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The epic of Gilgamish, for being able to see, be with the tellers as they told the story. Thank you for this reminder, that we are created, by love, for love, to love.

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Venus and Pluto and the Encounter with Evil by Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton

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Venus and Pluto and the Encounter with Evil by Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton

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Every year during these Holy Nights of Christmas, between the birth of the pure Child and the High King child, I try to engage with the starry language of these nights. Often a particular gesture during the Holy Nights is a continuation or a punctuation point of a longer gesture of a planet during the year. For example, last year we had on Solstice the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which I have written about. This was a highly significant planetary event inaugurating a generational theme, especially given the relationship of Jupiter and Saturn to Pluto in the months leading up to the conjunction. All of 2020 was integral to the culminating Great Conjunction at solstice. These events all occurred in the stars of the Archer (Sagittarius) that have initiated a true challenge and call to humanity around the very nature of the ego, the self, the “I”, -- challenging humanity to come to terms with where we are and are not in our proper evolutionary goals towards spiritual growth. The Great Conjunction happened just entering the stars of Capricorn, where it will repeat (this particular generation of Great Conjunctions) every 60 years in Capricorn until Easter 2199. It will take place just at the transition into Aquarius from Capricorn marking the inauguration of a quite different stream of cosmic influence in this generation of Great Conjunctions, a new era. One can see in this the span of time in which the evolutionary impulses unfold, particularly with these outer planets.
During the Holy Nights and for months to come, Saturn continues in the stars of Capricorn, the stars of crisis/catharsis/breakthrough/initiation, where it will continue until February, 2023. Jupiter, moving faster, also continues in Capricorn but steps into Aquarius this May, 2022. So, Jupiter also continues through this constellation of crisis/catharsis/initiation until it crosses into Aquarius in May. Perhaps this move of Jupiter into Aquarius will inspire us towards the implementation of new ideals that pave the way and lay a foundation for the future 6th Cultural Age of Aquarius. Perhaps we can realize some new social and cultural forms that can help work towards a new wisdom of the human being out of the forward-looking sphere of Jupiter. Looking at these two planets moving forward in the short term, one can say that the zodiacal impulse from Capricorn, which remembers the Great War in Heaven and calls for a breakthrough through catharsis for humanity, continues for the next 2-3 years in connection to this theme of the Great Conjunction, which as I have written about previously, carries the memory and the continued challenge of the annunciation/birth or Christmas event of a new impulse in world destiny.
However, this year my attention has been drawn particularly to the activity of Venus during these Holy Nights, specifically the movement of Venus in relation to Mercury and Pluto. Over these days and following weeks it encounters Pluto three times as it goes through a loop formation, going retrograde, and then coming between Sun and Earth in conjunction with the Sun on January 8th, all in the stars of Archer. In 2020 the stars of the Archer were central to many of the stellar events related to the critical world events that took place in relation to the great question of egoity, “what is the human being!?”, what is our “I”? Now in 2021, it seems significant to me that Venus especially has this activity in Archer over the Holy Nights and into 2022. It is joined by Mercury, with both of them meeting each other as well as Pluto from Dec 25th to Dec. 30th. So, we have this kind of dance of Mercury and Venus with Pluto all in the Archer over this time. How can we approach this?
When we consider these so-called “inner” or “inferior” planets, Mercury and Venus, we are looking into the future. From one perspective, you can say that Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, carry more the past stages of our evolution as we descended into matter, into object, ego-earth existence and to the independent ego. In fact, Earth evolution is divided into two parts, with the Mars half as our descent into independence and full object consciousness and the Mercury half as our re-ascent into the future stages of transformation and the becoming of our higher spiritual calling. This is particularly in relation to the unfolding of the ego, the I AM, in transforming our being, which is our conscious task since the
consciousness soul age. Rudolf Steiner describes that during the early stages of Earth evolution, the Sun, Earth and Moon were one “body” but due to the increasing densification taking place, the Sun beings could no longer tolerate these conditions and separated out from the Earth sphere. Mercury and Venus were part of the Sun sphere during this separation. It was later, as the Sun beings further developed, that Mercury and Venus were separated out from the Sun. So, indeed, the spheres of Mercury and Venus are more akin to the Sun beings, the Elohim, and are helpers to human beings in our evolutionary goals of spiritualization, of moving towards our “Sun-hood”.
To touch briefly on their nature, we can see in Mercury an activity that is related to the work of Michael and the transformation of intelligence. Whereas in Venus, we can see the potential of the transformative power of love in its highest forms. These planetary spheres of course have their shadow nature or obstacle nature, as do all the spheres, which we can find in the area of fallen intelligence (i.e., intellectuality in abstraction) and the fallen feeling realm (i.e., the pulling down of the force of selfless higher love into the sensual and egoistic self-love).
So, how can we understand this Venus loop during the Holy Nights, particularly in relation to the stars of the Archer and the planet Pluto? The Sun entered into the stars of the Archer on December 18th, just prior to solstice and on the same day Venus turned retrograde, meaning it began its path of moving between the Sun and Earth, so it appears in the sky to turn around and move backwards. If you have been observing the night sky after sunset in the past weeks, you have been able to observe this string of the planets after sunset, with Venus, then Saturn and then Jupiter in the western night sky. Venus was particularly bright earlier in December, but now it has turned back towards the Sun and will soon disappear into the Sun’s light. A retrograde movement means that the planet is making a gesture of leaning in or coming close to the Earth from formerly being beyond the Sun. It is wanting us to hear its message especially. On Christmas Day, Venus conjuncts Pluto. [Saturn was in square to Uranus also on Christmas Day]. On Dec. 29th Mercury conjuncts Venus, and on Dec 30th Mercury conjuncts Pluto. So, one can say that over these 5 days Venus, Mercury and Pluto are clustered. This is a conversation that is leading to the exact conjunction of the Sun and Venus culminating on January 8th. In a general sense then, these Sun-like planetary spheres are offering a choice to us in the Archer. Shall we heed their offering? They stand as representatives of the spiritualization of intelligence and the transformation of the heart forces in the face of the currently active forces of destruction out of the Pluto sphere, which we have been experiencing since 2020. They do not interfere, but await our conscious participation out of our higher awareness. But we can take this even into more specificity.
For this we focus on the loop of Venus leading to its conjunction with the Sun on January 8th. It will lead us into an encounter with the stream of the Master Mani and our relation to evil in our time. This is a vast and complex topic, so in this article, at best, we only skim the surface. However, it is deeply important as we seek spiritual answers to the confusion and fear that currently engulf the world. As is elaborated in my online video course on The Planets (see: https://www.astrosophy.com/), Venus, in its rhythms with the Sun, creates a five-pointed star or pentagram in the heavens over time. These conjunctions forming the five-pointed star alternate over a four and an eight-year period to form, not one, but two pentagrams, with the five points of each in the same locations, but alternating between superior and inferior conjunctions. In his research in bringing star wisdom into relation to the archetypal activity of the Christ during the Three Years, Willi Sucher connected these five points to the five signs of Christ presented in the gospels. Since the Venus Star remains intact and rotates as a whole star over time, they can be followed back in history to the time of Christ. The conjunction of this January 8th, can be traced back to two events: the beheading of John the Baptist and the Raising of the Youth of Nain. From my own perspective given the current position in the Archer and other
considerations, I see this conjunction as particularly associated with the Raising of the Youth of Nain. What does this mean for our time? This brings us to the relation to Mani.
In the Gospel, the story tells of Christ coming to the city of Nain and a funeral procession comes out of the city, bearing the body of a youth, who was the son of a widow. Christ raises the youth from the dead. The key words here, which Rudolf Steiner points out, are “son of a widow”. This is a direct reference to the Isis Mysteries of Egypt. Steiner states that this youth was the reincarnation of the youth of Sais, who dared to lift the veil of Isis before he was matured for initiation, and was struck dead. In Sais, the statue of Athena, who is also believed to be Isis, had the following inscription ‘I am the All, the Past, Present and Future, my veil no mortal has yet lifted.’ (Plutarch on this story of the youth)
The youth of Nain in the Gospel of Luke is no other than the youth of Sais; the difference between the spiritual environment of the third and the fourth cultural age is concealed even in the names. The young man of Sais wanted to know the secrets of the spiritual world unprepared; like the other initiates, he wanted to become a "son of the widow", of Isis, who mourned for her lost husband Osiris. But because he was unprepared, because he wanted to unveil the image of Isis and see the heavenly secrets on the physical plane, he fell to his death. No mortal could lift the veil of Isis at that time. The young man of Sais symbolizes the impotent wisdom of Egyptian times.
Steiner, GA 104
Rudolf Steiner speaks about the raising of this Youth as a special initiation that would be realized in the next incarnation. He goes on to describe the deeper meaning of this funeral: how Christ felt sorry for the mother, as the representative of Isis, and the crowd attending his funeral representing initiates of the Isis mysteries of Egypt. Isis has descended to the Earth and now the son, newly initiated by Christ, must unite with his Mother and bring to life the new Christ mysteries as the transformed and resurrected Isis mysteries on Earth. This brings to mind the verse by Steiner (from The Search for the New Isis, The Divine Sophia): Isis Sophia, Lucifer has slain you, and on the wings of worldwide forces, carried you off into widths of space. Here we have the picture of Isis, the cosmic wisdom, slain into the world of space and matter. Yet the verse continues, Christ-will working in the human being shall free you from the bonds of Lucifer and on the sails of spirit cognition in human souls, waken you to new life. And here the redemption of Isis out of the new Christ mysteries on Earth.
Rudolf Steiner tells the further destiny of this Youth of Nain, formerly the Youth of Sais, which becomes a profound and important continuing story for humanity. In his next incarnation the Youth would bring to fruition this initiation which was done by Christ, as the great Initiate Mani, (216-277 AD). His incarnations then continue as Parsifal, the “fool” youth who must learn in a wandering life path and all that he encounters, the way to the Grail. Steiner continues to reveal the lofty stature of Mani, as he who initiated Christian Rosenkreuz into an understanding of the nature of evil. He goes on to say that Christian esotericism is derived from Manichaeism. He then indicates a possible incarnation of Mani in the 21st century if a proper body will be possible for him in those materialistic times. Much can be further said about the Mani impulse and its evolution which would expand this article considerably. However, let us focus on this Mani impulse in relation to this Venus conjunction in Archer and meeting Pluto.
Steiner speaks of Mani as carrying a Christian impulse which will be realized only in the future, as it is deeply connected with the redemption of evil. In fact, in one lecture he states, “it is not yet permissible today to unveil the ultimate secrets of this doctrine”. This Mani path of the redemption of evil is described in The Temple Legend” as the story of the light being devoured by the darkness, not battling against it. Yet in that process, the light enters as seed force into the darkness and lays the foundation
for its destruction. The dragon eats the light and through that the dragon is overcome from the inside out.
The essence of Manichaean teaching relates to the doctrine of good and evil. In ordinary thought, good and evil are two irreducible qualities, one of which, goodness, must destroy the other, evil. To Manichaeans, however, evil is integral to the cosmos and collaborates in its evolution, and it will eventually be absorbed and transfigured by goodness. (Steiner, An Esoteric Cosmology, GA 94)
Sergei Prokofieff in his book on the Masters of esoteric Christianity presents Mani as one of these Masters, particularly for the West, meaning the Americas as opposed to Europe. Prokofieff continues to build an association with this encounter with evil and the new experience of the Christ in the etheric realm. These two mysteries, the mystery of the etheric Christ and the mystery of evil, are inseparably connected with one another…. He follows this with a quote from Steiner: Through the experience of evil, it will become possible for Christ to appear again [in etheric form]. GA 185, Oct 25, 1918
Here we come particularly to the relationship of this Venus loop and the conjunction on January 8th which has brought that “corner” of the Venus pentagram in the Archer in relation to Pluto. We are in a time which seems evident to many, when the forces of evil have now begun an attack on the proper development of the “I”. This is the current world dilemma brought on by the covid pandemic. I have written about this in articles around the Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto meetings last year. In this time with covid, we see the emergence of the work of the Asuras against the “I”, and particularly in how the “I” must realize its further development in the consciousness soul, within the physical body. Prokofieff quotes Steiner in this regard: These forces of evil which are operative in the universe must be assimilated by human beings. By this means, they implant in their being the seed which enables them to experience the spiritual life of the consciousness soul. (GA 185, Oct. 26, 1918)
This is the current crisis, or judgement, that has been taking place in the stars of the Archer and face us as the consequences of the world failures of humanity to take up the necessary spiritual work of the I in the consciousness soul. The consequences of the materialistic world perspective on the I of the human have emerged as an entity and activity of the Asuric forces and the Soratic forces as the “anti-I” forces. These are essentially different from the challenges from Lucifer and Ahriman. It is for this reason that the task of Mani is emerging as the work of encountering evil in a new way. Rudolf Steiner describes this Asuric activity in the following way:
The evil brought by the Ahrimanic Spirits can be shed in the course of karma. But the evil brought by the Asuric powers cannot be expunged in this way. Whereas the good Spirits instituted pain and suffering, illness and death in order that despite the possibility of evil, man’s evolution may still advance, whereas the good Spirits made possible the working of karma to the end that the Ahrimanic powers might be resisted and the evil made good, it will not be so easy to counter the Asuric powers as earth-existence takes its course. For these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has been seized hold of by them, namely the very core of man’s being, the consciousness soul together with the ‘I’, to unite with earthly materiality...
These Asuric powers are heralded to-day by the prevailing tendency to live wholly in the material world and to be oblivious of the realty of spiritual beings and spiritual worlds... Today they deceive him by various means into thinking that his ‘I’ is a product of the physical world only...
Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 22 March 1909
The current crisis is a kind of judgement on humanity, a judgement brought on us by ourselves, our own failures to realize the spiritual nature of the I and the human being through the proper work of the consciousness soul. Yet, as quoted above by Prokofieff, the mystery of evil is inseparable from the
mystery of the Christ in the etheric realm, meaning the two come together. It brings to mind a statement by Alfred Heidenreich in the booklet, The Risen Christ and the Etheric Christ, in which he explains the Greek words for “second coming” or the re-appearance of Christ and for “final judgement” which Steiner addresses in From Jesus to Christ, on how the event of the etheric Christ coincides with the Christ becoming the Lord of Karma, or the judge of karma. The word for second coming is “Parousia” which means “presence, or advent”. The Greek word for judgement means “crisis”.
So, the statements in the gospels which bring together calamity and crisis with the appearance of the Christ in the clouds, can be interpreted as: Parousia brings crisis. The presence of Christ brings crisis or judgement to the world.
So, this seemingly insignificant conjunction of Venus and the Sun in the Archer and the threefold conjunction of Venus with Pluto (for more detail on Pluto see videos on the Outer Planets at astrosophy.com) carry great potentiality or great “presence” as well as great crisis. The two are inseparable. The Raising of the Youth of Nain which this conjunction carries as memory and as active seed force, represent the healing of the great mystery stream of Isis of the past through the new initiation by Christ, which offers the ever-present opportunity for renewal through the new Christian mysteries, which is anthroposophy, the stream of Rosenkreuz and of Mani. This conjunction on January 8th is the activation so to speak, or the call for humanity to awaken to this Mani impulse in the world today. Through this recognition and experience of evil in its current manifestation in the world, it brings the possibility for the new Christ experience.
In “star language” this Venus “corner” in the Archer and the meetings with Pluto carry the great question of the events of the past two years: WHO are we as true human beings? The cosmic vertical axis of Gemini and Archer call for the move from dualism to trinity out of the power of the Christ I in us. There is a qualitative difference in the two opposite constellations but in their essence, it is the same challenge. It is challenge of dualism as it manifests in all aspects of life, from binarism in materialism and technology to the old religious dualism of good and evil, of above and below, even of faith and knowledge. All of this past dualism has brought us into the complete separation of materialism and now is the question of arriving at a new trinity, a new image of the human I AM standing between the dualism as the “middle” healing and transforming point. This can be the new story of Archer/Twins.
So we can perhaps conclude a deep and complex story barely articulated, by simply placing the following picture of the heavens during these weeks in our mind’s eye: the Sun (our higher I AM) meeting Venus (which carries the impulse of the new Christian Mysteries on Earth, the new “presence” of Christ and in particular the Manichean task of the encounter with evil) and the threefold meeting with Pluto (which now carry the forces that bring destruction of world-shaking proportions and the activity of the Asuras in the assault on the I). Yet this all offers both the challenge and opportunity to come to the new experience of the I AM in our time and to take up evil out of this transforming power.
Jonathan Hilton, January 3, 2022
astrosophy.com
Non-Steiner Sources on Mani used for this article:
Rudolf Steiner and the Masters of Esoteric Christianity, Sergei Prokofieff (Wynstones Press)
Mani, His Life and Work, Transforming Evil, Richard Seddon (Temple Lodge Press)
Mani and Rudolf Steiner, Christine Gruwez, (Steinerbooks)

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Music written about Gilgamesh by Robert MacFarlane and Johnny flynn

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Music written about Gilgamesh by Robert MacFarlane and Johnny flynn

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https://youtu.be/7SrMcaZDOtQ

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Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane: Writing Ten Degrees of Strange | Off The Record

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The Eve of Epiphany - The last Chapter in Our Epic Holy Nights Storytelling adventure!

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The Eve of Epiphany - The last Chapter in Our Epic Holy Nights Storytelling adventure!

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The closing words that Rudolf Steiner spoke exactly 1 year after the burning of the 1st Goetheanum, from the final lecture of the ‘Christmas Conference’: “And so, my dear friends, carry out into the world your warm hearts in which you have laid the Foundation Stone for the Anthroposophical Society, carry out into the world these warm hearts which promote strong, health-giving activity in the world. And help will be vouchsafed to you, enlightening your heads in what you would fain direct with single purpose. We will set this about with all possible strength. And if we prove to be worthy of this aim, we shall see that a good star will hold sway over what is willed from here. Follow this good star, my dear friends! We shall see whither the Gods will lead us by the light of this star”.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/.../English/RSP1977/19240101d01.html /

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Such houses are still built today by Marsh Arabs in the Great Marsh where the Tigris-Euphrates meet the sea.  They are on floating islands of of compacted reeds

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In ‘World History in the light of Anthroposophy’, Lecture 3: Steiner speaks about how when Gilgamesh meets the Faraway Man, who he calls the High Priest of the Atlantean Mysteries: “A test was imposed upon Gilgamesh, one that in those days was often imposed on pupils of the Mysteries. He had to go through certain exercises, wide-awake, for seven days and seven nights. It was too much for him, so he submitted himself only to the substitute, the alternative for the test. Certain substances were made ready for him, of which he then partook, and by means of them received a certain enlightenment; although, as is always the case, the enlightenment might be doubtful in some respects. Nevertheless a certain insight into the great connections in the Universe, into the spiritual structure of the Universe was there…”

‘Background to the Gospel of St. Mark, Lecture 3 by Rudolf Steiner: “We have often studied the period of evolution following the Atlantean catastrophe and the epochs of post-Atlantean civilisation: the Old Indian, Old Persian, Egypto-Chaldean, Graeco-Roman, and now the fifth, in which we ourselves are living. There will be two more epochs, making seven in all / before there is another great catastrophe…I have often said that there is a correspondence between the individual human being as a ‘Micro-cosm’-a ‘little world’, and the ‘Macro-cosm’, the ‘great world’…The human being of to-day belongs to all seven post-Atlantean epochs for he has been, or will be, incarnated in each of them./ In every incarnation we must work to receive what that particular epoch can give us for the evolution of consciousness. And we bear within ourselves the fruits of past phases of evolution…Humanity as a whole evolves as one great being through the seven post-Atlantean epochs. And these seven epochs also resemble what the individual human being undergoes in the seven ‘ages’ or periods of his own life.”

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The Holy Grail story foretold in the Epic of Gilgamesh

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The Holy Grail story foretold in the Epic of Gilgamesh

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Isn't it interesting that Gilgamesh did not take up for himself the nectar of the flower giving life when he had it in his possession??? Instead he planned on giving it first to others and then afterwards to himself. Is this a mistake the same as Parsival not asking the Question when it was appropriate, when it was it's right time and place. The waters conveying messages here, a messenger. A creature of the waters, the serpent, conveys for us through the water the message of what reward happens when we are delaying... That which we do not take for ourselves will be taken from us. In order to stand up in Christ, in our I Am presence, we must take for ourselves what is being offered. Lucifer in the right time and place prepared humanity for the Mystery of Golgatha. Ahriman wants us to think that we are less than Immortal Flames of Spirit. Let us all rid ourselves of the doubt, of the false humility, the Ahrimanic impulse that would have us act, feel and think less than we are.

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3 January 2022 - the 11th Holy Night - In The Gospel of St. John Lecture 6, Rudolf Steiner tells us: 

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3 January 2022 - the 11th Holy Night - In The Gospel of St. John Lecture 6, Rudolf Steiner tells us: 

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“Towards the end of the Atlantean Epoch Atlantis was a land of cloud, it was covered with dense volumes of mist. There were no alternating periods of rain and sunshine, and there was no phenomenon such as the rainbow; this could only appear after the Atlantean Epoch, when the masses of mist dispersed. This event has remained alive in the folk consciousness as the legend of Wotan, who journeys over the bridge with his goats, and in the story of Noah and the Ark…The events in Atlantis are paralleled by those of our time…In ancient times water was conquered through the highest technological progress; the same is true today in the case of air and then with fire…The events of the ancient Atlantean era repeat themselves…”

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Dear friends it appears that the Epic of Gilgamesh is living in the etheric realm of humanity at large...

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High school junior Tracen Wassily of Dillingham, Alaska, was recently given an English assignment: write something new about the world's oldest known epic poem.

So he decided to rap about the 4,000-year-old text. Izzy Ross of KDLG reports.

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Alaska student finds inspiration in an ancient text

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High school junior Tracen Wassily of Dillingham, Alaska, was recently given an English assignment: write something new about the world's oldest known epic poem. So he decided to rap about the 4,000-year-old text. Izzy Ross of KDLG reports.

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The 10th Holy Night, January 2nd 2022. The 1st New Moon of the New Year. 

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The 10th Holy Night, January 2nd 2022. The 1st New Moon of the New Year. 

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‘World History in the light of Anthroposophy': “The personality who is called Gilgamesh in the Epic had no living connection with the Mysteries of his time. But through the super-sensible influence of his friend Eabani, who, in the after-death existence, was still united with him, there arose in Gilgamesh an inner impulse to seek out paths in the world whereby he might be able to come to an experience concerning the immortality of the soul. Thus the impulse to wander over the Earth, and thereby receive something that should help to the solution of the problem of immortality, betokened something full of meaning for Gilgamesh. So he set forth upon his wanderings. And they had for him a result that was of very great significance. He came to a region that is nearly the same as we now call Burgenland…and found there an ancient Mystery. The High Priest of this Mystery is called Ut-napish-tim in the Epic — who was a genuine successor of the old Atlantean Mysteries…”

Quote from Dr. Steiner given in Dornach on January 2, 1924: from ‘The Young Doctors Course’: “Unless you have insight into the healthy human being, you will never get insight into the sick human being…Only by remembering this principle will you begin to understand the possibility of illness…You will have to say to yourselves: Everything that goes on in the human organism is a process of nature. Illness is also a process of nature. Where does a healthy process cease? Where does a process of disease begin? These questions are unfortunately unanswerable if you go no further than the teachings of orthodox medicine…

If we are to understand the forces and the connection of the human organism with the cosmos and with the three kingdoms of nature, we must cultivate a different kind of science from what is cultivated today…/We can only begin to understand the human being in health and in disease when our knowledge is reinforced by a sense for nature that is not only microscopic but also macroscopic...And we shall consider, too, what I will call the moral side of science.”

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SUMERIAN LANGUAGE  AS REFLECTION OF

EARLIEST

POST- ATLANTEAN CONSCIOUSNESS

By Karin Mortensen

The fundamental structure of English and almost all Indo-European languages is “Subject- predicate,” or actor-verb or actor -action; e.g., “I am, I have, I do.” Our sentence structure glorifies and gives  precedence to the subject, to the I.   I am, HE does. YOU have. This linguistic structure is called nominative-accusative, and it can lead us into interesting logical places, such as “It is raining.”  What is “it”?

Sumerian, our oldest known written language has no  kinship to any other known language. Ruddolf  Steiner speaks of Sumerian as the closest we have to the pre-Babel  language of mankind.  Sumerian is not an accusative language, like English,which celebrates the Ego-Actor:  it is ergative.

I first experienced a non-accusative, ergative language when I studied Hausa, a modern West African language in which verbs conjugate not by subject but by whether a direct or indirect object follows the verb, and whether that object is a noun or pronoun. This is because in Hausa—or Sumerian—the primacy is not given to the Ego/Actor.  Rather the action itself is primary, and the actor is relegated to being an agent. Thus, if we have the  English sentence, “Ur-Nammu built this temple for Inanna,” we can ask ourselves , what is the most important element in this sentence?  Is it Ur-Nammu whom nobody today has ever heard of?  Or Inanna, on whose behalf the temple has been built?  Or is it the temple itself, which is still to be seen today?  In Sumerian such a sentence is better rendered by “This temple was built by Ur-Nammu with reference to Inanna.” Cumbersome to our language structure.

Sumerian Gilgamesh is still two thirds god and one third human. His task is to become a conscious and whole I AM. The Sumerian language sees him as an instrument of the gods, by whom the aims of the gods come into being.

The Epic of Gilgamesh translated by  Andrew George is, as he points out in the introduction, translated primarily from second millennium  Akkadian, with some fourth millennium Sumerian and Old Babylonian. The fourth millennium Sumerian is found in the  broken text of Tablet Two.  Even better, Section Two of the book gives “The Sumerian Poems of Gilgamesh.”

Look at these two sections:

Tablet One (Akkadian) says

He explored everywhere the seats (of power,)

He(Gilgamesh) saw what was secret, discovered what was hidden,

he brought back a tale of before the Deluge …

Tablet One is translated from Akkadian, a semitic accusative language akin to Hebrew and Arabic, which has whiffs of the ergative.

Tablet Two (Sumerian restored with some Akkadian)

Now look at the ergative Sumerian language of Gilgamesh from Tablet Two and the Sumerian Poems of Gilgamesh:

Uruk, the smithy of the gods,

Eanna, house come down from heaven—

The great gods it was who gave them shape—

Their great rampart, a cloudbank resting on the earth,

Their lofty  residence, founded by the god An:

They are  given into your charge;

you (Gilgamesh) are their king and their warrior…

A plain English accusative translation would be,

The gods built the great ramparts of Uruk  and made Gilgamesh their king and warrior.

We form the Creative Word, and are formed by it. Are our egos primary actors or agents?

Gilgamesh and Enkidu are demigods.    The Aeneid  tells us that after Achilles and Helen the gods will have no more mortal children.

--Karin Mortensen

n.b. Today, ergative languages are generally to be found among the native languages of the Americas and Australia.  Partially ergative languages are found in the Tibet, India, the Near East and Basque.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR a quote from Rudolf Steiner given in Dornach 100 years ago on 1 January, in 1922! from: ‘Old and New Methods of Initiation’

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HAPPY NEW YEAR a quote from Rudolf Steiner given in Dornach 100 years ago on 1 January, in 1922! from: ‘Old and New Methods of Initiation’

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“A profound breach now runs through the whole of civilization, a breach which brings much chaos to the world, and of which people who are fully aware, cannot but experience with a sense of tragedy. One expression of this breach is the fact that human beings, when considering human dignity and their worth as human beings, can no longer find any connection with a world to which they live - that world which gives the human soul spiritual feelings, both profound and uplifting — namely, the world of moral values…We have to admit that today's world is divided into two parts which, for modern consciousness, are incompatible: the moral world and the material world…initiation science wants to enter once again into human civilization, and show us, that behind the world perceived by our senses, there stands a spiritual world, a mighty world, powerful and real, a world of moral values, to which we may turn...

I want to make you aware that it is time for us to enter upon an age when what matters, rather than the actual words, is our experience of reality. If we fail in this, then in the realm of spiritual life we shall fall into empty phrases...And this transition from mere correctness of content to truth livingly experienced is to be brought about through the entry of initiation science into human civilization, initiation science which progresses from mere logical content to the experience of the spiritual world. Those who view correctly the external symptoms of historical development in the present and on into the near future will succeed, out of these symptoms, in achieving a feeling, a sense, for the justified and necessary entry of initiation science into world civilization. This is what I wanted to place before your souls today by way of a New Year's Day contemplation.”

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31 Dec 2021 – the 8th Holy Nights Storytelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

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31 Dec 2021 – the 8th Holy Nights Storytelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

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Its NYE so I wanted to open with this quote from Rudolf Steiner in what is commonly called: Man and the World of Stars – but the German tile is more interesting, something like: ‘Spiritual Knowledge is a True Communion, the Beginning of a Cosmic Cultus Suitable for the Present Age.’ This lecture was given in Dornach, on New Year's Eve, 1922, an hour before the fire which destroyed the First Goetheanum was discovered.  “Every year finds new graves!” That is profoundly true. But equally true is it that every year finds new cradles. As this year touches the past, so does it also touch the future. And today it is our first obligation to grasp this future, to reflect that the budding and sprouting life in the external world contains within it the seeds of death, and that we must seek for life with our own power of action. Every New Year is a symbol of this truth. If we see on the one hand the graves, let us behold on the other hand, self-renewing life, waiting to receive the seed of the future into itself...

“It is our great task this day to observe how in the world around us it is New Year's Eve — all is passing and disappearing and dying away; but how in the hearts of those who are conscious of their real humanhood, of their divine humanity, there must be the mood of the beginning of a new era, of the uprising of new life. Let us turn our thoughts that they may indeed grow powerful and creative, as evolution requires them to be. Let us turn our thoughts away from the dying phenomena which confront us everywhere in modern civilization, like old graves, away from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day, to the day of the Cosmic New Year. But, my friends, that day will never dawn until humanity decides to bring it to pass”. What will you decide dear friends? Together we can bring the power of our creative will to co-create an Epic human story, a Cosmic New Year. https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19221231p01.html

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With the Bull of Heaven and what's gone before, we have an interplay, recalibration, of gods and humanity.

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With the Bull of Heaven and what's gone before, we have an interplay, recalibration, of gods and humanity.

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As these elemental beings are purged, for good or ill, humanity takes on the tasks that the gods held before. A responsibility that we must grow into through spirit work, cleansing and developing our astral, etheric and ego bodies. Beware that we not boast too much!

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Dec. 29th is The Feast of King David; which fits perfectly with the subject of the 5th Tablet. 

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Dec. 29th is The Feast of King David; which fits perfectly with the subject of the 5th Tablet. 

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There are many Old Testament reports on David, but for today, in a nutshell: Yahweh sends an evil spirit to torment Saul, Israel’s unlawful King; So his councilors send for David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, to soothe the king whenever the evil spirit is upon him, because he is skillful on the lyre, wise in speech, & brave in battle./ And the part of the story that we all know: When the giant Goliath challenges the King to send out a champion to face him in single combat - David, defeats Goliath with his sling & then eventually, the shepherd becomes a King. And so it is that in the 5th Tablet, our 2 heroes face the giant Humbaba.

From a Lecture by Rudolf Steiner on this day, Dec. 29 in 1917 called ‘On the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Times’, where Steiner reminds us that in the Festival life we have 2 two poles: “...the Christmas secret & the Easter secret. It will strike you at once that the Christmas secret is really the secret of birth. The Easter secret is connected with the secret of death. Birth & death are the 2 boundaries of human life. So in truth, we may say: birth & death are the two gateways to the invisible world.”

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28 December 1914:  ‘Technology and Art: Their Bearing on Modern Culture, GA 275, by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach 

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28 December 1914:  ‘Technology and Art: Their Bearing on Modern Culture, GA 275, by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach 

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Steiner depicts the transforming power of art as it relates to technology. “We must come to feel that Spiritual Science is a necessary counter-balance for elements in modern life that have an injurious or even destructive effect upon the divine-spiritual life-forces of the human being…Our real task is to strengthen the soul by permeating it with the impulses that come from Spiritual Science & spiritual research, so that it is armed against the influences of modern life, can hold its own in spite of all the surrounding hubbub, to find its way through the tumult & din of the Ahrimanic beings into the spiritual-divine world.”

“Spiritual beings live & are active in human speech, & when a human being formulates words, elemental spiritual beings press into them. On the wings of words, spiritual beings fly through the area where people are conversing with one another…These things are ordained for us by the spiritual Beings who guide & direct our current phase of evolution.”

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27 December 1923 - In the Evening lecture - ‘World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, and as a foundation for knowledge of the human spirit’: 

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27 December 1923 - In the Evening lecture - ‘World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, and as a foundation for knowledge of the human spirit’: 

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“You now have before you these two personalities of Gilgamesh & Eabani who together bring to expression the mental & spiritual constitution of the human being in the 3 rd Post-Atlantean period of civilization. - 2 personalities who still lived in such a way that the whole manner of their life was in itself strong evidence of the duality in human nature. The one – Gilgamesh – was conscious of this duality; he was one of the 1 st to experience the descent of the Ego-consciousness. The other - Eabani, - inasmuch as he had passed through but few incarnations on Earth, had a clairvoyant knowledge, by means of which he was able to know that everything is spiritual & the so-called material only another form of the spiritual…The result of all this was that both felt in their own being something that made them kin to the primeval times of earthly humanity. Both were able to put the question to themselves: How have we become what we are? What share have we had in the evolution of the Earth? We have become what we are through the evolution of the Earth; what part have we played in its evolution.”

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Today on 27 December in 1923 during the Continuation of the Foundation Meeting of the Christmas Conference. Rudolf Steiner Laid the Words of the Foundation Stone, which he did every day, then discussed of the Statutes: this quote is from Paragraph 3: 

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Today on 27 December in 1923 during the Continuation of the Foundation Meeting of the Christmas Conference. Rudolf Steiner Laid the Words of the Foundation Stone, which he did every day, then discussed of the Statutes: this quote is from Paragraph 3: 

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“Anthroposophy, leads to results which can serve every human being as a stimulus to spiritual life, whatever their nation, social standing or religion. They can lead to a social life genuinely built on brotherly love. No special degree of academic learning is required to make them one's own, and to found one's life upon them, but only an open-minded human nature.”

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December 26, 1923 - The Christmas Conference

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December 26, 1923 - The Christmas Conference

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“When hearts truly understand Anthroposophy, they will beat in unison, without the need for heads to knock together. If we solve this purely human problem of letting our hearts sound in harmony with one another without the need for our heads to knock together, then from the human side we shall have done everything necessary…we must reach the point at which we can feel in all our deeds that we are connected with the spiritual world…The more we fail to concern ourselves with the signs of the times, the more will be the inimical concern for us on the part of everything that can possibly be against us. Only if we find the path, only if with courage we find the straight path to what we should do, shall we succeed in navigating the ship of the Anthroposophical Society through the exceedingly stormy waves which surge and break around it. What we should do is the following: We shall only be taken seriously if at every moment in whatever we do, we feel responsible towards the spiritual world. We must know that the spiritual world wants to achieve a certain thing with humankind at this particular moment in historical evolution; it wants to achieve this in the most varied realms of life, and it is up to us clearly and truly to follow the impulses that come from the spiritual world.”//

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25 December, 1923 - The Christmas Conference - The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the General Anthroposophical Society through Rudolf Steiner 10 a.m.

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25 December, 1923 - The Christmas Conference - The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the General Anthroposophical Society through Rudolf Steiner 10 a.m.

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“Let us during this our Christmas Conference make the shining forth of the universal light — as it shone before the shepherds, who bore within them the simplicity of their hearts, and before the kingly magi, who bore within them the wisdom of all the universe — let us make this flaming Christmas light, this universal light of Christmas into a symbol for what is to come to pass through our own hearts and souls!”

Human Soul!

You live within the limbs

Which bear you through the world of space

Into the spirit’s ocean-being:

Practice SPIRIT-RECALLING

In depths of soul,

Where in the wielding

World-Creator-Being

Your own I

Comes into being

In the I of God

And you will truly LIVE

In human world-all being.

For the Father-Spirit of the heights holds sway

In depths of worlds begetting life.

Spirits of Strength: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones

Let ring forth from the heights

What in the depths is echoed,

Speaking: Ex deo nascimur –

Out of the Godhead we are born.

This is heard by the spirits of the elements

In east, west, north, south:

May human beings hear it!

Human Soul!

You live within the beat of heart and lung

Which leads you through the rhythms of time

Into the feeling of your own soul-being:

Practice SPIRIT-SENSING

In balance of the soul,

Where the surging deeds

Of world-evolving

Unite your own I

With the I of the world;

And you will truly FEEL,

In human soul’s creating.

For the Christ-will encircling us holds sway,

In world rhythms, bestowing

Grace upon souls.

Spirits of Light: Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai

Let from the east be enkindled

What through the west takes on form;

Speaking: In Christo morimur –

In Christ death becomes life.

This is heard by the spirits of the elements

In east, west, north, south:

May human beings hear it!

Human Soul!

You live within the resting head

Which from the grounds of eternity

Unlocks for you world-thoughts:

Practice SPIRIT-BEHOLDING

In stillness of thought,

Where the eternal goals of the gods

Bestow the light of cosmic being

On your own I

For free and active willing

And you will truly THINK

In human spirit depths.

For the Spirit’s world-thoughts

Hold sway

In cosmic being, imploring light.

Spirits of Soul: Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi

Let from the depths be entreated

What in the heights will be heard,

Speaking: Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus

In the spirit’s cosmic thoughts the soul awakens.

This is heard by the spirits of the elements

In east, west, north, south:

May human beings hear it

At the turning point of time

The cosmic spirit-light of the world

Entered the stream of earth existence.

Darkness of night had ceased its reign;

Day-radiant light

Shone forth in human souls:

Light

That gives warmth

To simple shepherd’s hearts;

Light

That enlightens

The wise heads of kings.

Light divine,

Christ-Sun,

Warm

Our hearts;

Enlighten

Our heads;

That good may become

What from our hearts

We are founding,

What from our heads

We direct,

With Single purpose

And focused willing

My dear friends, hear it as it resounds in your own hearts! Then will you found here a true community of human beings for Anthroposophia; and then will you carry the spirit that rules in the shining light of thoughts around the dodecahedral Stone of love out into the world wherever it should give of its light and of its warmth for the progress of human souls, for the progress of the universe."

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24 December 1923 -The Christmas Conference - Rudolf Steiner's Opening Lecture and Reading of the Statutes 11.15 a.m. 

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24 December 1923 -The Christmas Conference - Rudolf Steiner's Opening Lecture and Reading of the Statutes 11.15 a.m. 

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“We shall take our starting point today from something we would so gladly have seen as our starting point years ago in 1913. This is where we take up the thread, my dear friends, inscribing into our souls the foremost principle of the Anthroposophical Movement, which is to find its home in the Anthroposophical Society, namely, that everything in it is willed by the spirit, that this Movement desires to be a fulfilment of what the signs of the times speak in a shining script to the hearts of human beings.

The Anthroposophical Society will only endure if within ourselves we make of the Anthroposophical Movement the profoundest concern of our hearts. If we fail, the Society will not endure. The most important deed to be accomplished during the coming days must be accomplished within all your hearts, my dear friends. Whatever we say and hear will only become a starting point for the cause of Anthroposophy in the right way if our heart's blood is capable of beating for it. My friends, for this reason we have brought you all together here: to call forth a harmony of hearts in a truly anthroposophical sense. And we allow ourselves to hope that this is an appeal which can be rightly understood.”
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA260/English/AP1990/19231224b01.html

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Abed Azrié - Epic of Gilgamesh full concert

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Abed Azrié - Epic of Gilgamesh full concert

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Abed Azrié - Epic of Gilgamesh full concert

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Images from the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) related to Gilgamesh

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Images from the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) related to Gilgamesh

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Thank you Gary Ferguson!