I-81 The “Seed,” the vortex, the zodiacal sign of Cancer, and the “golden mean”

I-81 The “Seed,” the vortex, the zodiacal sign of Cancer, and the “golden mean”

Supersensible knowledge, Lect. 11; Old and New Methods of Initiation, Lect. 3; An Esoteric Cosmology, Lect. 11; The Gospel of St. Matthew, Lect. 11

In so many contexts of anthroposophy (e.g., I-80), as in the Bible, the concept of the “Seed,” or that which dies and then is reborn completely new, is to be found. It is a deeply occult and spiritual concept, foreign to the guidelines of the laboratory—”of a different world.” It relates quite closely to that third step of the Rosicrucian path known as knowledge of “the occult script,” widely represented by the sign of the “vortex. This can be thought of as two intertwined figure 6’s,” of which Steiner says (in SKN, Lect. 11):

This sign is used for indicating and also characterizing a certain type of event that can occur both physically and spiritually. For example, a developing plant will finally produce seeds from which new plants similar to the old one can develop. To think that anything material passes from the old plant to the new is materialistic prejudice without foundation and will eventually be refuted. What passes over to the new plant is formative forces. As far as matter is concerned, the old plant dies completely; materially its offspring is a completely new creation. This dying and new coming-into-being of the plant is indicated by . . . a vortex, (drawn) so that the two spirals do not touch. ^{(click here for drawing)}

^{Many
events . . . correspond to such a vortex. For example, . . . the transition
from the ancient Atlantean culture to the first post-Atlantean culture
was such a vortex. Natural science only knows the most elementary aspects
of this event. Spiritual science tells us that the space between Europe
and America, which is now the Atlantic Ocean, was filled with a continent
on which an ancient civilization developed, a continent that was submerged
by the Flood. This proves that what Plato referred to as the disappearance
of the Island of Poseidon is based on facts; the island was part of
the ancient Atlantean continent. The spiritual aspect of that ancient
culture vanished, and a new culture arose. The vortex is a sign for
this event; the inward-turning spiral signifies the old civilization
and the out-ward- turning the new.
As
the transition took place from the old culture to the new, the sun rose
in the spring in the constellation of Cancer (see I-19)—later
. . . in Gemini .. . then in .. . Taurus and later still in .. . Aries.
But the transition from Atlantis to post-Atlantis took place under the
constellation of Cancer, whose sign is the intertwining spirals—a sign
you find depicted in calendars.
Elsewhere
(ONMI, Lect. 3), he refers to the vortex as “the symbol of the spiralling
movement of humanity’s impulses throughout the ages,” drawing as follows:
^{(click here for drawing)}
^{In
the thirteenth century, one Leonard Pisano, a/k/a Fibonacci, discovered
a number sequence that today is widely referred to in the scientific
and investment worlds, and in other disciplines, as “the Fibonacci ratio.”
The extent of its applicability in phenomena of widely varying type
is amazing. See 7 Brit 279, “Leonardi, Piero,” and 25 Brit 5-6, “Number
Games,” and the essay “Fire,” Vol. 2., “What Is Man?”. When the
ratio is graphed, it portrays precisely one of the spirals of the vortex.
We find this spiral not only in the action of the markets and of social
tastes, but in such phenomena of nature as the spiraling vortices of
heavenly bodies and galaxies, the structure of the sea shell, the human
ear, the pyramids, the human body and endless other examples. It is,
indeed, referred to as “the golden section” or “the golden mean” and
seems to be inherent in the created world and in the creating process.
It is an expression of the principle of the “seed,” of “reincarnation,”
so aptly put by Paul in 1 Cor 15,36-37. That humanity has thus far managed
to avoid applying it to biblical understanding is simply a manifestation
of the “seeing and hearing without seeing, hearing or understanding,”
as Isaiah saw it from the Seraphim so long ago.}}

Schematic I-80

Schematic I-82