Stellar script

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The nightly starry sky in summer in a south-easterly direction.

The stellar script or stellar language, which expresses itself outwardly in the starry sky in the constellations, in the relationships of the planets to each other and to the signs of the zodiac, speaks, when viewed with the imaginative gaze, in powerful inspirations of the secrets of the soul and spiritual world.

Egypt and the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus, the great initiate of ancient Egypt, made these inspirations fruitful for the transformation of the physical world. Mathematics and geometry came into being in this way in their first beginnings, and even writing, which was initially still a pictographic script, was copied from the stellar script. In the letter script, the consonants correspond to the signs of the zodiac and the vowels to the planets.

„If the Egyptian wanted to express in a special script, to paint in his own way the way in which Isis relates to Osiris, he expressed it through the movement of the sun and moon in the sky, and the other spiritual powers through the relationships of the other stars. Above all, the zodiac with its relative rest and the movement of the planets through the zodiacal images came into consideration. The ancient Egyptian saw in everything that was revealed in the zodiac the way in which he could best express in a spiritual writing what moved his soul. He knew: I cannot take anything from what is on earth to express what man is called to do when he follows the Isis force to Osiris; that, if it is to be described, it must be drawn from the constellation of the stars. - This led to the fact that the great sage, who must be thought to have existed in ancient times, had, according to the Egyptians, above all the deepest clairvoyant insight into this relationship of mankind to the universe, which has just been sketched out, and that he expressed in the highest terms what the constellation of the stars was in relation to these spiritual forces and their happenings and the facts playing between them. In stellar language he expressed what was happening. If, for example, it was to be expressed in this way how Osiris related to Isis, it could be told to the people in the form of the legend - exoterically. For those who were then led into the initiation, the more exact relationship was expressed in the relationship of the light emanating from the sun, reflected by the moon and passing in strange proportions from the new moon through the quarters to the full moon. One rightly saw in this something similar to the relationship of the Isis-force of the human soul to Osiris. And then from these relations in the heavens and their forms was taken what may really be regarded as the archetypes of writing. For as little as men still recognise this in writing, so much must one say: in the consonants one has to see reproductions of the signs of the zodiac, of that which is relatively dormant. And in the relationship of the vowels to the consonants we have reproductions of the relationship of the planets and their moving forces to the zodiac. One must say that the written signs have been brought down from heaven.

This is how the ancient Egyptians felt about Hermes, whose teachers in turn were the powers that spoke from heaven and announced that which lives out in the souls of men. Yes, even more: what is lived out in human deeds, even in all everyday activities of life, what is lived out in activities such as the art of field measurement, for which mathematical sciences, geometry - which Pythagoras then learned from the Egyptians - were necessary, was traced back by the ancient Egyptians to the wisdom of Hermes, who saw, as it were, in all earthly-spatial relationships something like images of the heavenly relationships and depicted the heavenly relationships in stellar writing. Hermes brought stellar script down to mathematics and geometry and taught the Egyptians to find something in the stars that was happening on earth. We know that the whole of Egyptian life was connected with the floods of the Nile, with what the Nile brought down from the mountainous regions that lay to the south of Egypt. But we can also judge from this how necessary it was to know in a certain way in advance when these floods of the Nile could occur, when the transformation of the natural conditions could properly occur in the course of a year. The Egyptians also took their time calculation from the stars in the sky. When Sirius, the Dog Star, became visible in the sign of Cancer, they knew that the sun would soon come into that sign, from which its rays would, as it were, conjure up what the Nile and its floods would bring to the earth's surface. So they knew: Sirius is the watchful one, he announces what we have to expect. That was part of their star-world clock. In order to cultivate and rule the land in the right way, which was necessary for the outer life, they gratefully looked up to the Dog Star. And they looked up from where, in ancient times, they had been taught that the movement of the stars was the expression of the world clock.

For such and similar circumstances, the Egyptians sought advice in the writing of the stars. In Thoth or Hermes they saw that spirit who, according to the old traditions, made the most ancient records of worldly wisdom, and who, according to what he received as inspiration from the stellar script, formed the physical letters, who taught men agriculture, geometry, the art of measuring fields - in short, taught everything that men need for physical life. But all physical life is nothing other than the body of a spiritual life. But the spiritual life is connected with the whole universe, and out of this Hermes was inspired.“ (Lit.:GA 60, p. 366ff)

The Hebrews and the secrets of stellar script

The Hebrews also knew the secrets of stellar script. That is why it is said that Abraham's descendants should be ordered - for that is how it should properly be called - like the stars in the sky.

„I have already drawn attention to how in the Mysteries one expresses the mysteries of the cosmos by speaking a star language and taking the mysteries of the cosmos as a means of expression for what one wants to say. There were times when the teachers of the Mysteries clothed what they wanted to express in such words, in such images, which were taken from the constellation of the stars. One saw, as it were, in the paths of the stars, in the positions of the stars in relation to each other, the images through which one wanted to express what man experiences spiritually when he rises to the Divine-Spiritual.

What has been read in the wisdom of the Mysteries in this script of the stars? They read in it the secrets of the divinity that weaves through the world and lives through it. The orders of the stars were the conspicuous expression of the Godhead. One looked into all the worlds and said: "The Godhead is announcing itself! And how it announces itself is described to us by the orders and harmonies of the stars. - Thus, for such a gaze, the world god lived out in the order of the stars.

If this world-god was to express himself in a special way in the mission of the Hebrew people, then he had to express himself in the same order that is marked out in the cosmos in the orbits of the stars. That is to say, a similar order had to express itself through the blood of the generations, in which the outer instrument of Yahweh's revelations was contained, as it expresses itself in the starry orbits. In other words: In the descendants of Abraham there had to be something which in the succession of generations, in the blood relationship, was a mirror image of that which is the stellar script in the cosmos. That is why Abraham received the promise: Your descendants shall be ordered like the stars in the sky! - This is the correct interpretation of the phrase which usually means: "Your descendants shall be numerous like the stars in the sky", and by which only the multitude of descendants is implied (Gen 22:17 LUT). But it is not the multitude that is meant, but that there should be such an order in the descendants as was perceived in the heavens in the language of the gods in the grouping of the stars. Then one looked up into such an order as was represented in the order of the zodiac. And in the position of the changing stars, of the planets in the zodiac, those constellations were expressed in which one found the language to express the deeds of the gods as they weave through the universe. This firm bond, then, which is represented in the Zodiac and in the relation of the planets to the twelve signs of the zodiac, had to express itself in the blood relationship in the descendants of Abraham.“ (Lit.:GA 123, p. 79f)

The Celtic Druids and the Mithras Cult

The Celtic druids also knew how to read the stars, and it was similar in the cult of Mithras, where the connection between cosmic conditions and the human organism was very well understood.

„The druid priest indicated from what he read from the cosmos what was to be done on this or that day of the year in such a way that it would stand in a favourable context in the whole cosmos. This was a cult through which the whole of life was in fact a kind of divine service. In contrast, even the most mystical mysticism of today is a kind of abstraction, for it lets the outer nature rule, so to speak, and does not concern itself with it any further, but switches and acts according to traditions, while inwardly it rises, closes itself off as far as possible and concentrates within itself, in order to obtain an abstract relationship to a divine-spiritual world that is like a cuckoo cloud. But it was different in those old times. In the cultus, which had a real relationship to the universe, one connected oneself with what the gods created and continually worked in the world. And as a human being on earth, one carried out what one read from such institutions as the druids had, as the will of the gods in the star writing. But this star writing had to be read first. It is something tremendously touching to be able to transport oneself there, on the spot, so completely back to what once worked in the heyday of the druid culture in the way I have just described. And you can find such remnants of the old druidic culture everywhere in those regions - even in other regions as far away as Norway.

So again in Central Europe, in the regions of Germany as far as the Rhine area, even as far as western France, one finds everywhere remnants, reminders of the old Mithras cult. Of these, too, I will only mention the most essential. You will find everywhere, as the outer symbol of the cult of Mithras, the bull on which rides the man who thrusts a sword into the neck of the bull. You will find a scorpion biting the bull, or the snake below. But everywhere, if the pictures are complete, you will find this image of the bull with the human being surrounded by the starry sky, namely with the signs of the zodiac. Again we can ask ourselves: What does this picture actually express? - What this picture expresses will never be explored by an external, antiquated history, because it cannot establish the relationships through which one can arrive at what this man on the bull actually means. In order to arrive at this, one must first know what kind of training those who served in this cult of Mithras underwent [...].

In return, the student of Mithras was educated to perceive in himself the course of the year through the organisation of the heart, through the science of the heart, which transmitted to him the course of the food metamorphosed by digestion in the organism and the absorption of the digested food into the blood. And in what was perceived there, the whole course of outer nature was actually revealed in the human being, in the movement of the inner human being.

Oh, what is our abstract science, even if we describe plants and plant cells, animals and animal tissues so precisely, what is this abstract science compared with what once existed in a more instinctive way through the fact that the whole human being could make himself into an organ of knowledge, that he could develop his faculty of feeling as an organ of knowledge like the student of Mithras. Man carries the animal nature within him, and he truly carries it in a more intense way than is usually thought. And that which the former Mithras disciples perceived through their heart-science could not be represented in any other way than through the bull. And the powers that work through the metabolic limb man and are only tamed by the upper man, these powers are indicated by everything that figures as the scorpion, as the serpent around the bull. And the actual human being in his crippled state sits above with the primitive power, thrusting with the Michael sword into the neck of the bull. But what is to be conquered there, how it presents itself in the course of the year, was known only to those who were trained in this respect.

And now this symbolism is gaining in significance. You can look at it as much as you like with what man usually knows today, or try to depict it pictorially, but nothing will come of it. Only when one knows something of the heart science of the old Mithras disciples does anything come of it. And then man really studied, when he looked at himself through his heart, the spirit of the sun's annual course through the zodiac. Therefore it was quite true - and the experience is made in this way, that man as a higher being rides on his lower nature - around man arranged in a circle the cosmos, for the spiritual of the cosmos was experienced in this way.“ (Lit.:GA 223, p. 134ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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