Elohim

The seven Elohim (Hebrew: אלהים) belong to the hierarchy of the Spirits of Form and are the creator gods of earth's evolution spoken of in Genesis. According to ancient Hebrew grammar, Elohim is the plural form to the singular Eloah, which, however, is only used extremely rarely in the Tanakh. It is derived from the general term El used in many Semitic languages for spiritual entities. This corresponds in Aramaic to Elah or Elaha (or differently vocalized also Alah or Alaha) and in Arabic to Allah.

About the phonetic sound of Elohim Rudolf Steiner says:

„If someone says, for example: E - just feel it: The sound makes me contract a little, it doesn't please me; E = I experience a mild tremor of fear! Now, take L: that's like when something fades away, like when something flows, and EL, yes, that's something that flows away and makes you feel a mild tremor of fear at the same time. This is how El = God was called in Babylon. That's how everything was called according to that principle. Or take the Bible: If you say: O - that is a wonderment, a sudden wonderment, against which one does not rise. With A - we have a sound that triggers a sensation which you like, a wonderment which you like; Hearing O - you want to recoil; H, Ch is the sound of breath. So that one can say: O = retreating astonishment; H = breath; I = one points at it, one is happy about it, it is quiet joy = I. And M, that is: one wants to go into exploring it oneself. You feel when you pronounce M: M - there the breath goes out, and you feel, you literally run after the breath; M is therefore: to go away. Now we put that together: El, we have already seen, is the spirit coming in the wind, El; O = that is the retreating amazement, H = the breath; so that is already the subtler spirit working in the breath; I is the quiet joy; M - that is the surrender. There you have it: Elohim, with which the Bible begins; there you have these sounds contained inside this one word. So when you ask: What are the Elohim? - The Elohim are beings of the wind, whom one could be a little afraid of, of whom one could recoil a little, but who imbue the breath of the man with joy the joy of the people through the breath for the joy of man, who behold the yielding of man in joy: Elohim.“ (Lit.:GA 265, p. 276f)

The existence of the Elohim, i.e. a plurality of creator gods, forms a contradiction to the strict monotheism of Judaism and also Islam. Only the hierarchy doctrine of the angelic orders, which we find in Christianity, resolves this contradiction. Within the angelic hierarchies, the Elohim belong to the second hierarchy (assigned to the Christ Logos).

„And Elohim said, Let US make man, an image in our likeness ...“ (Lit.: Gen 1:26)

„ELOHIM is active as One. How puzzling it must be, then, when he suddenly and abruptly speaks to himself in the plural: <And ELOHIM said, Let us...>! (...) A High Council is assembled and Its members take the grave decision to work together. They decide : <Let us create man...!>“ (Lit.: Eberhard Klemp, p. 12)

„The sculptor stands directly by the side of the Elohim, when they knew how to transform the shapeless, repulsive clay into the most glorious form.“ (Lit.: J. W. Goethe: Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, 3rd book, 3rd chapter)

The love forces of six of the Elohim weave inside the physical sunlight, which is why Rudolf Steiner calls them light spirits too. The seventh, Yahweh, took the moon as his abode and from there sends exalted wisdom to the earth, thereby preparing for the reception of love. However, Yahweh also represents the consciousness of common unity of the seven Elohim, which they attained by creating man in their image in the course of the Six Day Creation. Through the sacrificial act of the Elohim, human beings received their 'I', (self). With the baptism of the Jordan, the common powers of the six solar Elohim entered through the (spirit of) Christ into the evolution of earth and humanity.

Lucifer and Elohim

„When the Elohim, at the beginning of the evolution of the earth, decided to create man, it was their intention to make man entirely in their image, so that each member of man's nature would correspond to one of the Elohim. They wanted to mirror themselves in humanity. But this did not happen on earth as we know it, but in a sphere which we would now have to draw around the earth, similar to the ring around Saturn. The Elohim acted upon this sphere from space and mirrored themselves in the humanity they had created. And the human beings in turn looked down on a point in the middle of the sphere and saw themselves being mirrored there. They in tun could now say to themselves - that is you. If Lucifer had not appeared, it would always have remained so. People would have experienced eternal youth, and the consciousness they would have had of themselves would have been the consciousness of what they saw of themselves on earth as the "you are" ( I am).

Drawing from GA 265, S. 290

But when Lucifer appeared with his activity, he also wanted to reflect himself in humanity, and he did so by entering into the innermost part of man radiating his influences from there. Instead of the beautiful and sublime in which man had hitherto seen himself, the ugly and shapeless now emerged. Like the serpent coiling around the tree in the story of Paradise, the reflection of Lucifer appeared. To prevent man from seeing himself in the ugliness of Lucifer, the Elohim pressed the sphere together and threw man to earth.

As man was then, he would always have remained an infant, for in the infant the constructive forces of the Elohim still work. Man would have taken nourishment by absorbing the substance of plants and animals - which were then quite different from what they are now. In his consciousness, too, man would not have progressed beyond infant consciousness.

In order to make self-consciousness possible for man, the Elohim have placed death in all earthly processes. Everything on earth has thereby been subjected to death, and now these forces work in such a way that, through the destruction they carry within them, they at the same time give the strength to overcome the destruction, and thus to attain to a higher state (of conscious realisation). Our concept of death, like almost everything on the physical plane, is the antithesis of its true nature. Only through death is it made possible for us to return to the relationship we formerly had to the gods and the spiritual world. Something must die in us before we can find the right connection again.“ (Lit.:GA 265, p. 289ff)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Die Geheimnisse der biblischen Schöpfungsgeschichte, GA 122 (1992) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Zur Geschichte und aus den Inhalten der erkenntniskultischen Abteilung der Esoterischen Schule von 1904 bis 1914, GA 265 (1987), ISBN 3-7274-2650-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Hans-Werner Schroeder: Mensch und Engel. Die Wirklichkeit der Hierarchien, Fischer TB, Frankfurt/Main 1982
• Eberhard Klemp: Das Schöpfungs-Wort. Eine Übertragung aus Genesis, Kapitel 1 bis 9 nach dem Hebräischen, Selbstverlag, Krefeld 1995
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, 3. Buch, 3. Kapitel
• Die Heilige Schrift. Aus dem Grundtext übersetzt. Elberfelder Bibel. Revidierte Fassung, R. Brockhaus Vlg. (7. Auflage), Wuppertal 1996