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!  

   

The Second Holy Night - Waterman.

WATERMAN

The region of Waterman is connected with the hierarchy of the angels who have a special affinity with water in the world, water being the element in which they manifest outwardly. Inwardly they are connected to the etheric body in human beings.

The etheric body not only provides the physical body with life, but is also the tableau in which memory is written. That is why the etheric body is called the 'Water of Life' in the bible, and why the angels are called the 'Sons of Life' in various mystery traditions. It is also why angels are known to be the holders of the 'memory' of our past doings - in other words, why they are considered to be the Guardian Angels of human beings.

We see these two qualities of the etheric body illustrated in the various mystery traditions as: the water of Lethe and Eunoe (the draught of remembrance and forgetfulness); the Egyptian river on which travels the boat of Isis or the soul; and the Nepenthe given to Isolde which allows her to forget her duty to marry Mark so that she can fall in love with Tristan.

The Second Holy Night, in the earthly sense, is connected to the two Johns in the bible: John the Baptist and John the Divine, the writer of the Gospel of John and Revelations.

Why is this so?

The sign of the Waterman is cosmically connected to the Moon sphere and represents both the angel and the spiritualised human soul which is filled with the spirit or Manas, enabling it to have imagination as a form of higher perception or Moral Cognition. 

John the Baptist was the representative of this stage in human development. He received a special initiation in which he experienced the Sun at Midnight from the constellation of Waterman, the constellation ruled by the moon, and for this reason he was able to baptise with water to loosen the etheric bodies of those whom he baptised.

The second John, John the Divine, is always represented by the Eagle and is connected to the higher ego, the lower Ego is the Scorpion represented by Judas. The higher ego or spiritualised intellect can create the right conditions in the soul for  a unification of the soul with the spirit from the realm of Waterman - this is called the Consciousness Soul. That is why he was never baptised by John the Baptist and had to wait for Christ to baptise him with Fire.

So we have two Johns - John the Baptist - Waterman and John the Divine - Eagle who are the earthly 'Guardians' of the second Holy Night. 

What about the Cosmic descent of Christ we spoke of yesterday?

From a Cosmic perspective this Holy Night is also a depiction of Christ's Descent from the Spirit of the Sun into, yes, the region of Scorpion/Eagle! That is, into the realm of the body of the Sun. This happens because the Sun Elohim who are the Gatekeepers of the Region of Scorpion Eagle enabled it. How did they do this? They united with  Jehova Elohim on the Moon. The consequence of this for human beings is depicted in the Bible when the 'breath of life' that is the Ego is given to Adam/Eve.

So on this Holy Night when we look up to the Constellation of Waterman, we should not only imagine  the human being's ascent from the darkness of matter to a 'perception' of the spirit, but we should also imagine the descent of Christ from the spirit of the sun, through the Zodiac gate of Scorpion Eagle to the body of the sun. 

This night is therefore the night in which we can draw close not only to our angels who guide us and shine the spirit downwards into our souls, but also to the two Biblical Johns who achieved ahead of time, what we are still striving to achieve. May we honour them.