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!  

   

Interview with Kristen Owenby - on Temple of the Grail 2006

1. Your book, “Temple of the Grail,” takes place within a mountain monastery in 13th century France. What attracted you to this historical setting?

Writing can be a strangely wonderful and mysterious process and it is really difficult to pin point how ideas form themselves and gather together around a central theme from the myriad of nebulous possibilities. It requires a certain amount of rigorous conscious reflection. I guess the physical and historical setting for Temple of the Grail were the first pieces belonging to one very complicated puzzle that began to come together after I had been reading history, philosophy and esoteric texts, in particular the works of Rudolf Steiner, for a long time. In my studies I found myself particularly drawn to the Rosicrucians, the Templars, Cathars and all aspects of the Grail legend, and when I realized I was going to write a book it seemed to me that destiny had inspired these years of study for that purpose. I felt that I was finally bringing to fruition something that I had started many lives before this one.

During the first tentative beginnings I formed imaginations of where I would set the book. I knew that time and again when legends spoke of the Grail they spoke of it being kept in a secluded place, difficult to access, guarded from all sides, a mountainous region away from the cares of everyday life. Because I am an artist at heart I began to draw. I drew and painted what seemed to me like a monastery. I knew its environs and could see it from all angles. In time I came to devise a detailed plan to the point where I could walk around the monastery blindfolded, without going over the edge of a parapet, or without thinking I was in the garden when I was in the graveyard. This was a profound experience, I could see everything very clearly, the vegetation, the trees, the clouds, the mists. I knew there was a connection between Christian Rozencreutz and the Grail but I did not realize until I started writing that there was a connection between Christian Rozenkreutz, the Grail, the Cathars and the Templars until the book developed. I knew then where the monastery had to be situated, in the South of France in a fiercely independent region, whose language, culture and more importantly whose religion, had brought it into conflict with the king of France and Holy Inquisition. Only here in the mid 13th century could the events of Temple of the Grail have transpired. It was at this time around 1250 that Rudolf Steiner states human beings had reached their darkest spiritual hour – the lowest point in their ability to communicate with spiritual worlds.


2. Did you have any concerns going into the project? Were your goals the same throughout the writing process or did you find yourself being “led” by the story?

I have always been led by the story and by my characters who are usually very strong and obstinate and quite uncompromising. They always tell me what they want to do or say. The fact is that in the beginning I had no intention of writing a murder mystery. I would never have thought myself capable of writing in this very difficult genre. I only knew it around seventy pages into the book when Eisik announced that someone would die that night! I resisted it because I was concerned about juxtaposing the Grail with anything as evil as murder, but in the end I was unable to do otherwise - it was what was required of me - and when I finally allowed it to happen the pieces of puzzle fell into place. Now that I can look at Temple of the Grail more objectively I see that it could never have been written any other way. Good can’t exist without Evil; knowledge without ignorance; darkness without light. And interestingly, it is this duality that became a central motif of the book. Now I am always careful not to let my intellect drive the story – anyway, when it begins to creep in I know it because the book doesn’t come together!

3. Which books, in terms of spiritual research, did you glean the most from for this book?

There were so many! I had to read, over time, an entire library of Anthroposophical texts! – I’m really not kidding! But if I must narrow it down to spiritual texts I would have to say, I relied heavily on the works of Rudolf Steiner: Knowledge of Higher Worlds, Occult Science an Outline, Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation and Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rozenkreutz, as well as Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on the Templars in particular the Inner Impulses of Evolution. These were my primary books and lectures.


4. “Temple of the Grail” is a book which many might say would make an intriguing film. Would you ever be open to a cinematic adaptation?

This is an interesting question. It was important to me when I began to write Temple of the Grail that it not be an easy put down, pick up read, because a book that depicts spiritual truths has to be consciously received by the soul, it has to be ‘digested’, the imagination has to be engaged, only through such a conscious effort is the reader left free to take it or leave it depending on his or her readiness to know these truths. If there were a way of achieving something similar through the medium of film it would be a wonderful way of reaching more people.

5. Could you tell us a little about your introduction to Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy?

I came to Anthroposophy eighteen years ago. I was holidaying with my family at my mother’s house and I picked up a book that was sitting casually on her coffee table, it was called The Four Mystery Dramas. I didn’t understand anything in it, though something told me that I had to find out more about its author and because my mother had already been reading Rudolf Steiner’s works for a few months she had some books that she could lend me. To this day I wonder if she didn’t plan the whole thing! I read book after book and I haven’t stopped since. It is only recently that I allowed myself to pick up The Four Mystery Dramas again, and now I discover that I have some understanding of it.

6. Which of Steiner’s books are your favorites?

It is always the book I’m reading at any particular time. They are all my favourites! The book I consult the most, however, would have to be Knowledge of Higher Worlds. My old copy was covered in sticky tape until if finally fell to pieces. Each time I read it I understand something new.

7. What books and writers do you enjoy outside the realm of Anthroposophy?

I loved reading Plato’s dialogues and the works of Aristotle for Temple of the Grail but when it comes to modern day writers Margaret Mitchell was a foremost influence in my teens - after I read Gone with the Wind I knew that one day I would become a writer of historic fiction. Herman Hesse is another favorite, Narcissus and Goldmund in particular. I love the way he can see beauty in the most unexpected things, even in a corpse, which shows me he knows something about positivity. These days I have been enjoying Gabriel Garcia Marquez because in his work all is possible – he has a wonderful ability to suspend disbelief. A Hundred Years of Solitude has set me free.

8. Could you tell us about any upcoming projects?

My second book The Seal has been released here in Australia and is doing very well. It is a very loose sequel to Temple of the Grail and it continues to explore the destiny of the Templars, this time at the hands of Philip the Fair and Clement V. The Seal is a very different book, in that it is not narrated by one character but explores many perspectives. Moving backwards and forwards like a time traveller it opens and ends in the present day but the main body of the book is set in the past and the action begins in 1291 at the fall of Acre in the Holy Land. It follows the Templars as they retreat firstly to Cyprus and then to France where they are arrested. Switching in viewpoints, it climbs into the heads and hearts of the knights, and explores their struggle to cut a path through the ruination of a spiritual ideal in order to safeguard the realisation of a higher task, whose symbolic representation is engraved on the Grand Master’s secret seal. It enters also, conversely, into the tangled darkness of Philip the Fair’s soul, into the scheming minds of his lawyers, into the heart of a torturer - the Inquisitor of France, and into the doubts and fears of the morally corrupt Pope Clement V. The most surprising part for me was realising that Christian de St Armand of Temple of the Grail wanted to make a cameo appearance in it – perfect!

These days I am in the process of writing a third book, which looks like being another loose sequel – but then I’ll just have to see what my characters have to say about it.