THE SPIRITUAL BODY

Philip Matthews

Initiation is nothing other than man’s gaining the capacity of developing organs of vision in his higher bodies.
Rudolf Steiner, Egyptian Myths and Mysteries.

I want here to extend the scheme laid out in my last essay on the Spiritual Organs. You will find that the means used to gain this new knowledge differs significantly from that used in my previous essay. There, if you remember, disclosure was by and large involuntary and complete in every instance – I mean that the images revealed were complete in themselves, even though they might be extended or augmented at a later stage by other images. Here, as you will see, knowledge is gained in a more piecemeal way, often by simply studying familiar patterns in a new light. And while an overall pattern will emerge, many details will remain hidden, awaiting future investigation.

These very different spiritual experiences arise because they are received by different parts of our being. Characterising these experiences as image-concept and form-presence, we can pinpoint the sources of the experiences in the astral-mental and the etheric-will respectively. The nature of these experiences can be contrasted as light to dark, voice to form: that which calls to us in contrast to that which impresses us. Our response differs too: we welcome the astral experience because of its apparent familiarity, but are apprehensive of the etheric experience because the forms discovered there are often strange.

A deeper reason for this dichotomy can be discerned. The primary aim of spiritual experience is to help us achieve the full unfolding of our spiritual natures. This involves initially an awakening to our own spiritual selves, and then a gradual revelation of the whole spiritual world of which we are an integral part. The first task is concerned with the future, with the complete spiritual beings we are to become. The second task is concerned with what is eternally present, but which we experience in our limited being as arising solely from the past.

It is understandable that the promise of the future – the unrealised ideas – the call to be enlarged in love, should fill us with happy anticipation. It is also understandable that the encounter with the eternal should daunt us, should seem almost an obstacle to our bright future. It is not for nothing that we are told that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: anyone who has entered on the spiritual work knows how easily we are put in fear by the awesome reality of our being and that of the spiritual world.

Even so, there are aids that can serve us in our experience of the etheric-form world. The most obvious is the light of consciousness which arises in us through our experience of the astral-concepts. This consciousness is not merely the means whereby we have knowledge of our future-ideas, it is an accompaniment of these ideas which we are expected to use in our encounter with the etheric-forms. As well as this, our etheric will-nature offers us assistance through the means more usually called the artistic or creative power resident in each one of us.

In these days of excessive ‘head-work’ and the pre-eminence of the concept in aesthetics, it is often forgotten that art is in essence an operation of the will. Art-work is realised through the limbs: every artist knows the phenomenon of the ‘wisdom of the hand’, how the appropriate expressions – words, brush-strokes, notes – flow from an active hand. It is by means of this wisdom of the hand that the initial contact with the etheric-forms is achieved. It is the hand that must open this book, draw this shape, arrange this list of terms or attributes. Consciousness serves here by permitting an increased sensitivity to the impulses of the hand. Later, it will serve to register what arises from the contact of our hand-will with the dark forms that have resided since before birth in our etheric bodies.

Now, what arises here is only superficially similar to our experience of the astral-ideas. The latter flash upon us, bright, detailed, complete. Then they are gone – yet we have clear memories of them, as though they have been imprinted in our minds. But the images that arise through our hand-work are often uncoloured and reserved, though they will persist under our inspection. They are also strange, sometimes because they seem out of context, other times because they are incongruous in detail. We always regret their passing and remember them as something lost – this despite the fact that they can be easily recalled to mind as memory-images.

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Astrology is a most complete science, of astounding detail and complexity. It claims to convey complete knowledge of man and the stars. Constructing a natal horoscope can be an overwhelming experience; attempting to analyse the structure of the Zodiacal sequence can lead to a profound confusion in the face of the wealth of relations implicit in its apparently simple structure.

For many years I was intrigued by this Zodiacal form, often laying out the circle of the houses and listing attribute after attribute. In time I came to focus on an obvious curiosity: why are some of the planets attributed to more than one sign? One evening I finally did what I had long felt urged to do: I made a list of the planets and laid against them their attributed signs, thus:

I was very surprised by this. I had never seen this list in a work on astrology. (I have since only seen one instance, which I will discuss later.) But despite feeling that this arrangement was of some significance I could find no way of developing it, except perhaps calling one list day and the other night, light and dark, and so on.

It was only when the spiritual experiences of early 1996 brought me to link my own preoccupation with the Chakras with Rudolf Steiner’s teaching on the Spiritual Organs that the seven-fold array implicit in my astrological list became significant. I was aware of Rudolf Steiner’s schemes of 12-fold and 7-fold orders, but only now did I begin to feel the urge to construct a plan relating the Zodiac circle of signs to the diameter of seven planets. It was a slow, blind groping over a period of months, which crystallised during a study of the Fifth Gospel. Here Rudolf Steiner brings together the numerical elements important to his teachings, and also underlying the astrological plan. These are:

Finally, in the middle of a night in August 1996, I brought these various schemes together for the first time: a circle of 12 nodes, a central spine of 7 nodes, a cross of four elements, and a suggestive figure of the three remaining elements. This was the plan:

This is the bare scheme. I made the following attributions:

But it was soon evident that to place my initial astrological list on the Zodiacal plan the outer nodes must be displaced from their clock-face positions, thus:

Now the planets and signs are aligned in their respective relations, with only the Sun out of place. This new layout occupied my attention for many months and led me into pretty arcane corners. The outcome, however, was the recognition of the importance of the three-fold astrological sequence of Cardinal, Mutable and Fixed signs. Lay them out on the new scheme:

This immediately suggests a new arrangement of 4-fold and 3-fold elements. It is now apparent that the Mutable signs are the focus of a relationship between the 3- and 4-fold orders. It was then that I saw the relation of this astrological scheme to the 12-point layout of the Heart Chakra, which I had received in meditation early in 1996. At once the whole scheme came together in principle, with the outer 12-fold structure pointing to Rudolf Steiner’s schemes of 12 physical organs and 12 senses (both related explicitly to the astrological scheme), and the inner spine of planets repeating the seven-fold tier of Chakras or spiritual organs. Here the Heart Chakra mirrors exactly within the spiritual organs the external physical form – thus:

When you consider that Rudolf Steiner repeatedly says that the 12-fold scheme of physical organs is a projection of a 12-fold spiritual order, then it is possible to see in this scheme not only a plan of the human being but also a concise representation of the whole spiritual order.

This, then, is the fundamental scheme discoverable by means of the wisdom of the hand. Now, following on this achievement, it became possible for consciousness to press against the meanings of the scheme and to register in meditation what various aspects of the scheme have to communicate about their natures. As you will see, such communications are partial and strange, but thankfully further light can be shed on them by reference to Rudolf Steiner’s encyclopaedic disclosures.

I must emphasise here that my researches are not systematic. I dread leading the witness, as it were, aware of the temptation to clutch at pat answers to what are deep and serious enquires. It is like walking on thin ice.

The first insight arose in the hand, in a conviction that a dynamic relation exists between the opposing Mutable nodes. I saw this as a motion from the Cardinal mode through the Mutable node to the Fixed node – from Libra through Virgo to Leo, for instance – that involves a reciprocal interaction between the Mercury Mutable Virgo and its opposite, the Jupiter Mutable Pisces, which in some way assists the transitions from Cardinal to Fixed signs in both 3-fold schemes, thus:

This in turn suggested a comprehensive dynamic, with the heart as centre:

It was hard to know what to make of this curious scheme, until I read Rudolf Steiner’s account of Nietzsche’s intellectual career in Human and Cosmic Thought. Nietzsche’s inability to advance from an intellectual outlook related to the sign Taurus caused him to shift to the intellectual outlook characterised by the sign opposite Taurus, that is, Scorpio. Rudolf Steiner offers no explanation for this reciprocation, but it must surely be connected with how the four elements are distributed about the Zodiacal signs. The 3-fold dynamic of Cardinal, Mutable and Fixed signs can only include three of the elements: the fourth is always found in the opposing Mutable sign, thus:

Notice also that the elements reciprocate with those they have an affinity for: Fire to Air, Water to Earth. There is a mystery to be drawn from this scheme that will reward the effort required.

The second instance is clearer, though once again not coinciding exactly. In December 1997, during a particularly deep meditation, I saw elements of the plan laid out, then saw imposed upon it two angelic figures extending out along the two lower Mutable lines. However, while the being on the left was clearly seen, that on the right was obviously truncated at the chest, so that only the lower part was visible. Above both, and above the plane of the Sun-Heart Chakra, there was a white dove, its wings raised upwards.

I was for a long time perplexed by this vision, unable to account for the truncation of the figure on the right. Then late in 1999, while studying Rudolf Steiner’s The Effects of Spiritual Development, I found the answer. Discussing the changes that occur in the etheric body in the course of the year, Dr Steiner describes how the head of the etheric body grows indistinct through spring into summer, then becoming more distinct again during the autumn. The process involved here is quite complex and I will touch on some general features only.

The Earth sleeps in the summer, thus leaving the human being alone. At this time we can perceive our etheric body more clearly than in the other seasons. The upper part – specifically the head – of the etheric body becomes indistinct in the summer because of our growing awareness that beings, whom Rudolf Steiner calls Amshaspands, are working on the etheric organisation of the brain. Our understanding of this process is extended when it is realised that the lower right Mutable sign in my scheme is Gemini, which is the locus of the Ego.

I cannot expand upon the presence of the aspiring white dove in this vision without resort to symbolism. However, I had previously seen, very clearly and repeatedly, a pentagram imposed on the upper part of the Chakra spine and centred on the Pineal/Brow Chakra. I have found that the pentagram indicates our ‘inner being’, that being who becomes through spiritual development our ‘spiritual vehicle’. This vehicle will bear the Christ when we invite Him to accompany us on our journey. The pentagram appears in a number of guises, as dove, vulture, and often as an eagle. One of the most memorable visitation occurred while I was writing the essay on the Spiritual Organs, when it appeared as an eagle with two heads – as in the Austrian and Russian Imperial crests – distinct and persistent, as though to signal an important achievement.

This process of conscious penetration into etheric forms extends in time until it begins to encounter the will-forms that underlie the Spiritual Organs themselves. One example of this occurred recently. I had a persistent discomfort in the region of the pineal gland, which involved a feeling that a spring there had been overwound, and which induced a sense of darkness as though something was being wasted. I finally pressed into the area during a meditation, hoping at the very least to relief the pressure there. Suddenly the darkness cleared and I saw the following:

This indicates the meeting point of the three forces that flow in the Spiritual Organs: the Solar and Lunar forces that rise through the Organs from the Earth, and the descending Stellar force that enters us through the Crown Chakra. Through the serendipity that accompanies these experiences I found out that this juncture is called The Arch of Heaven.

Only recently has a major question arisen, though perhaps I should have raised it myself before then. It is this: how is the pattern orientated along the Chakra spine? This can be reduced here to the question of how the planets are to be attributed to the Chakras – thus:

I had instinctively chosen the arrangement on the right, mainly because I perceived the Solar and Lunar forces rising into the body from the earth. However, in the only work I have found dealing with the relationship of the Chakras to astrology, Jean Hodgson’s The Stars and the Chakras, the attributions are those on the left. Ms Hodgson is a person of significant spiritual authority, who builds moreover on the work of her mother, Mrs Grace Cooke, so it was necessary to give deep consideration to her scheme. I came to the conclusion that while the attribution of Mars to the Solar Plexus Chakra, the organ of wrath, might be plausible, there was little in Ms Hodgson’s account that spoke of any original perception. Many of the attributions, in fact, have a mechanical quality, associations created by coinciding distinct lists, on one hand of the Chakras, and on the other of the Zodiacal signs.

For my own part, I feel that the attribution of Venus to the Solar Plexus Chakra indicates the deeper nature of this organ, as the source of love in us. Furthermore, Rudolf Steiner’s account of the etheric body’s transformation through the seasons, taken with my vision of the truncated angelic figure in the lower right portion of the pattern, indicate that this is the quadrant of the summer, not of the winter as it would be if the left-hand list above obtained.

Even so, it is not simply a matter of either/or. Ms Hodgson’s scheme pertains to the plant-world, illustrated by her preoccupation with the question of goodness alone. The right-hand list, then, pertains to the human world, where the concern is with freedom, with love rather than judgement. Nonetheless, justice is an issue for us still, so it can be proposed that a trace of a more ancient plant form exists in us as an inversion of the dominant human structure. Such an echo can be discerned in the Solar Plexus Chakra, where the force of Justice seems the Guardian of a nascent power of Love. I find an echo in the Throat Chakra, too, but there it is evanescent and I have not had yet the occasion to experience it clearly. If this plant form is to be examined, it would be better approached through someone like Jacob Boehme, whose seven-fold scheme is quite obviously related to the life of the plant and rests on a very pure spiritual vision.

I have said that the pattern completed here is the product of an initial spiritual revelation, in which the Spiritual Organs were detailed for us in the form of idea-images. The later element, the 12-fold structure, is a product of an essentially artistic impulse, achieved by what I have called the wisdom of the hand, which is then, and only then, illuminated by the penetration of a disciplined consciousness on to the ground of the etheric-form. This exploration has been only partly achieved, and there is no guarantee that it will be completed by me alone, or in one life-time anyway. It may well be part of a larger co-operative work, the foundations of which already exists in the writings and lectures of Rudolf Steiner, together with the offerings of other, associated individuals.

Altogether, this is the Spiritual Science of which Dr Steiner spoke so much.

Whitsuntide-Michaelmas 2000