I-51 Spiritual beings, numerous aspects of

Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies & in the Knigsoms of Nature, Lects. 1-5

When one, with strength of soul, is able to penetrate (i.e., to lift the veil of) the perceptions of the sense world, then the elements of the sense world spring to life as moral perceptions. Something deeper than the vision of the eyes, the hearing of the ears, or the intellectual power of brain-thinking then works within one—a deeper “seeing, hearing and understanding” akin to what is spoken of in Is 6,9-10, the tentacles of which reach throughout the Bible. Such a one comes into a region in which, gradually, one begins to perceive manifold beings that live and work behind the mineral kingdom. The etheric world gradually appears, differentiated in its details. The etheric world of physical nature differs from that of a human being, the latter being a unity and the former a plurality. The beings one meets there in this etheric world are the “elemental spirits” already mentioned, for instance, in I-12 and I-47).

There are four classes of elemental spirits:

1. Those who appear to such “sight” to have a form, and who are the nature spirits of solid substance, earth.

2. Those whose form is mobile or constantly changing, who are associated with motion or metamorphosis, as in the case of cloud formation, rain falling, mist rising, water tossing in a waterfall and giving out spray, plants coming forth in spring, the power of growth, and the like; these are the nature spirits of fluid substance, water.

3. Those who have no form but appear flashing up like lightning or meteors, now seen, now gone, and who are involved in the gradual fading or dying of the plant world; these are the nature spirits of gaseous substance, air.

4. Those, also without form, best portrayed by the nature of a “Seed,” for these are the protectors of the germs of all the kingdoms of nature, who make it possible that the same beings continually reappear on our Earth, and that they are brought into contact with the warmth of our planet; these are the nature spirits of warmth, fire.

Collectively, the nature spirits may be said to govern the nature forces.

Thus, while the etheric body of the human being is a unity, that of the Earth is a 4-fold plurality, with each fold a multiplicity.

When one is then able to draw aside the veil of the etheric body of the Earth, one comes again to moral impressions and, penetrating further, to a perception of a new order of spiritual beings. These have command over the nature spirits, having the task of directing the appropriate nature spirits to their activities at the right time. These spiritual beings are the astral body of the Earth. They govern all the periods or cycles of time, those of day and night, seasons of the year, the forces rotating the Earth on its axis, and everything connected with rhythmic return. They are called Spirits of the Cycles of Time. Just as Nature Spirits represent the Earth’s etheric body and govern Nature Forces, so these Spirits of the Cycles of Time (also a multiplicity) represent the Earth’s astral body and govern the Laws of Nature.

To be able to navigate to the still higher region of the Earth that corresponds to the human Ego, one must pass through the shoals of multiplicity to what is again an undivided spirit, the Planetary Spirit. And just as it is undivided, so must one, to perceive it, feel oneself united with the whole of the planet rather than with any particular territory or the like. The task of the Planetary Spirit is to bring the Earth into mutual relation with the other heavenly bodies—into a right relationship with the cosmos.

All of the foregoing may be roughly portrayed in summary by the following chart:

We must now consider how the spirit manifestations set out in this chart relate to the Hierarchies (see I-6 and I-7). In descending order, the Hierarchies are First Hierarchy (Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones), Second Hierarchy (Dominions or Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai) and Third Hierarchy (Archai, Archangels, Angels).

This relationship is summarized in the following chart:

As human beings we have the possibility of leading inner lives quite independent of our outer lives. When we lose ourselves in the external world, we have perceptions, and when we withdraw from the external world we have independent inner lives. Beings of the third Hierarchy have manifestation instead of perception, and in this manifestation or revelation they experience themselves. Instead of an inner life, they experience higher spiritual worlds, i.e., they are filled with the spirit. Thus, in the chart, what is sense perception to a human being is manifestation or revelation to beings of the third Hierarchy. When a person has inner experiences that do not coincide with external perceptions, the result is a lie. But the possibility of untruth does not exist in the third Hierarchy as long as its members retain their nature. (Lucifer did not so retain his nature, hence untruth became a possibility for him.) To experience themselves, they must manifest. Angels manifest in guiding individual human beings, Archangels by directing the vision of groups of human beings, and Archai by giving leadership to humanity in successive epochs.

Beings of the third Hierarchy continually bring forth offspring that are of a lower order because they have other tasks to accomplish that require a lower order. The respective natures of the Nature Spirits produced by this Hierarchy are as follows:

Beings of the second Hierarchy not only manifest their own being, but this manifestation remains as something independent that separates from these beings themselves. As the inner beings of the third Hierarchy change, so also their external manifestations change. But it is different with the second Hierarchy. What they experience is detached from them and acquires independent existence. They create, as it were, an impression of themselves, making themselves objective, in a sort of image, and in this, life is stimulated. The stimulation of life is always the result of such a self-creation. The nature of activity of each level with the second Hierarchy is as follows:

The offspring of the second Hierarchy, detached but living beings of a lower order sent down into the kingdoms of nature, are the group-souls of the individual plant and animal species.

While beings of the third Hierarchy are perceived by one’s astral body as a vision or imagination in spiritual light (spiritual “seeing”), beings of the second Hierarchy are perceived by one’s etheric body in something like tone, “music of the spheres” (spiritual hearing). Beings of the first Hierarchy are perceived with even greater difficulty. To perceive beings of the first Hierarchy, one must plunge down into the being of other creatures in a form of “knowing or understanding” (comparable to the “seeing” or “hearing” of the lower two Hierarchies). “Knowledge” of the three levels of the first Hierarchy is thus gained as follows:

Beings of the second Hierarchy can create something like an image of themselves, a living creature, but it remains a living image only so long as it remains connected to them, otherwise falling into decay. By contrast, beings of the first Hierarchy can also objectify themselves by image, but when this is detached it continues to exist in the world though they sever themselves from it. Thus, a higher degree of objectivity is attained by them than by the second Hierarchy.

The inner being of this first Hierarchy is in the action of creation, in forming independent beings. Creation of worlds is their outer life; creation of beings is their inner life.

They, too, create offspring of a lower nature which are sent down into the kingdoms of nature in the form of the Spirits of the Cycles of Time.

Thus have we touched upon all the components of the first two charts. However, Lect. 5 concludes with a helpful explanation of the relationship of the hierarchical world with our cosmos. If we take as the lowest principle of a 9-fold being which has the Holy Trinity as its highest 3-fold component, we start at the level of the Exusiai (Elohim)/Spirits of Form. The form of our Earth is their creation. The following chart expresses these relationships: