Paradise

Lucas Cranach the Elder: The Garden of Eden (1530)

The word paradise (Hebrew: פרדס pardes; Greek: παράδεισος paradeisos) refers to an enclosed or enclosed area. It goes back to the Avestic term for a bounded or enclosed area, a stately park, an animal, pleasure or magic garden, and is referred to in the Hebrew tradition of the Tanakh as the Garden of Eden (Sumerian: Guan Eden "edge of the heavenly steppe", Hebrew: גן עדן Gan Eden). However, this did not mean an earthly garden, because in the state of paradise man still lived as a warmth-air man in the vicinity of the earth in the area of the lunar sphere. Only through the consequences of the Fall of man was he transferred down into the liquid and into the newly formed solid earth element. Nevertheless, purely earthly attempts to locate Paradise have a long tradition.

According to Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy", the Garden of Eden, as the "Earthly Paradise", is located on the top of the Purgatory Mountain, which rises on the southern hemisphere of the earth. From there, only the path leads to the actual supernatural paradiso, to the world of the spheres or heavenly paradise (Middle Persian: garotman or garodman, from garō.dəmāna "house of praise"), which extends from the lunar sphere through the planetary spheres and the zodiac up to the Empyrean located beyond the crystal heaven.

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner, Ita Wegman: Grundlegendes für eine Erweiterung der Heilkunst nach geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen, GA 27 (1991) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Über die astrale Welt und das Devachan, GA 88 (1999), ISBN 3-7274-0880-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Bewußtsein – Leben – Form , GA 89 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-0890-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Probleme des Zusammenlebens in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Zur Dornacher Krise vom Jahre 1915, GA 253 (1989), ISBN 3-7274-2530-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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.