Stellar script

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The nightly starry sky in summer in a south-easterly direction.

The stellar script or stellar language, which expresses itself outwardly in the starry sky in the constellations, in the relationships of the planets to each other and to the signs of the zodiac, speaks, when viewed with the imaginative gaze, in powerful inspirations of the secrets of the soul and spiritual world.

Egypt and the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus, the great initiate of ancient Egypt, made these inspirations fruitful for the transformation of the physical world. Mathematics and geometry came into being in this way in their first beginnings, and even writing, which was initially still a pictographic script, was copied from the stellar script. In the letter script, the consonants correspond to the signs of the zodiac and the vowels to the planets.

„If the Egyptian wanted to express in a special script, to paint in his own way the way in which Isis relates to Osiris, he expressed it through the movement of the sun and moon in the sky, and the other spiritual powers through the relationships of the other stars. Above all, the zodiac with its relative rest and the movement of the planets through the zodiacal images came into consideration. The ancient Egyptian saw in everything that was revealed in the zodiac the way in which he could best express in a spiritual writing what moved his soul. He knew: I cannot take anything from what is on earth to express what man is called to do when he follows the Isis force to Osiris; that, if it is to be described, it must be drawn from the constellation of the stars. - This led to the fact that the great sage, who must be thought to have existed in ancient times, had, according to the Egyptians, above all the deepest clairvoyant insight into this relationship of mankind to the universe, which has just been sketched out, and that he expressed in the highest terms what the constellation of the stars was in relation to these spiritual forces and their happenings and the facts playing between them. In stellar language he expressed what was happening. If, for example, it was to be expressed in this way how Osiris related to Isis, it could be told to the people in the form of the legend - exoterically. For those who were then led into the initiation, the more exact relationship was expressed in the relationship of the light emanating from the sun, reflected by the moon and passing in strange proportions from the new moon through the quarters to the full moon. One rightly saw in this something similar to the relationship of the Isis-force of the human soul to Osiris. And then from these relations in the heavens and their forms was taken what may really be regarded as the archetypes of writing. For as little as men still recognise this in writing, so much must one say: in the consonants one has to see reproductions of the signs of the zodiac, of that which is relatively dormant. And in the relationship of the vowels to the consonants we have reproductions of the relationship of the planets and their moving forces to the zodiac. One must say that the written signs have been brought down from heaven.

This is how the ancient Egyptians felt about Hermes, whose teachers in turn were the powers that spoke from heaven and announced that which lives out in the souls of men. Yes, even more: what is lived out in human deeds, even in all everyday activities of life, what is lived out in activities such as the art of field measurement, for which mathematical sciences, geometry - which Pythagoras then learned from the Egyptians - were necessary, was traced back by the ancient Egyptians to the wisdom of Hermes, who saw, as it were, in all earthly-spatial relationships something like images of the heavenly relationships and depicted the heavenly relationships in stellar writing. Hermes brought stellar script down to mathematics and geometry and taught the Egyptians to find something in the stars that was happening on earth. We know that the whole of Egyptian life was connected with the floods of the Nile, with what the Nile brought down from the mountainous regions that lay to the south of Egypt. But we can also judge from this how necessary it was to know in a certain way in advance when these floods of the Nile could occur, when the transformation of the natural conditions could properly occur in the course of a year. The Egyptians also took their time calculation from the stars in the sky. When Sirius, the Dog Star, became visible in the sign of Cancer, they knew that the sun would soon come into that sign, from which its rays would, as it were, conjure up what the Nile and its floods would bring to the earth's surface. So they knew: Sirius is the watchful one, he announces what we have to expect. That was part of their star-world clock. In order to cultivate and rule the land in the right way, which was necessary for the outer life, they gratefully looked up to the Dog Star. And they looked up from where, in ancient times, they had been taught that the movement of the stars was the expression of the world clock.

For such and similar circumstances, the Egyptians sought advice in the writing of the stars. In Thoth or Hermes they saw that spirit who, according to the old traditions, made the most ancient records of worldly wisdom, and who, according to what he received as inspiration from the stellar script, formed the physical letters, who taught men agriculture, geometry, the art of measuring fields - in short, taught everything that men need for physical life. But all physical life is nothing other than the body of a spiritual life. But the spiritual life is connected with the whole universe, and out of this Hermes was inspired.“ (Lit.:GA 60, p. 366ff)

The Hebrews and the secrets of stellar script

The Hebrews also knew the secrets of stellar script. That is why it is said that Abraham's descendants should be ordered - for that is how it should properly be called - like the stars in the sky.

„I have already drawn attention to how in the Mysteries one expresses the mysteries of the cosmos by speaking a star language and taking the mysteries of the cosmos as a means of expression for what one wants to say. There were times when the teachers of the Mysteries clothed what they wanted to express in such words, in such images, which were taken from the constellation of the stars. One saw, as it were, in the paths of the stars, in the positions of the stars in relation to each other, the images through which one wanted to express what man experiences spiritually when he rises to the Divine-Spiritual.

What has been read in the wisdom of the Mysteries in this script of the stars? They read in it the secrets of the divinity that weaves through the world and lives through it. The orders of the stars were the conspicuous expression of the Godhead. One looked into all the worlds and said: "The Godhead is announcing itself! And how it announces itself is described to us by the orders and harmonies of the stars. - Thus, for such a gaze, the world god lived out in the order of the stars.

If this world-god was to express himself in a special way in the mission of the Hebrew people, then he had to express himself in the same order that is marked out in the cosmos in the orbits of the stars. That is to say, a similar order had to express itself through the blood of the generations, in which the outer instrument of Yahweh's revelations was contained, as it expresses itself in the starry orbits. In other words: In the descendants of Abraham there had to be something which in the succession of generations, in the blood relationship, was a mirror image of that which is the stellar script in the cosmos. That is why Abraham received the promise: Your descendants shall be ordered like the stars in the sky! - This is the correct interpretation of the phrase which usually means: "Your descendants shall be numerous like the stars in the sky", and by which only the multitude of descendants is implied (Gen 22:17 LUT). But it is not the multitude that is meant, but that there should be such an order in the descendants as was perceived in the heavens in the language of the gods in the grouping of the stars. Then one looked up into such an order as was represented in the order of the zodiac. And in the position of the changing stars, of the planets in the zodiac, those constellations were expressed in which one found the language to express the deeds of the gods as they weave through the universe. This firm bond, then, which is represented in the Zodiac and in the relation of the planets to the twelve signs of the zodiac, had to express itself in the blood relationship in the descendants of Abraham.“ (Lit.:GA 123, p. 79f)

The Celtic Druids and the Mithras Cult

The Celtic druids also knew how to read the stars, and it was similar in the cult of Mithras, where the connection between cosmic conditions and the human organism was very well understood.

„The druid priest indicated from what he read from the cosmos what was to be done on this or that day of the year in such a way that it would stand in a favourable context in the whole cosmos. This was a cult through which the whole of life was in fact a kind of divine service. In contrast, even the most mystical mysticism of today is a kind of abstraction, for it lets the outer nature rule, so to speak, and does not concern itself with it any further, but switches and acts according to traditions, while inwardly it rises, closes itself off as far as possible and concentrates within itself, in order to obtain an abstract relationship to a divine-spiritual world that is like a cuckoo cloud. But it was different in those old times. In the cultus, which had a real relationship to the universe, one connected oneself with what the gods created and continually worked in the world. And as a human being on earth, one carried out what one read from such institutions as the druids had, as the will of the gods in the star writing. But this star writing had to be read first. It is something tremendously touching to be able to transport oneself there, on the spot, so completely back to what once worked in the heyday of the druid culture in the way I have just described. And you can find such remnants of the old druidic culture everywhere in those regions - even in other regions as far away as Norway.

So again in Central Europe, in the regions of Germany as far as the Rhine area, even as far as western France, one finds everywhere remnants, reminders of the old Mithras cult. Of these, too, I will only mention the most essential. You will find everywhere, as the outer symbol of the cult of Mithras, the bull on which rides the man who thrusts a sword into the neck of the bull. You will find a scorpion biting the bull, or the snake below. But everywhere, if the pictures are complete, you will find this image of the bull with the human being surrounded by the starry sky, namely with the signs of the zodiac. Again we can ask ourselves: What does this picture actually express? - What this picture expresses will never be explored by an external, antiquated history, because it cannot establish the relationships through which one can arrive at what this man on the bull actually means. In order to arrive at this, one must first know what kind of training those who served in this cult of Mithras underwent [...].

In return, the student of Mithras was educated to perceive in himself the course of the year through the organisation of the heart, through the science of the heart, which transmitted to him the course of the food metamorphosed by digestion in the organism and the absorption of the digested food into the blood. And in what was perceived there, the whole course of outer nature was actually revealed in the human being, in the movement of the inner human being.

Oh, what is our abstract science, even if we describe plants and plant cells, animals and animal tissues so precisely, what is this abstract science compared with what once existed in a more instinctive way through the fact that the whole human being could make himself into an organ of knowledge, that he could develop his faculty of feeling as an organ of knowledge like the student of Mithras. Man carries the animal nature within him, and he truly carries it in a more intense way than is usually thought. And that which the former Mithras disciples perceived through their heart-science could not be represented in any other way than through the bull. And the powers that work through the metabolic limb man and are only tamed by the upper man, these powers are indicated by everything that figures as the scorpion, as the serpent around the bull. And the actual human being in his crippled state sits above with the primitive power, thrusting with the Michael sword into the neck of the bull. But what is to be conquered there, how it presents itself in the course of the year, was known only to those who were trained in this respect.

And now this symbolism is gaining in significance. You can look at it as much as you like with what man usually knows today, or try to depict it pictorially, but nothing will come of it. Only when one knows something of the heart science of the old Mithras disciples does anything come of it. And then man really studied, when he looked at himself through his heart, the spirit of the sun's annual course through the zodiac. Therefore it was quite true - and the experience is made in this way, that man as a higher being rides on his lower nature - around man arranged in a circle the cosmos, for the spiritual of the cosmos was experienced in this way.“ (Lit.:GA 223, p. 134ff)

The Stellar Script and the Disorder of Present Thought

„An Angel would not think in such a disordered way as man, for the simple reason that the course of his thoughts is regulated by the cosmic powers and he acts in accordance with them. It is quite impossible that a being like an Angel would not think in harmony with the great spiritual, cosmic processes. The laws of logic are written for Angels in the harmony of the world. They do not need textbooks. Man needs textbooks because he has disordered his inner thinking. He no longer recognises how he should orient himself according to the great star script. These Angels know the course of the cosmos, and their course of thought corresponds to the regulated rhythm. Man, when he entered the earth in his present form, came out of this rhythm, hence the irregularity of his thinking, his sensations and his sifting of feelings. While regularity continues to prevail in the things over which man has even less influence, in the astral body and the etheric body, in the parts which man has got into his hands, that is, in his sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, there has been drawn into it irregularity and lack of rhythm, rhythmlessness. It is the least that man in our cities turns night into day. It means much more that man has inwardly torn himself out of the great rhythm of the world in the course of his thoughts. How man thinks every hour, every moment, all this contradicts in a certain way the great world rhythm.“ (Lit.:GA 107, p. 197)

The Human Lifespan and the Star of Man

The average life span of a human being can also be read from the stellar script. It is based on the cosmic measure of 72 years, where 72 * 360 = 25920 is approximately the length of the Platonic world year. When a human being has lived 72 years on earth, a full day of the great world year has passed; the cosmos begins to call the human being back into the spiritual world. Every human being has his star, the star of man. From it he descends to incarnation and to it he returns after death, having passed through the planetary spheres.

„Every man has his star, which is determinative of what he works out between death and a new birth, and he comes from the direction of a certain star. - So that we can already take into our minds the idea: If we look at the whole human race that inhabits the earth, we find, if we look around here on earth and go through the continents, that these continents are populated by the people who are presently incarnated. The other people - where do we find them in the universe? Where do we have to look in the universe if we want to turn our soul's gaze towards them after they have spent a certain amount of time there after passing through the gate of death? We look in the right directions when we look towards the starry sky. These are the souls - at least these are the directions that let us find the souls - that are between death and a new birth. We survey the whole human race that inhabits the earth when we look up and down.

Only those who are on the way there or on the way therefrom are found in the planetary region. But we cannot speak of the midnight hour of existence between death and a new birth without thinking of a star which then, as it were, but taking into account what I have said about stellar beings, man inhabits between death and a new birth. When one approaches the cosmos with such knowledge, my dear friends: out there are the stars, world-signs, from which the soul-life of those who are between death and a new birth shimmers and shines towards us - then we become attentive to the fact that we can also look at the constellation of the stars, asking ourselves: How is all that which we see in the worlds connected with human life? - We then learn to look up at the shining silver moon, at the dazzling sun, at the twinkling stars of the night; for we feel ourselves united with all this in a human way. And this is something that anthroposophy is meant to achieve for human souls: that these human souls also feel humanly united with the whole cosmos. But only then do certain secrets of the world's existence become clear to us.

My dear friends, the sun rises and sets, the stars rise and set. We can follow how the sun, say, sets in the area where certain groups of stars are. We can follow that apparent, as we say today, course which the stars take in their orbit around the earth; we can follow the course of the sun. We say today that in the course of twenty-four hours it is the case that the sun circles the earth - apparently everything, of course - that the stars circle the earth. So we say, but that is not quite rightly spoken. If we watch the stars and the sun again and again, we find out that the sun does not always rise at the same time in relation to the stars, but always a little later; every day a little later it comes to the place where it was on the previous day in relation to the stars. And then these stretches of time, by which the sun always lags behind the stars, add up, become one hour, become two hours, become three hours and finally become one day. And the time approaches when we can say: the sun has lagged behind the star by one day.

And now let us assume that someone was born for my sake on the first of March of some year and lived until the end of his seventy-second year. He always celebrates his birthday on the first of March, because the sun says that this birthday is on the first of March. He can celebrate it in this way, because the sun shines throughout the seventy-two years, even if it moves further away in relation to the stars, but always in the neighbourhood of that star which shone when man arrived on earth.

But when man has lived seventy-two years, then a full day has passed, and he arrives in his old age at a place where the sun has left the star into which it had just entered when he began his life. And he arrives at his birthday beyond the first of March: the star no longer says the same thing that the sun says. The stars say it is the second of March, the sun says it is the first of March: man has lost a world-day, for it is just seventy-two years that the sun lags behind the star by one day. And during this time, while the Sun can be in the region of his star, man can live on earth. Then, under normal conditions, when the sun no longer reassures his star about his earthly existence, when the sun no longer says to his star: he is below, and I give you what this man has to give you, from me, while I now for the time being, covering you, do with him what you would otherwise do with him between death and a new birth, when the sun can no longer say this to the star, the star again reclaims the man.

And there you have the processes in the heavens as directly connected with human existence on earth: we see pronounced in the mysteries of the heavens the age of man. Man can live for seventy-two years because the sun lags behind by one day during that time. Then, therefore, it can no longer calm a star which it has previously calmed by placing itself before it, so that it has again become free for the spiritual-soul work of man in the cosmos.“ (Lit.:GA 237, p. 46ff)

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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