settles into an elementary world, so that it now weaves with the sea of air, surges along with the warmth flowing in the world, radiates out with the light, and since the soul radiates out with the light, it cannot see the outer objects through the light. That is why the sun and stars go out, and the moon goes out with its light before the soul. It is not an external observation in which one is then, it is a co-experience of the elementary world [...] Then we become aware that what the physicists say about the sun and the stars is a mere materialistic reverie. The stars have already gone out, the sun, the moonlight has gone out in the previous world. But now we become aware that where we thought the sun was, there is a community of spirits, that everywhere we thought there was a star, there is a spiritual world. And we become aware, by remembering our life on earth, that what the physicists speak of is a fantastic materialistic reverie, for when stars or suns appear to us, it is because somewhere in the spiritual world is the seat of a spiritual community, as the earth is for a community of human beings [...] Then we become aware that what the physicists say about the sun and the stars is a mere materialistic reverie. The stars are already extinguished, the sun, the moonlight is extinguished in the previous world. But now we become aware that where we thought the sun was, there is a community of spirits, that everywhere we thought there was a star, there is a spiritual world. And we realise, by remembering our life on earth, that what the physicists speak of is a fantastic materialistic reverie, for if stars or suns appear to us, it is because somewhere in the spiritual world is the seat of a spiritual community, as the earth is for a community of men. But as little as one would perceive the physical bodies from a distant star, only the human souls, so little can it be said that anything could interest us up there from the stars which is not of a spiritual-soul nature. But what we see we must imagine as the vapours of the earth's atmosphere which collide with what comes in, and the physical eye can see nothing of what the star really is, but the vapour which the earth itself throws out into the space of the world. All that we see as a starry sky is nothing but that which is woven out of the material, albeit ethereal material, of the earth itself, is a curtain which the earth draws before that which is behind it.“ (Lit.:GA 272, p. 77f)

The Star of Man

→ Main article: Star of Man
The Star of Man

"A certain star, a fixed star, is the spiritual home of man." (Lit.:GA 237, p. 46) It is necessary to maintain the individual distinction of human beings in life between death and new birth. In earthly life, the physical body and etheric body ensure that the I and astral body do not blur with those of other human beings into a kind of soul-spiritual "primordial mush". In the afterlife, people are individually separated from each other in that each has his or her own "star". To be more precise, the star of a human being is a certain star area that may often overlap generously with that of other human beings, but is never completely identical with that of another human being. From a spiritual point of view, this connection can be represented in such a way that every human being belongs to a different set of Angeloi and Archangeloi who are to be assigned to the respective star area, with several thousand such angels and archangels belonging to each individual human soul in the life after death. (Lit.:GA 181, p. 139ff)

The star of man is also of special importance for the earthly life span of man. After about 72 years the sun will have fallen behind by 1° of the full zodiac, that is, by one day in the Platonic world year. Then the star of man is no longer "calmed" by the sun, and then it reclaims man. (Lit.:GA 237, p. 47f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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