As Above, So Below, Page Four

Naturally when we begin in our minds to apply the "As Above, So Below" principle to the created world, we think of various objects or phenomena we observe with our senses. Let us think, however, of what is the most important of all creatures. It is the human being who is created in the image of the Elohim (Gen 1,26), who themselves are created (fractal-like) in the image of the Father. Every living human being, in each of its three bodies and soul (Ego), is the reflection of polarities, rhythms, forces and forms that preceded it in the spiritual world. All of these are built up in the spiritual world as the soul travels from incarnation to incarnation, and they reflect the unresolved karma built up over the eons by that soul in its earthly lives.¹⁹ We are the result of what we have been (i.e., "stored up in heaven," Mt 6,20) and the cause of what we will be (i.e., "talents"; Mt 25,14-30; Lk 19,12-28; also Mt 13,12; 25,29; Mk 4,25; Lk 8,18).

For what is said here, it would be well to review I-20 and I-21. We shall see in "Blood" a powerful illustration of how the higher worlds work in formation of our earthly life substance. Reflect upon the passage from Ps 139 quoted near the end of "Blood":

For thou didst form my inward parts, . . . Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

At how many different times and in how many different ways Steiner poured forth this process would be hard to say.²⁰ The student should reread "The Overview of Karma and Reincarnation" in The Burning Bush, pp. 110-127. But that karma and reincarnation apply specifically and elegantly to the human soul is also brought out at considerable length in Philosophy, Cosmology & Religion (PCR), Lect. 6, and in The Threshold of the Spiritual World, Chap. 5.²¹ In these passages, one sees that not only do we create on Earth the "spectral being" we meet in the spiritual world in our journey between lives, but in the long process of returning from the spiritual world to Earth, in conjunction with the hierarchies we build up our new three bodies (the "three [new] loaves for a friend . . . on a journey" in Lk 11,5-6) designed to address a portion of our unresolved karma (the "spectral being" of the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold, the Behemoth of Job 40,15-24).²² And upon Earth our three bodies are a direct reflection of what was stored up in the heavenly book (see "Akashic" in The Burning Bush; also Ps 139,16). Steiner tells us that the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones (the highest hierarchy; see I-6) actually experience in advance what we will live out in our next life (Karmic Relationships, Vol. 7, Lect. 3, p. 42).

We cannot understand how it is that we have free will, yet our actions are known beforehand in the spiritual world. This seeming paradox can only be understood when the nature of clairvoyance is grasped. We know that Christ told his disciples on many occasions precisely what their actions would be in the future, which they at the time denied but later carried out (cf. Ps 94,8-11). And even our hindsight is blurred. Historians who search in libraries or interview sensate eyewitnesses cannot give us a real understanding of history. For that only the seer suffices who perceives those individualities and impulses in the spiritual world that are reflected in earthly occurrences (see Steiner's Occult History, esp. Lect. 1). In the most manifold ways the life we live on Earth is a reflection of the spiritual world and the unbending principle "As Above, So Below."

We have spoken, and will often speak, of the forces of the planets (the "seven stars"; Rev 1,16,20; 2,1; 3,1) and the zodiac ("twelve stars"; Rev 12,1). These are spiritual beings. What we see in the heavens with our eyes are like the bodies we carry as human beings. Our bodies are not our being, our "I AM." No more so are the planets and stars we see the spiritual beings or forces they represent. Between lives we dwell with and are conscious of these beings. But in the process of descending we lose that consciousness. In PCR, Lect. 6, p. 91, Steiner tells of what we perceive of these beings at a certain point in our descent back into earthly bodies:

At a certain point of pre-natal existence, man begins to say to himself: Along with my own being I have seen other spiritual-divine beings around me. Now it appears to me as if these divine beings are beginning to cease to show their complete form to me. It now seems to me as if they were assuming an external figurativeness in which they envelop themselves. It appears to me as if they were becoming star-like—like stars I learnt to know through physical sight when I was last on earth. They are not yet stars, but spirit beings which seem to be on their way to star-existence.

Earlier in the same lecture he had shown how our Ego-being was spread over the vastness of the universe and how these planetary forces, as they applied to our specific karmic being, were to become our bodily organs (see I-21) just as the spiritual beings were to become (for our earthly perception) planets or stars.

The awesome vastness of the principle "As Above, So Below" begins to dawn on our awareness as these things sink into our consciousness. No longer need we merely say that all things were created by God (or Christ; Jn 1,3), for we shall gain some new insight into the spiritual beings and processes whereby God brings this about.

Someone will say, how can we attribute our earthly being to this karmic principle when we know that each of us is born with countless hereditary features that come from earthly ancestors? All of our genes come from them. If we are to become spiritually mature, we must learn the limits of heredity (let alone those of genetic manipulation). When the spiritual laws of karma and reincarnation are understood, we see that earthly heredity is a mere tool to be used, not one to dominate us. The choice of parents by the incarnating soul makes this clear. There are no perfect matches of earthly parents and karmic needs, but the incarnating soul, in conjunction with the hierarchies, works for many generations to prepare the most appropriate parents available through whom to enter earthly birth. One can even see a similarity here between the individual human soul and the incarnating Christ.²³ Only the weak soul remains constrained by heredity during earthly life. It has chosen those limitations only as tools to work with to address its karma. Christ stressed the spiritual blessing of leaving home (father and mother; Mt 19,29; Mk 10,29-30; Lk 18,29-30; cf. Gen 12,1) and the spiritual failure in loving father and mother more than him (Mt 10,37; Lk 14,26; cf. Mt 12,48 and Mk 3,33, especially as discussed in The Burning Bush, p. 482). This certainly does not nullify our obligation to honor our parents throughout our lifetime. Rather it indicates that we are to let our own eternal "I AM" take over its own destiny. Our nature is such that we are to shed our heredity in seven-year stages from the time of our birth so that by middle age heredity per se has ceased to be a factor in our lives (fn 19 in "The Nativity" in The Burning Bush; also The Gospel of St. Luke,, Lect. 7). The "I AM" must overcome its hereditary restraints if it is to be worthy of the higher "I AM" of Christ.²⁴

In The Gospel of St. John in Relation to the Other Gospels (Jn-Rel), Lect. 7, pp. 122-125, Steiner speaks of how the soul that fails to understand that physical processes are psycho-spiritual and subjects itself to the constraints of heredity will grow weaker and weaker over time, more enslaved to these limitations (again consider the meaning of the biblical "talents"). It is a mistake to overestimate the power of spirit in our time, for spirit like all else must grow in strength, but it is critical to nourish the spiritual aspect so that the material realm can be overcome. It is this that constitutes following the higher "I AM" of Christ.

We must come to recognize whence we have come and how our own eternal souls are themselves the cause of what we call our heredity. Only by the Ego's working back through the astral body to the etheric and eventually to the physical can these be redeemed from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces set in motion in the Garden; only then will our resurrection be complete (Mt 13,33; Lk 20,35).

So many are the angles from which to illustrate the reality of the maxim "As Above, So Below" that it would be easier to list the works of Steiner that have no bearing on it (if any exist) than to cite those that do. In closing, let me stress how the principle applies to the Bible account itself. It would be well to review the discussion of the significance of a "name," and the change in human consciousness represented by the ancient debate between nominalism and realism (see The Burning Bush, pp. 248-249). Our loss of this consciousness is nowhere more evident than in the manner in which we so often interpret the Bible. Speaking particularly of John's Gospel, Steiner said (The Gospel of St. John [GSJ], Lect. 4, p. 71):

All names and designations in ancient times in a certain sense are very real—yet at the same time they are used in a profoundly symbolical manner. This is often the source of tremendous errors made in two directions. From a superficial point of view, many say that according to such an interpretation a great deal is meant symbolically, but with such an explanation in which everything has only a symbolical meaning, they wish to have nothing to do, since historical, biblical events then disappear. On the other hand, those who understand nothing at all of the historical events may say:—"This is only meant symbolically." Those, however, who say such things, understand nothing of the Gospel. The historical reality is not denied because of a symbolic explanation, but it must be emphasized that the esoteric explanation includes both, the interpretation of the facts as historical and the symbolic meaning which we ascribe to them. . . . Therefore in almost all of the events and allusions, we shall see that John . . . really has a supersensible perception; he sees at one and the same time the outer events and the manifestation of deep spiritual truths.

We must begin to see that almost everything in the Bible is there to reflect a higher reality than the mere earthly meaning of its words. Paul saw this aspect of "the law" (Heb 10,1 and Gal 4,21-26). It is a cruel irony by which Christendom so often tends to read the rest of the Bible otherwise. What is there would never have been written had its lower meaning been primary. Always we must seek the higher understanding that it reflects.

But we must not stop with the Bible. The same discipline must be applied to all phenomena. We must learn to observe every creature we meet, every event we experience, every thought we think or feeling we sense, in contemplation of its spiritual origin—for all phenomena is but the shadow of a higher reality.