Akasha chronicle: Difference between revisions

From AnthroWiki
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 30: Line 30:


{{GZ|This is the workshop of the world, which includes in itself all the forms from which creation has sprung. This is Plato's world of ideas, the realm of the mothers of which Goethe speaks and from which he lets the phantom of Helena rise. What appears on this level of the Devachan is what the Indian calls the Akasha chronicle. In our modern language we would call it the astral image of all world events. Everything that has passed through the astral body of man is recorded here in an infinitely subtle substance, which is actually negative matter.|94|82f}}
{{GZ|This is the workshop of the world, which includes in itself all the forms from which creation has sprung. This is Plato's world of ideas, the realm of the mothers of which Goethe speaks and from which he lets the phantom of Helena rise. What appears on this level of the Devachan is what the Indian calls the Akasha chronicle. In our modern language we would call it the astral image of all world events. Everything that has passed through the astral body of man is recorded here in an infinitely subtle substance, which is actually negative matter.|94|82f}}
More precisely, this is the fourth region of the spirit land, which already points beyond our [[planetary system]]:
{{GZ|And what is described as the fourth region of the spirit land already goes beyond our planetary system. There the soul expands, so to speak, into further spaces, into the wider starry sky. And you will find from the description which was given at that time from the inner soul point of view, how the characteristics of the soul experiences for the fourth region of the spirit land are given in such a way that one can see that they cannot be lived through in that which still stands in such a spatial cosmic relationship to the earth as the whole planetary system. Something is brought in from the fourth region of the spirit-land which is so alien that it cannot be brought together with all that can be experienced within even the last planetary sphere, the Saturn sphere.|141|182}}


=== Akasha Chronicle and Saturn Sphere ===
=== Akasha Chronicle and Saturn Sphere ===


From a cosmological point of view, this corresponds to the outermost boundary of the [[Saturn sphere]], that is, the outermost boundary of our [[planetary system]]. Here is the interface where the created, the creation, in its very finest spiritual form, bursts forth from the creative source, that is, from the uncreated creative (the ''natura naturans non naturata'' in the sense of [[scholasticism]]). In the [[upper spiritual world]] are the still completely formless creative ideas from which our world emerges. In the [[lower spiritual world]], these "spirit germs" condense into shaped, formed [[world thoughts]]. Here, for the first time, one can apply the concept of [[space]] in a somewhat meaningful way. The Akasha chronicle contains all world thoughts that have been realised in the course of evolution in the shaped state - and thus the Akasha chronicle is something like a universal world memory.
From a cosmological point of view, this corresponds to the outermost boundary of the [[Saturn sphere]], that is, the outermost boundary of our [[planetary system]] and beyond, where this already merges into the vastness of the [[starry sky]] (see previous section). Here is the interface where the created, the creation, in its very finest spiritual form, bursts forth from the creative source, that is, from the uncreated creative (the ''natura naturans non naturata'' in the sense of [[scholasticism]]). In the [[upper spiritual world]] are the still completely formless creative ideas from which our world emerges. In the [[lower spiritual world]], these "spirit germs" condense into shaped, formed [[world thoughts]]. Here, for the first time, one can apply the concept of [[space]] in a somewhat meaningful way. The Akasha chronicle contains all world thoughts that have been realised in the course of evolution in the shaped state - and thus the Akasha chronicle is something like a universal world memory.


{{GZ|What is Akasha chronicle? We get the best idea of it when we are clear that everything that happens on our earth or elsewhere in the world makes a lasting impression on certain subtle essences, which is discoverable by the knower who has undergone initiation. It is no ordinary chronicle, but a chronicle which might be called a living one. Let us suppose that a man lived in the first century after Christ. That which he thought, felt, willed at that time, that which passed into his deeds, has not been extinguished, but is preserved in this fine essence. The seer can "see" it. Not as if it were written down in a history book, but as it happened. How one moves, what one has done, how one has made a journey, for example, can be seen in these spiritual images. One can also see the impulses of the will, the feelings, the thoughts. But we must not imagine that these images appear as if they were imprints of the physical personalities here; that is not the case. To use a simple image: When one moves one's hand, the will of the human being is everywhere in the smallest parts of the moving hand, and this will-power which is hidden here, can be seen. That which now works spiritually in us and has flowed out in the physical, one sees there in the spiritual.|99|44}}
{{GZ|What is Akasha chronicle? We get the best idea of it when we are clear that everything that happens on our earth or elsewhere in the world makes a lasting impression on certain subtle essences, which is discoverable by the knower who has undergone initiation. It is no ordinary chronicle, but a chronicle which might be called a living one. Let us suppose that a man lived in the first century after Christ. That which he thought, felt, willed at that time, that which passed into his deeds, has not been extinguished, but is preserved in this fine essence. The seer can "see" it. Not as if it were written down in a history book, but as it happened. How one moves, what one has done, how one has made a journey, for example, can be seen in these spiritual images. One can also see the impulses of the will, the feelings, the thoughts. But we must not imagine that these images appear as if they were imprints of the physical personalities here; that is not the case. To use a simple image: When one moves one's hand, the will of the human being is everywhere in the smallest parts of the moving hand, and this will-power which is hidden here, can be seen. That which now works spiritually in us and has flowed out in the physical, one sees there in the spiritual.|99|44}}
Line 56: Line 60:
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Grundelemente der Esoterik'', [[GA 93a]] (1976), (im Vortrag vom 5. Oktober 1905 über ''Die Aura des Menschen'') {{Lectures|093a}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Grundelemente der Esoterik'', [[GA 93a]] (1976), (im Vortrag vom 5. Oktober 1905 über ''Die Aura des Menschen'') {{Lectures|093a}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Das Johannes-Evangelium im Verhältnis zu den drei anderen Evangelien'', [[GA 112]] (1984), ISBN 3-7274-1120-1 {{Lectures|112}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Das Johannes-Evangelium im Verhältnis zu den drei anderen Evangelien'', [[GA 112]] (1984), ISBN 3-7274-1120-1 {{Lectures|112}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Das Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt im Verhältnis zu den kosmischen Tatsachen'', [[GA 141]] (1997), ISBN 3-7274-1410-3 {{Lectures|141}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Initiationswissenschaft und Sternenerkenntnis'', [[GA 228]] (2002), ISBN 3-7274-2280-7 {{Lectures|228}}
*[[Rudolf Steiner]]: ''Initiationswissenschaft und Sternenerkenntnis'', [[GA 228]] (2002), ISBN 3-7274-2280-7 {{Lectures|228}}


Revision as of 04:51, 1 June 2022

The Akasha chronicle is the spiritual world memory, the Akasha material, in which the spiritual researcher can read the events of the most distant past - not, however, as they occurred directly on the outside, but from the side of the inner soul experience.

World memory in the Western tradition

Accounts of world memory can already be found in Plotinus, Marsilio Ficino, Paracelsus, to some extent also in Agrippa von Nettesheim, and later in the 19th century in Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious, to whom Rudolf Steiner dedicated his fundamental philosophical work «Truth and Knowledge» (GA 3). The idea of a world memory is also an integral part of the Christian tradition, for example in the celebration of the Mass for the deceased (Missa pro defunctis) from the Missale curiale (1472) or also the Missale Romanum (1570) of the Roman Catholic Church. The Dies irae of the Missa pro defunctis reads:

Liber scriptus proferetur
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus iudicetur.

A written book will be brought forward,
in which all things are contained,
according to which the world shall be judged.

In the tradition of the Old and New Testament, the Book of Life (Hebrew: סֵפֶר חִיִּים Sefer Chajim) is mentioned several times, in which the names of all the righteous who will not be thrown into the lake of fire on the Day of Judgement and will not suffer the second death are inscribed.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky referred to this world memory in her 1877 work «Isis Unveiled», speaking of "metaphysical tablets", "daguerreotypes printed on the astral light", records "of all that was, is or ever will be" and which would be "presented to the eye of the seer and prophet as a living image" (Lit.: Blavatsky, p. 178ff).

Characteristics of the Akasha chronicle

Reading in the Akasha chronicle is more reliable than looking at history based only on the interpretation of externally transmitted documents or artefacts, yet here too errors are possible which require later correction.

„Through ordinary history, man can only learn about a small part of what mankind experienced in prehistoric times. Historical evidence sheds light on only a few millennia. And even what ancient history, palaeontology and geology can teach us is only something very limited. And this limitation is compounded by the unreliability of everything that is based on external evidence. Just consider how the image of this or that event or people, which is not so long behind us, has changed when new historical evidence has been found. Just compare the accounts given by different historians of one and the same thing, and you will soon be convinced of the uncertain ground on which you stand. Everything that belongs to the outer world of the senses is subject to time. And time also destroys what has come into being in time. But external history is dependent on what has been preserved in time. No one can say whether what has been preserved is also the essential if he stops at the external evidence. - But everything that comes into being in time has its origin in the eternal. But the eternal is not accessible to sensual perception. But the paths to the perception of the eternal are open to man. He can develop the dormant powers within him in such a way that he is able to recognise this eternal. In the essays on the question: "How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?" which appear in this journal, reference is made to this training. In the course of these essays it will also be shown that man, at a certain high level of his cognitive faculty, can also penetrate to the eternal origins of temporally transient things. If man expands his cognitive faculty in this way, then he is no longer dependent on external evidence for his knowledge of the past. Then he is able to see what is not sensually perceptible in the events, what no time can destroy from them. He advances from the transient history to an imperishable one. This history, however, is written with different letters than the ordinary one. In Gnosis and Theosophy it is called the " Akasha chronicle ". Only a faint idea of this chronicle can be given in our language. For our language is calculated for the world of the senses. And what is designated by it immediately acquires the character of this sense world. It is therefore easy to give the impression of a fantasist, if not worse, to the uninitiated who cannot yet convince themselves of the reality of a particular spiritual world through their own experience. - He who has acquired the ability to perceive in the spiritual world recognises the eternal character of past events. They stand before him not like the dead testimonies of history, but in full life. What has happened is played out before him in a certain way. - Those who are initiated into the reading of such living scripture can look back into a far more distant past than that which the outer history represents; and they can also - from immediate spiritual perception - describe the things of which history reports in a far more reliable manner than is possible for the latter. In order to prevent a possible error, it should be said here that spiritual perception is not infallible. This view can also be mistaken, it can be inaccurate, skewed, wrong. In this field, too, no man is free from error, no matter how high he may be. That is why one should not be offended if communications that come from such spiritual sources do not always agree completely. But the reliability of observation is far greater here than in the outer world of the senses. And what various initiates can tell us about history and prehistory will essentially be in agreement. In fact, there is such history and prehistory in all secret schools. And here there has been such full agreement for thousands of years that the agreement which exists between the outer historians of even one century cannot be compared with it at all. The initiates describe essentially the same thing at all times and in all places.“ (Lit.:GA 11, p. 21ff)

The Akasha chronicle at the Transition from the Lower to the Upper Devachan

According to Rudolf Steiner, the Akasha chronicle, at least as far as all thought-formations are concerned, begins where the upper spiritual world (Upper Devachan, Arupa-Devachan) passes into the lower spiritual world (Lower Devachan, Rupa-Devachan), i.e. where the forming but itself unformed creative power transforms itself into the formed.

„This is the workshop of the world, which includes in itself all the forms from which creation has sprung. This is Plato's world of ideas, the realm of the mothers of which Goethe speaks and from which he lets the phantom of Helena rise. What appears on this level of the Devachan is what the Indian calls the Akasha chronicle. In our modern language we would call it the astral image of all world events. Everything that has passed through the astral body of man is recorded here in an infinitely subtle substance, which is actually negative matter.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 82f)

More precisely, this is the fourth region of the spirit land, which already points beyond our planetary system:

„And what is described as the fourth region of the spirit land already goes beyond our planetary system. There the soul expands, so to speak, into further spaces, into the wider starry sky. And you will find from the description which was given at that time from the inner soul point of view, how the characteristics of the soul experiences for the fourth region of the spirit land are given in such a way that one can see that they cannot be lived through in that which still stands in such a spatial cosmic relationship to the earth as the whole planetary system. Something is brought in from the fourth region of the spirit-land which is so alien that it cannot be brought together with all that can be experienced within even the last planetary sphere, the Saturn sphere.“ (Lit.:GA 141, p. 182)

Akasha Chronicle and Saturn Sphere

From a cosmological point of view, this corresponds to the outermost boundary of the Saturn sphere, that is, the outermost boundary of our planetary system and beyond, where this already merges into the vastness of the starry sky (see previous section). Here is the interface where the created, the creation, in its very finest spiritual form, bursts forth from the creative source, that is, from the uncreated creative (the natura naturans non naturata in the sense of scholasticism). In the upper spiritual world are the still completely formless creative ideas from which our world emerges. In the lower spiritual world, these "spirit germs" condense into shaped, formed world thoughts. Here, for the first time, one can apply the concept of space in a somewhat meaningful way. The Akasha chronicle contains all world thoughts that have been realised in the course of evolution in the shaped state - and thus the Akasha chronicle is something like a universal world memory.

„What is Akasha chronicle? We get the best idea of it when we are clear that everything that happens on our earth or elsewhere in the world makes a lasting impression on certain subtle essences, which is discoverable by the knower who has undergone initiation. It is no ordinary chronicle, but a chronicle which might be called a living one. Let us suppose that a man lived in the first century after Christ. That which he thought, felt, willed at that time, that which passed into his deeds, has not been extinguished, but is preserved in this fine essence. The seer can "see" it. Not as if it were written down in a history book, but as it happened. How one moves, what one has done, how one has made a journey, for example, can be seen in these spiritual images. One can also see the impulses of the will, the feelings, the thoughts. But we must not imagine that these images appear as if they were imprints of the physical personalities here; that is not the case. To use a simple image: When one moves one's hand, the will of the human being is everywhere in the smallest parts of the moving hand, and this will-power which is hidden here, can be seen. That which now works spiritually in us and has flowed out in the physical, one sees there in the spiritual.“ (Lit.:GA 99, p. 44)

A closer spiritual examination shows that everything that has ever been thought finds its counter-image in the Akasha chronicle in the regions of the upper Devachan, but that feelings and will impulses are preserved on still higher planes. The feelings have their counter-image on the Buddhi plane and the deeds and will impulses on the Nirvana plane:

„If you look at man in terms of these planes, you will see that every thought man thinks is followed by another, active thought as a reaction on the corresponding other plane. If one cherishes a thought on the lower mental plane, this causes a counter-image on the higher mental plane. If one cherishes a feeling, this causes a counter-image on the Budhi plane. If one is active on the physical plane, this causes a counter-image on the nirvana plane. As formerly the active thought created our passive thought, so an active thought creates a corresponding passive counter-image on the higher mental plane, and so on. So no thought can be grasped by us that does not have its counter-image, likewise no feeling, no action.

The sum of all these counter thoughts, counter experiences, counter actions is called the Akasha chronicle. One can therefore read all the thoughts of man on the higher mental plane, all feelings and experiences on the Budhi plane, and all actions on the Nirvana plane.“ (Lit.:GA 89, p. 175)

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=Akasha_chronicle&oldid=10476"