Tree of Knowledge

From AnthroWiki
Revision as of 05:56, 20 August 2021 by Odyssee (talk | contribs)
Michelangelo: Fall of Man and Expulsion from Paradise (ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel)

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Hebrew: עץ הדעת טוב ורע °ez had-da°at tôb wâ-râ; Greek: τὸ ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνωστὸν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ; Latin: lignum sapientiae boni et mali) stands, according to the Genesis account, together with the tree of life in the middle of the Garden of Paradise. Evil is mentioned for the first time in this place in the Bible. The tree of knowledge is, in the language of the Elohim, which they had already developed on the Old Sun, the physical body of man. The tree of life, on the other hand, means the etheric body (Lit.:GA 253, p. 58ff). In a handwritten note by Marie Steiner it says: "Tree of knowledge means human knowledge." (Lit.:GA 265, p. 342)

„This tree of life and this tree of knowledge must have something to do with the human being itself. The prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge means - you will find this out in the end - that the soul of man should not seek knowledge that clings to the physical body; the present sensual conception arose from this. To "eat of the tree of knowledge" means to unite with the physical body in such a way that the present kind of knowledge - and I described it the other day - brought about by Lucifer, came into being. So the Elohim meant something about the human being itself when they spoke of the tree of knowledge. And again, they must mean something about the human being itself when they speak of the tree of life. One must ask oneself: Yes, how does man see as he sees today? How does he perceive in this way? Because his spiritual-soul, saturated with Lucifer's essence, is embedded in the physical body and undermines it. This was not determined from the outset, that the soul should be embedded in the physical body as it is now. This physical body is the tree of knowledge, and the tree of life is the etheric body. Men, having allowed themselves to be seduced by Lucifer into using their physical body for the knowledge to which we are accustomed, should at least not now also have knowledge through the etheric body. This is denied them.

If one really thinks, my dear friends, one can come to such lines of thought. And then one must ask oneself: Why then do the gods call the physical body the tree of knowledge in their language? Why do they speak of a tree? And why do they call the etheric body the tree of life? Why do they speak of trees?

Well, one can easily understand what is meant in the language of the gods, if one considers that the gods of whom we are speaking had their special evolution during the solar period, that is to say, they absorbed something essential precisely from the solar being. Now consider: old Saturnian times - everything stands on the standpoint of the mineral; old solar times - everything stands on the standpoint of the vegetable. If, then, the gods whom we call the Elohim have acquired the character of their language during the solar time, they will, when they speak out, not speak of that which can only be experienced on the Moon and on the Earth, but of that into which the cosmos has developed up to the solar time, namely, the vegetable. That is why, when they speak in their language, they speak of trees, because they speak in the language of the Sun.“ (Lit.:GA 253, p. 60f)

The Paradise Man was still a dual-sex, hermaphroditic being. Through the Luciferian temptation he became entangled in the Fall and took on a denser physical body than was originally intended. But only through this could he develop an independent I. The fact that man was also denied access to the tree of life was the reason for the separation of the sexes. In fact, the powers of knowledge are transformed or paralysed reproductive powers:

„Physically, we first have the woman who is fertilised from above. The fertilising was the divine spirit in the woman. When the division of the sexes took place, the differentiation occurred in such a way that the spiritual organs of fertilisation were first transformed into organs of wisdom for the female sex. The masculine power that the female had within her transformed the creative power into the organs of wisdom. Thus, half of the creative power remained with the woman; the creative physical power remained with the man. This separation gave rise physically to the spinal cord and the brain with the nerve cords, represented in the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. The organ of wisdom is formed in the spinal rings with the spinal cord and its extension in the brain. From then on there is a duality in the human being: These are the two trees in the biblical document, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. It is well known that the bisexual man is forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge. The power that Yahweh had placed in man was: to have His wisdom work in the woman. "Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge" means as much as: Thou shalt not separate the fertilising power and make it independent.- For thereby the woman loses the Yahweh power, the fertilising power. When the woman ate from the tree of knowledge, she laid the foundation for becoming independent in wisdom and thus ceasing to remain a dependent instrument of Yahweh, as He had planned. This is followed by the punishment inflicted by Yahweh. New bodies must come into being, bearing the karma of the previous life, death and being born come into the world.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 231ff)

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.
Retrieved from "https://en.anthro.wiki/index.php?title=Tree_of_Knowledge&oldid=6102"