The Fifth Night - Scorpion/Eagle

SCORPION/EAGLE 

The region of Scorpion/Eagle is connected to the higher beings called Exusiai in Christian Esotericism, and the Spirits of Form in Spiritual Science. They 'form' the 'body' of the sun and so, light is the principle garment that they use to manifest their influence in the world, while their essence is Spiritual Light.  They are responsible for all that has self contained form on earth, therefore, they have been given the leadership of earth evolution. The Exusiai or Elohim receive their forces from the realm of the zodiac called Scorpion/Eagle.

In Genesis, the leading 6 Exusiai on the sun are called 'God'.  'Father God'  refers to the entirety of the six Elohim together with the seventh who is called Jehova. Jehova is the god who sacrificed his abode on the sun to become the regent of the Moon, so as to be closer to human beings. Through the co-operation of the entire circle of 7 Elohim the human being was able to receive the 'provisional' ego - the breath of life.  The Elohim accomplished this deed because they were able to connect to the sphere of the Holy Spirit through Elohim Jehova on the Moon. The reflected Holy Spirit in turn enabled the descent of Christ into the 'body' of the sun.  

The double image of Scorpion Eagle, as we have noted before, illustrates the peculiarity of the ego. 

The bible tells us that in receiving the ego from the Father God, the human being was exposed to Luciferic temptation. The human being ate from the apple of good and evil, that is, he/she grew conscious of the world and of the inner self and in so doing also began to lose his/her connection to the gods. 

The Scorpion is that aspect of the ego that seeks only the darkness of earthly things. It is the base, selfish aspect in all of us; the aspect that denies the light of the spirit. On earth Judas is a representative of Scorpio.

The Eagle on the other hand, soars aloft in the heavenly spaces and represents the ideal human being, the one that is 'Christ-like' or has the Light of Christ shinning into his Ego - or to put it practically, his blood, because blood is the physical expression of the Ego. In the drama of the life of Christ Jesus on earth the light aspect of this Zodiac, Eagle, is represented by Lazarus/John, the writer of the Gospel of John and Apocalypse.

This region is also connected to speech as only ego-bearing beings can speak and this leads us to how this Zodiac relates to the descent of Christ. 

In an earlier earthly, evolutionary stage (Atlantis), the human being faced a temptation that was connected to his seven organs. Selfishness of the seven principle organs would have led to illness without resolve. Rudolf Steiner gives us indications that  unbridled desires would have been the result of a distortion of human language because language would have expressed only the inner subjective experience of pain or pleasure of the individual organs and would not have related a human relationship to the outside world. Had human beings succumbed to this temptation we would never have been able to work creatively through the word.

In order to harmonise these Etheric forces of the human organs Christ had to sacrifice his perfected Etheric body, or Budhi by descending to that sphere where our organs receive their enlivening: the region where resides the spiritual archetypes for our physical body, the Sun as it appears as a focus of the Planetary Sphere (lower Devachan) or the sphere of Exusiai, who are said to safeguard our language. Once again the Nathan Soul who incarnates later as Jesus Christ's vehicle for this.  On earth this sacrificial manifestation of Christ is seen by initiates in the mysteries. They called this manifestation, Krishna. In the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna is the teacher of morality, of overcoming temperament, slavery to impermanence and habit through the power of an Ego that has taken into itself the Word, the Law, and Devotion.

We see this connection to the word characterised in St John's (Eagle) Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word.' He was able to write this because he was  taught the mystery of the Word by an initiate of Ephesus when he was only a child. Afterwards he was initiated by Christ who was the 'word' incarnated in the body of a human being. Later John journeyed to Ephesus, to the old mystery centre that was closely connected to speech, in order to Christianise the initiation of the 'Word'.

At the last supper we see a picture of what every human being must accomplish in order to unite their egos with Christ: they must replace the lower ego (intellect) with the higher ego, that is, with the Holy Spirit, or Higher Self (Spirit Self), just as Judas was replaced by John the Evangelist in Christ's circle.

An important reincarnation of St John the Divine was that of the enigmatic Christian Rosencreutz. In the future, Rudolf Steiner tells us, he will take up the task of transforming the lower ego into the higher ego and will undergo a great sacrifice because of it. He will take into his karma, the karma of all who do not, of their own accord, rise to the higher ego consciousness of Christ.

So when we look up to the region of Scorpion/Eagle on this Fifth Night, may we observe there the connection of the Elohim with Christ and Krishna (the Nathan soul) in the heavens and see on earth the double edged sword of the dark aspect of Scorpio and the light aspect of the Eagle represented by Judas and John - two aspects that live in our own souls side by side. 

May the Eagle of St John in us overcome the Scorpio of Judas and may we unite with Christ through the esoteric wisdom of Christian Rosencreutz!