Rudolf Steiner

The New Isis Reverence and .. Philosophy of Freedom The MORE that is human ... in his words..   http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/English/RPC1961/GA008_sketch.html [excerpts from] Christianity As Mystical Fact Introduction: Rudolf Steiner — A Biographical Sketch With these unfolding powers Steiner now developed up to his death in 1925, in twenty-five momentous years, that truly vast and awe-inspiring body of spiritual and practical knowledge to which he gave the name “Anthroposophy.” (Incidentally, this word was first coined by Thomas Vaughan, a brother of the English mystical poet, Henry Vaughan, in the 17th century.) Anthroposophy literally means wisdom of man or the wisdom concerning man, but in his later years Steiner himself interpreted it on occasion as “an adequate consciousness of being human.” In this interpretation the moral achievement of Steiner's work, his mission, his message to a bewildered humanity which has lost “an adequate consciousness of being human,” to which Man has become “the Unknown,” is summed up. This monumental work lies before us today and is waiting to be fully discovered by our Age — in some 170 books and in the published transcripts of nearly 6,000 lectures. Compare above to Rhea / James:  the MORE that is human!  =-   Magreet van den Brink, in More Precious Than Light:  How dialogue can transform relationships and build community describes Rudolf Steiner’s observations about the human soul, along the lines of its evolution.  Just as we know the brain has evolved and continued to build on the original model, so to speak, from “reptilian brain” to the mammalian brain to the now thin veneer of the cognitive brain, the soul, too, can be similarly seen to have evolved with one “layer” building on and deeply interconnected with the original layer/s.  He describes three such aspects to the human soul:  The sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and now the consciousness soul that is a very new development and is another way to “name” the evolutionary leap we are in the midst of together.  … [..DESCRIBE] [p.44-45] [O]ur spiritual being, the spirit self, for its greatest part still lives concealed within us.  Most of it lies dormant in the unconscious regions of our soul:  the depths of the etheric and physical body.  When however we become inwardly active, that is, turn inward in to our soul with the consciousness that comes from our higher being, it can step by step be lifted up through the different parts of the soul and so gradually awaken in the I.         First, in a more dreamy, feeling way in the sentient soul, then more clearly in concepts in the intellectual soul, until it finally becomes conscious of itself in the consciousness soul and so becomes liberated and free.         When we apply this to the true conversation in which both partners show interest in each other, ask questions and listen with an active open attitude of mind to what is being told, we get the following process.         When we ask each other to speak out we recall in our sentient soul that which lives in us as feelings, questions, needs, ideas, impulses, in relation to the subject we are dealing with.  That activates the soul.  The experiences start to ‘live’ in us and we become more inwardly lively.  It shows that the spirit self begins to awaken in this part of the soul.  That is why so much happens already when one person gets the chance to speak with someone else who is interested, listens carefully and goes into the subject with open questions, someone who is inwardly active.  When we then name the experiences that are heard, order them with the thinking and form tentative conclusions that bring us to first insights, we lift these up to the level of the intellectual soul.         A further step to an even higher level takes place in this process of awakening when we let that which we have found intellectually connect with the deeper layers of our being in the consciousness soul and let the experiences speak out of their essence, their meaning.         [[get book:  Hans Schauder:  Conversations on Counselling.]] also mentions these different stages, speaks in an impressive way about the inner attitude and the quality of mind that is needed to reach this level of consciousness.  He says that we should let that which we have found so far – the images of the experience and that which we have thought about it – sing into the depths of our inner being and let them ripen there.  Then after some time, answers and solutions will arise out of the depths of our soul that fill us with feelings of certainty and truth.         That is how we can in true conversations help each other to awaken the higher being living in us.  the insights that we receive on the level of the consciousness soul then touch us again because of their truth.  We feel liberated and happy that we have found something essentially true.  This emotion and happiness brings us back to our sentient soul and from there the acquired insights and truths enrich and enhance the whole soul [[[like food to the body which also feeds the capacity for intellectual and even spiritual pursuits and insights and experiences]]].   … a few paragraphs later: [p. 46]         This reveals clearly what the process of spiritual growth entails:  every time we first have to experience afresh all our experiences in the sentient soul, then we have to think about them and finally distil or ‘peel’ the essence out of these experiences.  By repeatedly passing through this process of active self-reflection and judgement building, the spirit being within us is gradually awakened, step by step.  At the same time, this process allows us to digest the things we have experienced.  Yes, there is even a close connection between the extend to which we digest our experiences and the extent to which our spiritual being is released.    In his book, Theosophy, Steiner writes:  ‘The human spirit grows by means of digesting the experiences.’          This spiritual growth is possible only because Christ lives in us, and when we reap the fruits of our experiences, it is heshe who transforms the substance of the soul into the spiritual substance of the spirit self.  This means that  the I not only is strengthened with the power of the Spirit itself but also by the power of Christ.  The same process of self-reflection and judgement-building takes place in life after death in the spiritual world.  There too, we look back at our lives and experience everything afresh.  The atmosphere of truth and goodness which prevails there gives us insights  into all the experiences of our past life, and then we can harvest the essence of these, the fruits which it has produced.  This essence is then in turn transformed into new abilities and skills with which we are born in the next life.          Now that the Spirit is becoming more active on earth, this process should also increasingly take place in our conscious life here on earth.  This is the purpose of the social path.  For it is only possible to harvest the fruits and the produce of our experiences on earth to the proper extent and depth, if there is another person who is willing to listen, to empathize and to think with us – a person who for a short moment is willing to serve my spiritual growth, and who in turn will need another person to help her or him go through this process her- or himself.           All this clearly shows why there is such a great need for true encounters and conversations in our time.  Nowadays every person has a deep desire to be heard, seen and known.  Intuitively, we are aware that we are only really born when this happens.  Yet we still meet one another so little.  We talk to each other about other people, work and sports, about our families and our children, but very rarely about those things which truly matter to us and which touch us inwardly.   [also p. 48 !!]   =- Especially the turquoise above: Something about this resonates vibrantly with Rhea’s EHE autobiographical process … study groups maybe …  Sandy ’s biographical studies     ---Where to go with this???     =-   The following almost sounds like a contemporary retelling of the Isis myth:           Christopher Bamford in the Introduction to Anthroposophy in Everyday Life says, “A major task facing humanity as it moves into the new millennium is that of uniting spiritual and practical life.”  He describes how religion, even a “pervasive sense of the sacred,” was so deeply woven into the fabric of human life until recent times.  “But, with the rise of the Modern Age, a powerful cleft was driven between human beings, nature, and the divine. We may call the process secularization.’ Religion and spiritual life became increasingly marginalized.  Instead of spiritual realities, human beings pursued this-worldly ends, such as comfort and wealth.  Thus, gradually, the thread connecting saints and esoteric masters with the general life of humanity was broken; meaning fragmented; and the sacramental relation of human beings to each other and the cosmos ceased to function.  Materialism in its many guises – positivism, Darwinism, Marxism etc. – now became the guiding principle in science and society.  Religion and culture – religion and the state – were separated and spiritual, religious life became a question of individual responsibility.         “This was a heavy burden to bear for individuals who had not only to create a spiritual life for themselves, but increasingly had to do so in opposition to the very quarters from which help might have been expected.  For, as society plunged into materialism, the Churches, not wishing to be left out, joined willingly in the descent.  There were, of course, exceptions to this tendency, but such generally was the situation at the beginning of the twentieth century when Rudolf Steiner [1861-1924] began to teach …”           Steiner says to rediscover the true Christ, we must first find / reclaim Isis , which is the basis of the New Isis myth.  He feelingly urges us to attend to reclaiming this myth as essential to our time and need as a species.  Isis and Sophia and Mary, according to Steiner, are roughly equivalent.  I believe this is exactly what is happening, literally, through the efforts of a devoted global scholarship that has only fairly recently been able to translate and study the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hamadi texts and other corroborative sources from the times these were written.  These materials were born out of the early Christian era and the century before.  What is being discovered is a far more clarifying understanding of that era, including about the historic Jesus, such as through Robert Eisenman’s painstakingly detailed works about James, the brother of Jesus; the works of several outstanding researchers concerning the incredible mix of cults and religious ideologies of the last century before Jesus and through the couple of centuries during and after his life; a few revelatory texts in particular, such as the Gospel of Thomas; the lives and passionate beliefs of the first followers of Jesus and James, who were Jews, not Christians per se; and the Gnostics such as portrayed in the very popular works of Elaine Pagels and several others.           The operative word here is “Gnosticism” – an interesting allusion to Sophia, which takes us back to the “new Isis myth.”  In short this global network of researchers is bringing to light a whole new take on the Jewish history and thought of that time and also that of the early Christians and including almost entire rewrite, you could say, because of what is being learned about the proponents of two factions in particular – one that eventually became the Western Catholic church [in the name of Peter and Paul] and the other that is more fully associated with Eastern Orthodox belief, but in its own right was almost entirely and intentionally marginalized, even destroyed and suppressed and obliterated, represented by James the brother of Jesus and also the Gnostics.         I believe in significant ways we are today re-enacting fundamental conflicts of that time, and by fully grasping that momentous historical context in the new way it is coming to our awareness, we will discover much more about ourselves and what it  means to be Human. =-   Steiner and Christianity   Christ as the center of earthly evolution Steiner describes Christ's being and mission on earth as having a central place in human evolution, emphasizing that, according his understanding:[41]   The being of Christ is central to all religions, though called by different names by each. Each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born. The historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the on-going evolution of humanity. It is the being that unifies all religions — and not a particular religious faith — that Steiner saw as the central force in human evolution. He understood Christ's incarnation as a historical reality, and a pivotal point in human history. The "Christ Being" is for Steiner, however, not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's "evolutionary" processes and of all human history, manifesting in all religions and cultures. [41] The essence of being "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes.[42]     Divergence from conventional Christian thought Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements.[43] Only a very simplified account of those views can be given here, because, although they amount to only about 4% of his total works, that 4% still amounts to some 15 volumes of books and lectures — and many of the other 335 or more volumes contain additional scattered comments on Christianity. [citation needed]   One of the central points of divergence is found in Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma; these are explicated in the article on Anthroposophy (see sub-section titled "Anthroposophy in Brief/Reincarnation and Karma").   Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew; the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke.[36] (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth.)   Steiner's view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual. He suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but rather, meant that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, in the "etheric realm" — i.e. visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life — for increasing numbers of people, beginning around the year 1933. He emphasized that the future would require humanity to recognize this Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of how this is named. He also warned that the traditional name, "Christ", might be used, yet the true essence of this Being of Love ignored.[43]     The Christian Community In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin . Rittelmeyer asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer — mostly Protestant pastors, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services, combining Catholicism's emphasis on the rites of a sacred tradition with the emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life characteristic of modern, Johannine Christianity.[36]   Steiner made it clear, however, that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity, which became known as "The Christian Community", was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of the Anthroposophical Society.[36] The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality.[41] For those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.    =====-     Who was Isis ?  Steiner, p. 69, from original myth:  “.. Isis was the epitome of all the deepest thoughts the Egyptians were able to form about the archetypal forces working in nature and in human beings.  … Beneath [statue in temple at Sais ] was written the inscription that was intended to express the being of Isis :  ‘I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future.  No mortal has yet lifted my veil.’ .. the laity saw it as a legend.  In the mysteries, the priests explained that the ancient period of Osiris was the time in which the old clairvoyance united human beings with the spirit of nature all about him. For an understanding of the Osiris-Isis legend or myth in our time, one must view it with the feelings that were in the soul and in the heart of an Egyptian [given above] and through these characteristics we must view with our soul what once sounded over from ancient times into more recent times, which lost its meaning through the Mystery of Golgotha, but the riddle of which must be revealed again today – precisely for the better understanding of the mystery of Golgotha.    …. Statue in special place in land of Vulgaria [in another source:  Philistinia!] During time of remarkable scientific advancement. Open secret Behind statue was REAL Isis , invisible. But she was asleep! Some few people in the country of profound scientific knowledge had once heard of this remarkable connection between what was visible and what was, in the image of Isis , concealed behind what was open and evident. Some few who in special circumstances in special moments, had nevertheless seen this new Isis , found that she is asleep.  And so we can say that the real underlying statue that conceals itself behind the external statue is the sleeping new Isis ; a sleeping figure – visible – but seen by few.  Inscription plainly seen by anyone:  I am the Human Being, I am the Past, the Present and the Future.  Every mortal should lift my veil. Another person, a visitor, once approached the sleeping figure of the new Isis , and then again and again.  And the sleeping Isis considered this visitor her special benefactor and loved him.  And one day she believed in a particular illusion, just as the visitor believed one day in a particular illusion:  the new Isis had a child – and she considered the visitor whom she looked on as her benefactor to be the father.  He regarded himself as the father but he was not.  The spirit visitor, none other than the new Typhon, believed that he could acquire a special increase of his power in the world if he took possession of the new Isis .  So the new Isis had a child, but she did not know its nature, she knew nothing of the being of this new child.  And she moved it about, she dragged it far off to other countries, because she believed that she must do so.  she trailed the new child about, and since she had trailed and dragged it through various regions .. it fell to pieces into 14 parts through the very power of the world. Thus the new Isis had carried her child into the world and the world had dismembered it in 14 pieces.  When the spirit visitor, the new Typhon, learnt about this, he gathered together the 14 pieces, and with all the profound knowledge of natural science he again made a being, a single whole, out of the 14 pieces.  But this being contained only mechanical laws, the laws of the machine.  Thus a being had arisen with the appearance of life, but with the laws of the machine.  And since this being had arisen out of 14 pieces, it could reproduce itself again, fourteenfold, and Typhon could give a reflection of his own being to each piece so that each of the 14 children of the new Isis had a countenance that resembled the new Typhon. And Isis watched this strange affair; she could see the complete miraculous change that had come to her child.  She knew that she had herself dragged it about, that she had herself brought all this to pass.  But there came a day when in its true, its genuine form she could accept it again [[[spiritual science]]] from a group of spirits who were elemental spirits of nature; she could receive it from nature elementals. As she received her true child, which had been turned into the child of Typhon only through an illusion, there dawned upon her a remarkable clairvoyant vision:  she suddenly noticed that she still had the cow horns of ancient Egypt , in spite of having become a new Isis . And when she had thus become clairvoyant, the power of her clairvoyance summoned some say Typhon himself, some say Mercury.  And he was obliged through the power of the clairvoyance of the new Isis to set a crown on her head in the place where once the old Isis had the crown which Horus had seized from her, that is to say, on the spot where she developed the cow horns.  But this crown was merely of paper, covered with all sorts of writings of a profoundly scientific nature, but nevertheless of paper.  And she now had two crowns on her head, the cow horns and the paper crown embellished with all the wisdom of profound scientific knowledge. Through the strength of her clairvoyance there one day arose in her the deep meaning, to the extent that it was accessible in that age, of that which is described in St. John’s Gospel as the Logos.  There arose in her the Johannine significance of the Mystery of Golgotha .  Through this strength, the power of the cow horns grasped the paper crown and changed it into an actual golden crown of genuine substance. These, then are the main points that can be told of the new Osiris-Isis legend.  I will not make myself the commentator who explains this Osiris-Isis legend.  It is the other Osiris-Isis legend.  But it must set one thing definitely before our souls:  even though the power of action which is connected with the new Isis statue is only weak, exploring and full of endeavor, it is the beginning of something that is deeply justified in what this age is meant to become and must become. In recent days we have spoken of how the Word has withdrawn from the direct soul-experience from which it originally flowed as from a spring.  We have seen how we live in the age of abstractions, where people’s words and concepts have only an abstract meaning, where human beings stand far removed from reality.  The power of the Word, the power of the Logos, however, must be captured again.  The cow horns of the ancient Isis must take on quite a different form. It is difficult to say such things in modern abstract words.  For such things it is better to try to set them before you, and to work with these imaginations as imaginations.  It is very important for the new Isis to transform the cow horns through the power of the Word which is to be regained through the science of the spirit, so that even the paper crown which has upon it the writing of the new deeply profound scientific method will become a genuine golden crown. [[[which suggests to me something that was the core of Steiner's whole approach to teaching and implicit in all he did and said, i.e.:  a genuine spiritual science -- the best of both worlds [literally and figuratively!].  He said our task is the respiritualization of the world, and his method was to undertake this as a deeply, personally committed and disciplined study, such as he provided, e.g., through a book that is called How to Know Higher Worlds.    p. 77: The modern Isis, the divine Sophia Connection between the ancient Isis/Osiris/Horus myth and the story of Jesus Christ is, according to Steiner, often perceived in a superficial and incorrect way.  He compares not Jesus to Horus, by the way, but Christ to Osiris and the significance of their lives and what they accomplished …  One way he expresses this difference:  Osiris, the representative of the spiritual sun, of the ”Sun Being,” was killed by Typhon/Set/Ahriman.  Isis recovers his body, which Typhon cuts into 14 pieces.  Isis buries these in various places so from then on they belong to the earth. :  The Isis Mystery has as its chief content the death of Osiris and the search of Isis for the dead Osiris.  We know that Osiris, the representative of the Sun Being, the representative of the spiritual sun, was killed by Typhon, who is none other than Ahriman of the Egyptians.  …  Osiris is the representative of the sun powers.  Having passed through death, he is the force which matures everything that grows out of the earth, a force which is present in various places simultaneously.  … imagine how the powers which shine down to us from the sun enter the earth and become part of the earth and how, as sun powers buried in the earth [14 pieces ((What's the special significance of 14, if any?))], they hand over once more to human beings what matures out of the earth. … The Egyptians .. built one of [the] pyramids with such mathematical precision, that its shadow disappeared in the spring equinox owing to the position of the sun – the shadow disappeared into the base of the pyramid and only reappeared in the autumn equinox.  The Egyptians tried to express in this pyramid that the forces which used to shine down from the sun are now buried in the earth and stimulate the forces of the earth, so that the earth may produce the fruits which mankind needs. … On the other hand, they look up to the sun, … to the lofty Sun Being and honour him. … they relate how this Sun Being has been lost in Osiris, and has been sought by Isis , and how the Being has been found again and is able hereafter to continue his activity in a new and changed way. Many things which appeared in Egyptian wisdom must be repeated in a different form during the fifth cultural epoch.  On the basis of spiritual science, we must learn increasingly to reflect on the Mysteries of the Egyptian priests in a form which is suited to our own age, in the light of Christianity.  for the Egyptians, Osiris was a kind of representative of Christ who had not yet appeared.  They looked upon Osiris as the Sun Being but they imagined that this Sun Being had disappeared and must be found again [also like the story of Amiratsu! --- and in an Ancient Japan that knew nothing of a Christ/Sun Being and the significance of Golgotha].  We cannot imagine that humankind could lose the Sun Being, Christ, who has now passed through the Mystery of Golgotha; for he came down from spiritual heights, connected himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth, and now remains connected with the earth.  He is present, he exists as the Christmas carol proclaims each year again:  ‘Unto us a Saviour is born.’  It expresses the eternal, not the transitory nature of this event – that Jesus was not only born once at Bethlehem , but is born continually; in other words, he remains with the life of the earth.  Christ and what he means for us cannot be lost. … It is not the Osiris but the Isis legend that has to be fulfilled in our time.  We cannot lose Christ and what he gives in a higher form than Osiris, but we can lose and we have lost that which we see portrayed by the side of Osiris – Isis, the mother of the Saviour, the divine wisdom, Sophia. If we wish to renew the Isis legend, we cannot take it in the form in which it has been transmitted to us [the original myth]. …  we must form it out of imagination appropriate for our own times.  An understanding of the eternal cosmic truths will return when we learn to create in the world of imagination as the Egyptians did.  We must find the true Isis legend. [A pervading negative force Steiner calls Lucifer, in contrast to another, Ahriman] is the power which tries to bring into the modern world conception that which existed in earlier stages of evolution; he tries to give permanence to that which existed in earlier periods.  All that was moral in earlier periods also exists today of course.  But Lucifer strives to sever the moral forces as such (the significance of the moral forces lies in the fact that they are there in the present, working as seeds for the future), Lucifer strives to sever all moral forces from our world view; he only allows the laws of nature, the necessary and natural aspect, to appear in this world view.  Thus the impoverished human being of modern times possesses a wisdom of the world in which the stars move according to a purely mechanical necessity, devoid of morality; so that the moral meaning of the world’s order cannot be found in their movements.  … a purely luciferic world view. When the Mystery of Golgotha took place, the divine Sophia, the wisdom that sees through the world and enables human beings to comprehend the world, worked in a twofold way – in the revelation to the poor shepherds in the fields, and in the revelation to the wise men from the East.  This was the twofold working of the divine Sophia, the heavenly wisdom.  This wisdom, which was still to be found in its later form among the Gnostics, and which the early Christian Fathers and teachers of the Church learned from the Gnostics and used to enable them to understand the Mystery of Golgotha – this wisdom could not be continued into our times, it was overwhelmed and killed by Lucifer, just as Osiris was killed by Ahriman-Typhon[/Set].  We have not lost Osiris, or Christ; we have lost that which for us takes the place of Isis .  Lucifer has killed it.  but the Isis-being killed by Lucifer was not lowered into the earth, as Typhon lowered Osiris into the Nile; Lucifer carried the Isis being, the divine wisdom whom he had killed, out into cosmic spaces; he lowered her into the cosmic ocean.  When we look out into this ocean and see the stars moving only according to mathematical lines, … we see the grave of the world’s spiritual essence; for the divine Sophia, the successor of Isis , is dead. We must give form to this legend, for it sets out the truth of our times.  We must speak of the dead and lost Isis, the divine Sophia, even as the ancient Egyptians spoke of the dead and lost Osiris.  We must set out in search of the dead body of the new Isis, the dead body of the divine Sophia, with a force which, although we cannot yet rightly understand it, is nevertheless in us – with the force of Christ, with the force of the new Osiris.  We must approach luciferic science and seek there the coffin of Isis; in other words we must find in that which natural science gives us something which stimulates us inwardly towards Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. This brings to us the help of Christ within – Christ, who remains hidden in darkness if we do not illuminate him with divine wisdom.  Armed with this force of Christ, with [[or who is]] the new Osiris, we must set out in search of Isis, the new Isis .  Lucifer does not cut Isis in pieces as Ahriman-Typhon did with Osiris; on the contrary, Isis is spread out in her true shape in the beauty of the whole universe. Isis shines out of the cosmos in an aura of many shining colors.  We must learn to understand Isis when we look out into the cosmos; we must learn to see this cosmos in an aura of shining colours.  But just as Ahriman-Typhon cut Osiris into pieces, so Lucifer blurs and washes out the colors in all their clear distinction, blends and merges into one single whole the parts which are so beautifully distributed over the heavens, the limbs of the new Isis which go to make the great firmament of the heavens.  Even as Typhon cut Osiris in pieces, so Lucifer blends the manifold colours that stream down to us from the whole aura of the cosmos into a uniform white light that streams through the universe.  It is that light which Goethe combated in his colour theory, repudiating the statement that it contains all the colours which in truth are spread out over the marvelous and manifold and secret actions of the whole cosmos.  We must pursue our search until we find Isis , and when we have found her we must learn how to place out into the universe what we are then able to discover and to know. [adding our myriad colors – transformed by our Wisdom-connecting experiences and the maturing fruits born from these cosmic seed experiences] We must have a living picture [super coherence:  Meaning] in our minds of all that we have acquired through the newly found Isis , so that all the heavens become spiritual for us again.  We must understand Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan from within.  We must carry out into the heavenly spaces [[[the ethers / the internet / communication technology??]]] that which Lucifer has made of Isis, just as Isis buried in the earth the parts of the body of Osiris cut into pieces by Typhon-Ahriman.  We must realize that through the force of Christ we can discover an inner astronomy which reveals to us once more the origin and life of the cosmos, as grounded in the force of the spirit.  And then, when we have this insight into the cosmos, awakened through the newly found power of Isis which has not become the power of the divine Sophia, then the Christ who has united with the Earth since the Mystery of Golgotha will become active within us because then we shall know him.  It is not Christ we lack, … but the knowledge and wisdom of Christ, the Sophia of the Christ, the Isis of Christ. This is what we should engrave in our souls, as a content of the Christmas mystery.  We must realize that in the nineteenth century even theology has come to look upon Christ merely as the man of Nazareth .  This means theology is completely permeated by Lucifer.  It no longer has insight into the spiritual foundations of existence.  External natural science is luciferic, theology is luciferic.  Of course if we are speaking of the inner aspect of the human being we can just as well say that in his theology human beings are ahrimanic.  Then in the same way we must say of the Egyptians that they are luciferic, just as we say of them that their perception of the external world is ahrimanic. The Christmas mystery must be grasped once again by modern human beings.  Let them realize that first of all they must seek Isis , in order that Christ may appear to them.  The cause of the misfortunes and troubles of modern civilization is not that we have lost Christ who stands before us in far greater glory than Osiris did in the eyes of the Egyptians.  We have not lost him and need not set out in search of him armed with the force of Isis – what we have lost is the wisdom and knowledge of Jesus Christ.  This is what we must find again with the help of the force of Christ in us. [[such as through the new understanding, perhaps, coming to light through contemporary scholarship centered on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hamadi documents. ... but in our own way]] [[[Speaking of one of the Nag Hammadi documents referred to as "The Secret Book of John":  The Secret Book suggests that the story of Eve's birth from Adam's side speaks of the awakening of this spiritual capacity.  Instead of simply telling about the origin of woman, this story, symbolically read, shows how the "blessed one above, the Father" (or, in some versions .. "Mother-Father"), feeling compassion for Adam, sent him a "helper" -- luminous epinoia ["creative" or "inventive" consciousness] which comes out of him, who is called Life [Eve ((Life = EXPERIENCE!)) from Within!!!]; and she "helps" the whole creation by working with him, and by restoring him to his full being, and by teaching him about the descent of his kind, and by showing the way to ascend, the way he came down. Thus  Eve symbolized the gift of spiritual understanding,which enables us to reflect -- however imperfectly -- upon divine reality. ... The Secret Book intends this story to show that we have a latent capacity within our hearts and minds that links us to the divine -- not in our ordinary state of mind but when this hidden capacity awakens [us to] . . . modes of consciousness susceptible to revelation.      ~~Elaine Pagels ]]] This is how we must regard the content of the Christmas festival.  For many modern people Christmas is nothing but an occasion for giving and receiving presents, something which they celebrate every year through habit.  The Christmas festival has become an empty phrase like so many other things in modern life.  And it is just because so many things have become a phrase that modern life is so full of calamities and chaos.  This is in truth the deeper cause for the chaos in our modern life.  [[reflecting the loss of the most profound meaning of Christ in modern times.  ;  Also,  we may, has was said earlier, attain this new understanding through "clairvoyance," -- through our personal and collective to more expansive awareness --  this consciousness shift.  We can also collectively choose to live with specific questions or needing to know, such as all that is being addressed here, and see what begins to emerge from our individual and amassed insights in the process!!  What an exciting idea!!  This brings to mind something incredibly tantalizing that Rhea White said, what she called an 'added dimension.'   that is seeded from within the few who go "high enough and deep enough" and whose insights/experiences directly influence and become more and more accessible to all of us --- "if we are indeed ONE," as Experiencers universally acknowledge. My dear friends, if in this community we could acquire the right feelings for everything that has become words, has become a phrase in modern life, and if these feelings could enable us to find the impulses needed for renewal, then this community which calls itself the anthroposiphical community would be worthy of its existence.  This community should understand how terrible it is in our age that such things as the Christmas festival should be kept up as a mere phrase.  We should be able to understand that in future this must not happen, and that many things must be given a new content so that instead of acting out of old habits we act out of new and fresh insight.   [[to me this says we must discover the NEW Story from within the many, ultimately recognized as the single story of all of us -- from within us -- as ONE.]] If we cannot find the inner courage needed for this, then we share in the lie which keeps up the yearly Christmas festival merely as a phrase, celebrating it without any true feeling.  Do we really rise to the highest concerns of humanity when we give and receive presents every year at Christmas out of habit?  Do we lift ourselves up to the highest concerns of humanity when we listen to the words – also turned into empty phrases – spoken by the representatives of this or that religious community?  We should forbid ourselves to continue with this inner hollowness of our Christmas celebrations.  We should make the inner decision to give true and worthy content to such a festival, which should raise mankind to comprehend the meaning of its existence. When you stand before the Christmas tree and open the presents which are given out of habit and the Christmas cards containing the usual phrases, ask yourselves, my dear friends, whether the feelings in your hearts and souls can raise mankind to an understanding of the sense and meaning of its evolution on earth.  All the trouble and sorrow of our time is due to this – we cannot find the courage to life ourselves above the phrases of our age.  But it must happen.  A new content must come, a content which can give us entirely new feelings that move us powerfully, even as those were moved who were true Christians in the first Christian centuries and who knew that the Mystery of Golgotha and appearance of Christ upon the earth was the highest which human beings could experience.  Our souls must again acquire something of this spirit. Oh, my dear friends, the soul will rise to altogether new feelings if it is willing to experience the new Isis legend within modern humanity.  Lucifer kills Isis and transfers her body into the cosmic spaces which have become a mathematical abstraction, or the grave of Isis; then comes the search for Isis and her discovery through the impulse given by the inner force of spiritual knowledge, which places into the lifeless sky that which stars and planets reveal through an inner life, so that they appear as monuments of the spiritual powers that flood through space.  look in the right spirit towards the ‘manger’ [[find quote by R. White!---aha:  see below *+* == here it is:  Rhea White quotes a remark from a cherished book [Writing a Woman's Life by Carolyn G. Heilbrun, 1988] that deeply impressed her, which was, "It appears that women had not, until the 1960s, enough anger to see a simple truth, which must always precede complex truths."  What follows is her own inspiration initiated by this premise:  I think there is great wisdom in those words -- that simple truths must precede complex ones.  I think maybe that in trying to find the meaning of psychic and other exceptional human experiences we are trying to start with a complex truth -- one that will satisfy all the pundits -- a finished, polished product that could qualify as the answer of the ages.  I mean -- isn't that what it would take?  We'd almost have to solve the infamous mind-body problem, and the mind-matter problem along with it, and be able to integrate our ideas about psi with the findings of physics, biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, religion -- you name it.  I don't think it can work that way.  To get from here to there I think we have to start from the beginning, from a manger.  And from this simple beginning each of us who is moved to do so must take our context with us, bring our own story along, creating it as we go out of the materials our exceptional human experiences give us, ours and those others share with us. ...] when we first let the powers that flood through space kindle our feeling and then look at that being who came into the world through the child.  We know that we bear this being within us but we must understand him.  Just as the Egyptians looked from Isis to Osiris, so we must learn to look again to the new Isis, the holy Sophia.  Christ will appear in spiritual form during the twentieth century, not through an external happening but inasmuch as human beings find that force which is represented by the holy Sophia.  The present age has the tendency to lose this Isis force, this force of Mary.  It was killed by all that arose with the development of modern consciousness in humankind.  New forms of religion have in part exterminated precisely this view of Mary.  This is the mystery of modern humanity.  Mary-Isis has been killed and she must be sought, just as Osiris was sought by Isis; but she must be sought in the wide space of heaven with the force that Christ can awaken in us is we give ourselves to him in the right way. Let us create the right image of this, let us immerse ourselves in the new Isis legend which we must experience and let us fill our souls with it.  Only then shall we experience in a true sense the holiness of Christmas Eve, leading us into Christmas Day, the Day of Christ.  My dear friends, this anthroposophical community can become a community of human beings United in love because of the search on which they set out together.  let us realize this most intimate and cherished task, let us go in spirit to the manger and bring to the child our sacrifice and our gift in the knowledge that something altogether new must fill our souls, in order that we may undertake the tasks which can lead mankind out of barbarism and into a new civilization. To this end we must help one another in love so that a real community of souls arises in which envy and all such things disappear, and in which we do not look each at our own particular goal but together face, united in love, the great goal which we nave in common.  The mystery which the Christmas child brought into the world has this as its content:  to look at a goal in common without discord. For the common goal implies union and harmony.  The light of Christmas should shine as a light of peace, a light that brings peace outside only because first it sheds an inner peace into the hearts of human beings.  We should understand this and say together:  let us realize this and work together with love on this great task.  Then, and only then, shall we understand Christmas.  Let us remember that when we do sow discord, this discord hinders us in understanding Christ who appeared among us on Christmas Eve.  Can we allow this Christmas mystery to enter into our souls as something which unites our hearts in love and unity?  We cannot do this, my dear friends, unless we understand what spiritual science really means.  Nothing will grow out of this community if we merely bring into it ideas and impulses we have collected from all corners of the world, where phrase and routine hold sway.  Let us remember that our community is facing a difficult year, that all forces must be gathered together, and let us celebrate Christmas in this spirit.  Oh, my dear friends, on this evening I would like to find words which appeal deeply to the heart of each one of you.  then each one of you would feel that my words contain a welcome which is at the same time an appeal to kindle spiritual science within your hearts so that it may become a force which can help humanity to raise itself up again from its terrible oppression. These, my dear friends, are the aspects from which I have gathered the thoughts that I wished to present to you.  let me assure you that they are meant for each one of you as a warm Christmas greeting, as something which can lead you into the New Year in the very best way.  In this spirit, accept my words as a warm and loving Christmas greeting.   Isis-Sophia Wisdom of God: Lucifer has slain her, And on the wings of the world-wide forces Carried her hence into cosmic space. Christ-Will Working in human beings Shall wrest from Lucifer And on the vessels of spirit-knowledge Call to new life in human souls Isis-Sophia Wisdom of God.       =========  From page ix, intro in Anthroposophy in Every Day Life .. Steiner wrote in his Autobiography, “Shortly before the turn of the century,” a profound experience was given to him:  an experience that “culminated in my standing in the spiritual presence of the Mystery of Golgotha in a most profound and solemn festival of knowledge.”  This experience marked a call.  Shortly thereafter, he left the literary and philosophical world of letters and joined his destiny to the movement for the renewal of spiritual knowledge in our time.   Footnote:  Steiner, An Autobiography (Blauvelt, NY: Steinerbooks, 1991) p. 319. ==--   Also connect this with:   Mythos carries the soul-level truth of a culture.  When that truth begins to change, we thirst for new stories and images:  not only to help us make sense of the changes, although that is immensely important, but to help us find our connections to each other, to the natural world, and to our past and our future.  Without these stories and images, we lose our connections.  It is as if we are chopped into fragments with our worlds broken apart, the physical separated from the imaginal.  Jungian analyst Marion Woodman told us, "At that point, we lack the cosmos that keeps us in touch with the universal reality.  Without stories, we have no way to recollect ourselves when our personal world shatters."        Is this right?  could our modern sense of disconnection, our lack of continuity wit the past and lack of responsibility for the future, be caused by lack of a story?  Or even more unbelievable, a myth?  Any schoolchild will tell you that myths are stories that aren't true.  But, as storyteller Erica Meade says, a myth is a story that's true on the inside.  And its a story teller's work to reveal the inside of truths of a culture.  It's a natural part of what Cultural Creatives want and value:  a way to remember that they do not stand alone, a way to weave new patterns into the social fabric, spinning lifelines that link the generations.     ~~Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson         ==--   *+*           Rhea White quotes a remark from a cherished book [Writing a Woman's Life by Carolyn G. Heilbrun, 1988] that deeply impressed her, which was, "It appears that women had not, until the 1960s, enough anger to see a simple truth, which must always precede complex truths."  What follows is her own inspiration initiated by this premise:  I think there is great wisdom in those words -- that simple truths must precede complex ones.  I think maybe that in trying to find the meaning of psychic and other exceptional human experiences we are trying to start with a complex truth -- one that will satisfy all the pundits -- a finished, polished product that could qualify as the answer of the ages.  I mean -- isn't that what it would take?  We'd almost have to solve the infamous mind-body problem, and the mind-matter problem along with it, and be able to integrate our ideas about psi with the findings of physics, biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, religion -- you name it.  I don't think it can work that way.  To get from here to there I think we have to start from the beginning, from a manger.  And from this simple beginning each of us who is moved to do so must take our context with us, bring our own story along, creating it as we go out of the materials our exceptional human experiences give us, ours and those others share with us. ...  ===================== this is almost exactly the same material above with additional highlights and notes to look at.  important!     Very rough, though the ideas are here.  IN PROCESS !      Some of material below from: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/English/RPC1961/GA008_sketch.html     Rudolf Steiner   The New Isis Reverence and .. Philosophy of Freedom The MORE that is human ... in his words..   http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/English/RPC1961/GA008_sketch.html [excerpts from] Christianity As Mystical Fact Introduction: Rudolf Steiner — A Biographical Sketch With these unfolding powers Steiner now developed up to his death in 1925, in twenty-five momentous years, that truly vast and awe-inspiring body of spiritual and practical knowledge to which he gave the name “Anthroposophy.” (Incidentally, this word was first coined by Thomas Vaughan, a brother of the English mystical poet, Henry Vaughan, in the 17th century.) Anthroposophy literally means wisdom of man or the wisdom concerning man, but in his later years Steiner himself interpreted it on occasion as “an adequate consciousness of being human.” In this interpretation the moral achievement of Steiner's work, his mission, his message to a bewildered humanity which has lost “an adequate consciousness of being human,” to which Man has become “the Unknown,” is summed up. This monumental work lies before us today and is waiting to be fully discovered by our Age — in some 170 books and in the published transcripts of nearly 6,000 lectures. Compare above to Rhea / James:  the MORE that is human!   =-   Magreet van den Brink, in More Precious Than Light:  How dialogue can transform relationships and build community describes Rudolf Steiner’s observations about the human soul, along the lines of its evolution.  Just as we know the brain has evolved and continued to build on the original model, so to speak, from “reptilian brain” to the mammalian brain to the now thin veneer of the cognitive brain, the soul, too, can be similarly seen to have evolved with one “layer” building on and deeply interconnected with the original layer/s.  He describes three such aspects to the human soul:  The sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and now the consciousness soul that is a very new development and is another way to “name” the evolutionary leap we are in the midst of together.  … [..DESCRIBE][p.44-45] [O] ur   spiritual being, the spirit self, for its greatest part still lives concealed within us.  Most of it lies dormant in the unconscious regions of our soul:  the depths of the etheric and physical body.  When however we become inwardly active, that is, turn inward in to our soul with the consciousness that comes from our higher being, it can step by step be lifted up through the different parts of the soul and so gradually awaken in the I.         First, in a more dreamy, feeling way in the sentient soul, then more clearly in concepts in the intellectual soul, until it finally becomes conscious of itself in the consciousness soul and so becomes liberated and free.         When we apply this to the true conversation in which both partners show interest in each other, ask questions and listen with an active open attitude of mind to what is being told, we get the following process.         When we ask each other to speak out we recall in our sentient soul that which lives in us as feelings, questions, needs, ideas, impulses, in relation to the subject we are dealing with.  That activates the soul.  The experiences start to ‘live’ in us and we become more inwardly lively.  It shows that the spirit self begins to awaken in this part of the soul.  That is why so much happens already when one person gets the chance to speak with someone else who is interested, listens carefully and goes into the subject with open questions, someone who is inwardly active.  When we then name the experiences that are heard, order them with the thinking and form tentative conclusions that bring us to first insights, we lift these up to the level of the intellectual soul.        A further step to an even higher level takes place in this process of awakening when we let that which we have found intellectually connect with the deeper layers of our being in the consciousness soul and let the experiences speak out of their essence, their meaning.  [[[R. White calls this the EHE Process.]]]         [[get book:  Hans Schauder:  Conversations on Counselling.]] also mentions these different stages, speaks in an impressive way about the inner attitude and the quality of mind that is needed to reach this level of consciousness.  He says that we should let that which we have found so far – the images of the experience and that which we have thought about it – sing into the depths of our inner being and let them ripen there.  Then after some time, answers and solutions will arise out of the depths of our soul that fill us with feelings of certainty and truth.        That is how we can in true conversations help each other to awaken the higher being living in us.  the insights that we receive on the level of the consciousness soul then touch us again because of their truth.  We feel liberated and happy that we have found something essentially true.  This emotion and happiness brings us back to our sentient soul and from there the acquired insights and truths enrich and enhance the whole soul [[[like food to the body which also feeds the capacity for intellectual and even spiritual pursuits and insights and experiences]]].    … a few paragraphs later:[p. 46]         This reveals clearly what the process of spiritual growth entails:  every time we first have to experience afresh all our experiences in the sentient soul, then we have to think about them and finally distil or ‘peel’ the essence out of these experiences.  By repeatedly passing through this process of active self-reflection and judgement building, the spirit being within us is gradually awakened, step by step.  At the same time, this process allows us to digest the things we have experienced.  Yes, there is even a close connection between the extend to which we digest our experiences and the extent to which our spiritual being is released.    In his book, Theosophy, Steiner writes:  ‘The human spirit grows by means of digesting the experiences.’         This spiritual growth is possible only because Christ lives in us, and when we reap the fruits of our experiences, it is heshe who transforms the substance of the soul into the spiritual substance of the spirit self.  This means that  the I not only is strengthened with the power of the Spirit itself but also by the power of Christ.  The same process of self-reflection and judgement-building takes place in life after death in the spiritual world.  There too, we look back at our lives and experience everything afresh.  The atmosphere of truth and goodness which prevails there gives us insights  into all the experiences of our past life, and then we can harvest the essence of these, the fruits which it has produced.  This essence is then in turn transformed into new abilities and skills with which we are born in the next life.          Now that the Spirit is becoming more active on earth, this process should also increasingly take place in our conscious life here on earth.  This is the purpose of the social path.  For it is only possible to harvest the fruits and the produce of our experiences on earth to the proper extent and depth, if there is another person who is willing to listen, to empathize and to think with us – a person who for a short moment is willing to serve my spiritual growth, and who in turn will need another person to help her or him go through this process her- or himself.           All this clearly shows why there is such a great need for true encounters and conversations in our time.  Nowadays every person has a deep desire to be heard, seen and known.  Intuitively, we are aware that we are only really born when this happens.  Yet we still meet one another so little.  We talk to each other about other people, work and sports, about our families and our children, but very rarely about those things which truly matter to us and which touch us inwardly.    [also p. 48 !!]    =- Especially the turquoise above: Something about this resonates vibrantly with Rhea’s EHE autobiographical process … study groups maybe …    Sandy   ’s biographical studies      ---Where to go with this???       =-   The following almost sounds like a contemporary retelling of the  Isis myth:            Christopher Bamford in the Introduction to Anthroposophy in Everyday Life says, “A major task facing humanity as it moves into the new millennium is that of uniting spiritual and practical life.” [[[Rhea says almost exactly the same things – line before and pink that follows.]]] He describes how religion, even a “pervasive sense of the sacred,” was so deeply woven into the fabric of human life until recent times.  “But, with the rise of the Modern Age, a powerful cleft was driven between human beings, nature, and the divine. We may call the process secularization.’ Religion and spiritual life became increasingly marginalized.  Instead of spiritual realities, human beings pursued this-worldly ends, such as comfort and wealth.  Thus, gradually, the thread connecting saints and esoteric masters with the general life of humanity was broken; meaning fragmented; and the sacramental relation of human beings to each other and the cosmos ceased to function.  Materialism in its many guises – positivism, Darwinism, Marxism etc. – now became the guiding principle in science and society.  Religion and culture – religion and the state – were separated and spiritual, religious life became a question of individual responsibility.        “This was a heavy burden to bear for individuals who had not only to create a spiritual life for themselves, but increasingly had to do so in opposition to the very quarters from which help might have been expected.  For, as society plunged into materialism, the Churches, not wishing to be left out, joined willingly in the descent.  There were, of course, exceptions to this tendency, but such generally was the situation at the beginning of the twentieth century when Rudolf Steiner [1861-1924] began to teach …”          Steiner says to rediscover the true Christ, we must first find / reclaim  Isis , which is the basis of the New Isis myth.  He feelingly urges us to attend to reclaiming this myth as essential to our time and need as a species.  Isis and Sophia and Mary, according to Steiner, are roughly equivalent.  I believe this is exactly what is happening, literally, through the efforts of a devoted global scholarship that has only fairly recently been able to translate and study the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hamadi texts and other corroborative sources from the times these were written.  These materials were born out of the early Christian era and the century before.  What is being discovered is a far more clarifying understanding of that era, including about the historic Jesus, such as through Robert Eisenman’s painstakingly detailed works about James, the brother of Jesus; the works of several outstanding researchers concerning the incredible mix of cults and religious ideologies of the last century before Jesus and through the couple of centuries during and after his life; a few revelatory texts in particular, such as the Gospel of Thomas; the lives and passionate beliefs of the first followers of Jesus and James, who were Jews, not Christians per se; and the Gnostics such as portrayed in the very popular works of Elaine Pagels and several others.          The operative word here is “Gnosticism” – an interesting allusion to Sophia, which takes us back to the “new  Isis myth.”  In short this global network of researchers is bringing to light a whole new take on the Jewish history and thought of that time and also that of the early Christians and including almost entire rewrite, you could say, because of what is being learned about the proponents of two factions in particular – one that eventually became the Western Catholic church [in the name of Peter and Paul] and the other that is more fully associated with Eastern Orthodox belief, but in its own right was almost entirely and intentionally marginalized, even destroyed and suppressed and obliterated, represented by James the brother of Jesus and also the Gnostics.        I believe in significant ways we are today re-enacting fundamental conflicts of that time, and by fully grasping that momentous historical context in the new way it is coming to our awareness, we will discover much more about ourselves and what it  means to be Human.  =-   Steiner and Christianity    Christ as the center of earthly evolution Steiner describes Christ's being and mission on earth as having a central place in human evolution, emphasizing that, according his understanding:[41]    The being of Christ is central to all religions, though called by different names by each.  Each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born.  The historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the on-going evolution of humanity.  It is the being that unifies all religions — and not a particular religious faith — that Steiner saw as the central force in human evolution. He understood Christ's incarnation as a historical reality, and a pivotal point in human history. The "Christ Being" is for Steiner, however, not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's "evolutionary" processes and of all human history, manifesting in all religions and cultures. [41] The essence of being "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes.[42]       Divergence from conventional Christian thought Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements.[43] Only a very simplified account of those views can be given here, because, although they amount to only about 4% of his total works, that 4% still amounts to some 15 volumes of books and lectures — and many of the other 335 or more volumes contain additional scattered comments on Christianity. [citation needed]    One of the central points of divergence is found in Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma; these are explicated in the article on Anthroposophy (see sub-section titled "Anthroposophy in Brief/Reincarnation and Karma").    Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew; the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke.[36] (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth.)    Steiner's view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual. He suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but rather, meant that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, in the "etheric realm" — i.e. visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life — for increasing numbers of people, beginning around the year 1933. He emphasized that the future would require humanity to recognize this Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of how this is named. He also warned that the traditional name, "Christ", might be used, yet the true essence of this Being of Love ignored.[43]       The Christian Community In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in   Berlin   . Rittelmeyer asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer — mostly Protestant pastors, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services, combining Catholicism's emphasis on the rites of a sacred tradition with the emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life characteristic of modern, Johannine Christianity.[36]    Steiner made it clear, however, that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity, which became known as "The Christian Community", was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of the Anthroposophical Society.[36] The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality.[41] For those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.      =====-      Who was  Isis ?  Steiner, p. 69, from original myth:  “.. Isis was the epitome of all the deepest thoughts the Egyptians were able to form about the archetypal forces working in nature and in human beings.  … Beneath [statue in temple at  Sais ] was written the inscription that was intended to express the being of  Isis :  ‘I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future.  No mortal has yet lifted my veil.’  .. the laity saw it as a legend.  In the mysteries, the priests explained that the ancient period of Osiris was the time in which the old clairvoyance united human beings with the spirit of nature all about him. For an understanding of the Osiris-Isis legend or myth in our time, one must view it with the feelings that were in the soul and in the heart of an Egyptian [given above] and through these characteristics we must view with our soul what once sounded over from ancient times into more recent times, which lost its meaning through the Mystery of Golgotha, but the riddle of which must be revealed again today – precisely for the better understanding of the mystery of Golgotha.  [[[ GAIA myth and [?] – going in the right direction! ]]]    …. Statue in special place in  land of  Vulgaria   [in another source:  Philistinia!] During time of remarkable scientific advancement. Open secret Behind statue was REAL  Isis , invisible. But she was asleep! Some few people in the country of profound scientific knowledge had once heard of this remarkable connection between what was visible and what was, in the image of  Isis , concealed behind what was open and evident. Some few who in special circumstances in special moments, had nevertheless seen this new  Isis , found that she is asleep.  And so we can say that the real underlying statue that conceals itself behind the external statue is the sleeping new  Isis ; a sleeping figure – visible – but seen by few.   Inscription plainly seen by anyone:  I am the Human Being, I am the Past, the Present and the Future.  Every mortal should lift my veil. [[[hmmmm … all things EHE??]]] Another person, a visitor, once approached the sleeping figure of the new  Isis , and then again and again.  And the sleeping  Isis considered this visitor her special benefactor and loved him.  And one day she believed in a particular illusion, just as the visitor believed one day in a particular illusion:  the new  Isis had a child – and she considered the visitor whom she looked on as her benefactor to be the father.  He regarded himself as the father but he was not.  The spirit visitor, none other than the new Typhon, believed that he could acquire a special increase of his power in the world if he took possession of the new  Isis .  So the new  Isis had a child, but she did not know its nature, she knew nothing of the being of this new child.  And she moved it about, she dragged it far off to other countries, because she believed that she must do so.  she trailed the new child about, and since she had trailed and dragged it through various regions .. it fell to pieces into 14 parts through the very power of the world. Thus the new  Isis had carried her child into the world and the world had dismembered it in 14 pieces.  When the spirit visitor, the new Typhon, learnt about this, he gathered together the 14 pieces, and with all the profound knowledge of natural science he again made a being, a single whole, out of the 14 pieces.  But this being contained only mechanical laws, the laws of the machine.  Thus a being had arisen with the appearance of life, but with the laws of the machine.  And since this being had arisen out of 14 pieces, it could reproduce itself again, fourteenfold, and Typhon could give a reflection of his own being to each piece so that each of the 14 children of the new Isis had a countenance that resembled the new Typhon. And  Isis watched this strange affair; she could see the complete miraculous change that had come to her child.  She knew that she had herself dragged it about, that she had herself brought all this to pass.  But there came a day when in its true, its genuine form she could accept it again [[[spiritual science – and as opposed to Westernization of world, first through Western science and its offshoots – new technologies, industrialization, the modern worldview]]] from a group of spirits who were elemental spirits of nature; she could receive it from nature elementals. As she received her true child [[[spiritual science]]], which had been turned into the child of Typhon only through an illusion, there dawned upon her a remarkable clairvoyant vision:  she suddenly noticed that she still had the cow horns of ancient  Egypt , in spite of having become a new  Isis . And when she had thus become clairvoyant, the power of her clairvoyance summoned some say Typhon himself, some say Mercury.  And he was obliged through the power of the clairvoyance of the new Isis to set a crown on her head in the place where once the old  Isis had the crown which Horus had seized from her, that is to say, on the spot where she developed the cow horns.  But this crown was merely of paper, covered with all sorts of writings of a profoundly scientific nature, but nevertheless of paper.  And she now had two crowns on her head, the cow horns and the paper crown embellished with all the wisdom of profound scientific knowledge. Through the strength of her clairvoyance there one day arose in her the deep meaning, to the extent that it was accessible in that age, of that which is described in St. John’s Gospel as the Logos.  There arose in her the Johannine significance of the Mystery of  Golgotha .  Through this strength, the power of the cow horns grasped the paper crown and changed it into an actual golden crown of genuine substance. These, then are the main points that can be told of the new Osiris-Isis legend.  I will not make myself the commentator who explains this Osiris-Isis legend.  It is the other Osiris-Isis legend.  But it must set one thing definitely before our souls:  even though the power of action which is connected with the new  Isis statue is only weak, exploring and full of endeavor, it is the beginning of something that is deeply justified in what this age is meant to become and must become. In recent days we have spoken of how the Word has withdrawn from the direct soul-experience from which it originally flowed as from a spring.  We have seen how we live in the age of abstractions, where people’s words and concepts have only an abstract meaning, where human beings stand far removed from reality.  The power of the Word, the power of the Logos, however, must be captured again.  The cow horns of the ancient  Isis must take on quite a different form. It is difficult to say such things in modern abstract words.  For such things it is better to try to set them before you, and to work with these imaginations as imaginations.  It is very important for the new Isis to transform the cow horns through the power of the Word which is to be regained through the science of the spirit, so that even the paper crown which has upon it the writing of the new deeply profound scientific method will become a genuine golden crown. [[[which suggests to me something that was the core of Steiner's whole approach to teaching and implicit in all he did and said, i.e.:  a genuine spiritual science -- the best of both worlds [literally and figuratively!].  He said our task is the respiritualization of the world, and his method was to undertake this as a deeply, personally committed and disciplined study, such as he provided, e.g., through a book that is called How to Know Higher Worlds. ]]]    p. 77: The modern Isis, the divine Sophia Connection between the ancient Isis/Osiris/Horus myth and the story of Jesus Christ is, according to Steiner, often perceived in a superficial and incorrect way.  He compares not Jesus to Horus, by the way, but Christ to Osiris and the significance of their lives and what they accomplished …  One way he expresses this difference:  Osiris, the representative of the spiritual sun, of the ”Sun Being,” was killed by Typhon/Set/Ahriman.   Isis recovers his body, which Typhon cuts into 14 pieces.   Isis buries these in various places so from then on they belong to the earth.:  The Isis Mystery has as its chief content the death of Osiris and the search of  Isis for the dead Osiris.  We know that Osiris, the representative of the Sun Being, the representative of the spiritual sun, was killed by Typhon, who is none other than Ahriman of the Egyptians.  …   Osiris is the representative of the sun powers.  Having passed through death, he is the force which matures everything that grows out of the earth, a force which is present in various places simultaneously.  … imagine how the powers which shine down to us from the sun enter the earth and become part of the earth and how, as sun powers buried in the earth [14 pieces ((What's the special significance of 14, if any?))], they hand over once more to human beings what matures out of the earth. … The Egyptians .. built one of [the] pyramids with such mathematical precision, that its shadow disappeared in the spring equinox owing to the position of the sun – the shadow disappeared into the base of the pyramid and only reappeared in the autumn equinox.  The Egyptians tried to express in this pyramid that the forces which used to shine down from the sun are now buried in the earth and stimulate the forces of the earth, so that the earth may produce the fruits which mankind needs.… On the other hand, they look up to the sun, … to the lofty Sun Being and honour him. … they relate how this Sun Being has been lost in Osiris, and has been sought by  Isis , and how the Being has been found again and is able hereafter to continue his activity in a new and changed way.  Many things which appeared in Egyptian wisdom must be repeated in a different form during the fifth cultural epoch.  On the basis of spiritual science, we must learn increasingly to reflect on the Mysteries of the Egyptian priests in a form which is suited to our own age, in the light of Christianity.  for the Egyptians, Osiris was a kind of representative of Christ who had not yet appeared.  They looked upon Osiris as the Sun Being but they imagined that this Sun Being had disappeared and must be found again [also like the story of Amiratsu! --- and in an Ancient Japan that knew nothing of a Christ/Sun Being and the significance of Golgotha ].  We cannot imagine that humankind could lose the Sun Being, Christ, who has now passed through the Mystery of Golgotha; for he came down from spiritual heights, connected himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth, and now remains connected with the earth.  He is present, he exists as the Christmas carol proclaims each year again:  ‘Unto us a Saviour is born.’  It expresses the eternal, not the transitory nature of this event – that Jesus was not only born once at   Bethlehem   , but is born continually; in other words, he remains with the life of the earth.  Christ and what he means for us cannot be lost. … It is not the Osiris but the  Isis legend that has to be fulfilled in our time.  We cannot lose Christ and what he gives in a higher form than Osiris, but we can lose and we have lost that which we see portrayed by the side of Osiris – Isis, the mother of the Saviour, the divine wisdom, Sophia. If we wish to renew the  Isis legend, we cannot take it in the form in which it has been transmitted to us [the original myth]. …  we must form it out of imagination appropriate for our own times.  [[[We are learning to own and celebrate the feminine, including into the ‘art’ of science as it is now changing to merge more and more with spirituality through the recognition of consciousness.]]]  An understanding of the eternal cosmic truths will return when we learn to create in the world of imagination as the Egyptians did.  We must find the true  Isis legend.[A pervading negative force Steiner calls Lucifer, in contrast to another, Ahriman] is the power which tries to bring into the modern world conception that which existed in earlier stages of evolution; he tries to give permanence to that which existed in earlier periods.  All that was moral in earlier periods also exists today of course.  But Lucifer strives to sever the moral forces as such (the significance of the moral forces lies in the fact that they are there in the present, working as seeds for the future), Lucifer strives to sever all moral forces from our world view; he only allows the laws of nature, the necessary and natural aspect, to appear in this world view.  [[[aha.  All things EHE bring fully into focus ‘a reverence for all life and also moral consciousness that is universal, natural to these experiences.]]]  Thus the impoverished human being of modern times possesses a wisdom of the world in which the stars move according to a purely mechanical necessity, devoid of morality; so that the moral meaning of the world’s order cannot be found in their movements.  … a purely luciferic world view.  When the Mystery of Golgotha took place, the divine Sophia, the wisdom that sees through the world and enables human beings to comprehend the world, worked in a twofold way – in the revelation to the poor shepherds in the fields, and in the revelation to the wise men from the East.  This was the twofold working of the divine Sophia, the heavenly wisdom.  [[[twofold:  EHEs – shepherds ; and those who of their own wisdom recognized the Holy Child.  They too must have been EHEers to have this ability to See.  So maybe we are talking about our Adepts of all ages, not just today.  But:  Steiner, Aurobindo, Rhea White, Spangler, The Mother and also Mother Meera, Ama, and a wealth of others]]]  This wisdom, which was still to be found in its later form among the Gnostics, and which the early Christian Fathers and teachers of the Church learned from the Gnostics and used to enable them to understand the Mystery of Golgotha – this wisdom could not be continued into our times, it was overwhelmed and killed by Lucifer, just as Osiris was killed by Ahriman-Typhon [/Set].  We have not lost Osiris, or Christ; we have lost that which for us takes the place of  Isis .   [[[this was as far as i got]]]            MYTH  LIST   1. The phenomenon of EHEs of this age -- ultimately awakening all of us to the MORE that we are as Human, transforming us one person and one experience at a time [Rhea A. White]  2. The Universe Story [Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme; Teilhard de Chardin]  3. The Caterpillar and the Butterfly, Generation 2!  [Elisabet Sahtouris]  4. The New Isis Myth [Rudolf Steiner]  5. Reimagining the Center [David Spangler]  6. The Ten Thousand Mirrors [Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson]  7. Incarnational Spirituality [David Spangler]  8. Something along the lines of Limitless Love and Truth's Revelations? [David Spangler]  9. We have much more creative control over our lives and so-called deaths that we ever imagined! [Mellen Thomas Benedict] 10. ?? [PMH Atwater] 11. The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily--an initiatory myth; how about a global myth on this theme? [Johann W. von Goethe] 12. The Gnostics' story so relevant to NOW! 13. The Cosmic Christ; the Earth Logos; the Sun Being who incarnated for our sakes and for the Earth [David Spangler; Rudolf Steiner, ...] 14. Oneness [Rasha; David Spangler; Rudolf Steiner, etc.] 15. We are wakening to our innate creative / co-creative powers as Self-Aware, divine beings [Abraham-Hicks; Neville; AK Mozumdar; etc.] 16. Ishtar-Tammuz [suggested by Joan Borysenko in The Fabric of the Future] 17 Sri Aurobindo AND The Mother [Mirra Alfasa] -- bringing down the Descending Force-Consciousness of the Supramental [See Satprem.  Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. 18. and The Mother [Mirra Alfasa]-- Also:  She talks about another[?] kind of experience I don't know yet how to put with the first agenda of her and Sri Aurobindo.  It has to do with discovering Spirit in matter  -- in the very cells of the body.  [My info comes from an extraordinary 31-page paper that can be downloaded from:  www.aurobindo.ru/workings/stapres/the_great_sense_e.htm ]   19.   Mother Meera -- Bringing down the Paramatman Light.  [Not sure of address, but she has a website.].  She spent a number of formative years in Auroville.  The Mother was still in body for some of that time.  What's the connection between the descending Supramental Force-Consciousness of Aurobindo and the Mother -- and Mother Meera's Paramatman Light??] 20. Odds and ends: new story:  the pieces science and spirituality/religion the Garden, revisited the Cosmic Christ       Also see, or back to The NEW Story