Posts Tagged Aristotle
Esoteric History of Man
Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Esoterics, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism on March 17, 2010
The Planetary Cycles
Our Earth have gone through a number of incarnations, each incarnation alternates between pralaya, a cosmic night and manvantara, a cosmic day, just as we alternately pass through day and night, life and dead. Pralaya is the non-physical, preparatory stage and manvantara the physical or lower spiritual development stage.
Man have gone through three planetary Earth incarnations (æons) before Earth, and are going through three after Earth before we have finished the complete development cycle. These seven Earth incarnations are called Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and ending with Vulcan. The emanation of Sephira’s in the Kabbalah tree of life corresponds to these planetary cycles.
The Earth development phase is split in two parts: Mars, before the Son incarnates, and Mercury after this incarnation. In a seven pointed star it looks:
The sequence of the planetary development,
Mars is first part of Earth and Mercury last part of Earth development.
Just start with Saturn, and follow the arrows. It follow the week days:
♄ – Saturn | Samedi, Samstag, Lørdag | Saturday |
☉ – Sun | Sonntag, Søndag | Sunday |
☾ – Moon | Lundi, Montag, Mandag | Monday |
♂ – Mars | Mardi, Dienstag, Tyr – Tirsdag, or Tiu | Tuesday |
☿ – Mercury | Mercredi, Mittwoch, Odin – Onsdag | Wednesday |
♃ – Jupiter | Jeudi, Donar – Donnerstag, Tor, Torsdag | Thursday |
♀ – Venus | Vendredi, Freya — Freitag, Fredag | Friday |
Until the middle of Earth round, all development have been made under strict guidance from higher hierarchies, first with the development of sentience on the Earth, through the lower ‘I’ is it possible for man to enter the development consciously.
You will not find a human being as he is today on Earth on any other planet. Beings, yes — but not human beings. The Earth exists in order that “I”-conscious human beings could be created. Through the first four Rounds the kingdoms of nature evolved in order that in the fourth man could be made a self-conscious being, who could reflect himself in his body. He will rise to higher levels of evolution, something that few can understand correctly. In the next, the fifth Round, the mineral kingdom will disappear. All mineral matter will be transformed to vegetable matter. Then the vegetable kingdom will reach its culmination and in the next Round the animal kingdom will form the lowest kingdom. During the seventh Round the human being will achieve his highest level of evolution. He will have become what planetary evolution intends. RS
The development of man in these first four phases goes through the four states as described by F.W.J. Schelling:
“Mind sleeps in stone, dreams in the plant, awakes in the animal and becomes conscious in man.”
Old Saturn
The first seed of man was created on the Earth incarnation called old Saturn, and it’s remnants is the Saturn of today.
Planetary seal of Old Saturn
Old Saturn was a planet which was made of warms. The creator is known as Saturn or Cronos or in Christian terminology, The Thrones [Binah].
Saturn – Cronus
The first seed of minerals were created here. At this time man created unconsciously the seed of what would become it’s Spirit Body (Atma). Man had at that time mineral-consciousness.
Man is the first-born of our creative process. But Saturn-man was very different from the man of today. He was for the most part a spiritual being; he would not have been visible to physical eyes. It was a kind of primal mineral, with no etheric body round it; hence we can say that man passed through the mineral kingdom; but to think of it as anything like our present-day mineral kingdom would be quite wrong. On Saturn there was no kingdom other than the human kingdom. From “Evolution of the Earth”
Old Sun
The old Sun was a planet of Light, where a great part of the minerals of man was connected with the etheric, creating a higher life form with plant-consciousness.
If one looks at how after a pralaya old Saturn changed into old Sun with the spiritual gaze that moves over the planets one notices that Saturn’s warmth atmosphere condenses into air. Man gets an etheric body on the Sun. He is a shining being. Spiritual beings work through the Sun’s astral atmosphere upon the etheric body, ignite it and thereby make it shine. One calls this the sulfuric process.
Planetary Seal of Old Sun
Some of our development wave of Saturn didn’t connect to the Etheric, so they stayed on the mineral-level. Man creates here, under guidance, the seed for the Buddhi layer of the later development. Zeus is connected to the Old Sun.
Old Moon
The Old Moon is a watery planet, with earth like living plants. Here is man connected with Astral stuff, acquiring animal-consciousness.
When the Sun passes over to the Moon, air condenses to water. The Moon’s body is a water body. We notice something very strange about this water body. Single water drops change their position in an extremely lively manner and race around with inner mobility. In some respects one can compare this property of the water drops with mercury. That’s why one calls this principle that’s added on the Moon the mercurial principle. The parts are put together into forms by sounds, somewhat like Chladni’s sound figures. First two came together, then two pairs made four, etc., just as one still finds in new plant, animal and human forms. That’s the female principle. The male principle only arose later from pure earth forces. From “Esoteric Lessons“.
Planetary Seal of Old Moon
Some of our brethren from the Saturn development wave didn’t connect to the Astral so they stayed at the plant-level. Here creates man under guidance Manas. The Old Moon are connected to The Mother, Sophia, or Cthlon.
Earth
On this Earth we have, besides man, the minerals who stayed back on the Old Saturn, the plants who stayed back on the Old Sun, and the animals who stayed back on the Old Moon.
When the moon passed over to the earth, water condensed to earth. The precipitating salt process took place on the earth for the first time through the interaction of fire and water. Man arose from female and male and began to dissolve things again through thinking so that evolution could continue. Man received the erring I on earth. From “Esoteric Lessons“.
The Earth development phase is split in two parts: Mars, before the Son incarnates, and Mercury after this incarnation, which takes place in the middle manvantara..
First half of Earth called Mars
In the first part, called Mars, mankind descend into the Physical, into the dominion of the Cthlonic powers, through a kind of repetition of the first three planetary rounds.
Planetary Seal of Mars,
first part of Earth
Here Man acquires the seed of the Ego, which is needed to become a sentient being. See the table in Dream Interpretation in Esoteric Work
Second half of Earth called Mercury
Planetary Seal of Mercury,
second part of Earth
In the second part of Earth, called Mercury, we ascends again to the spiritual world, and we have been working on it for two thousand years now.
In the second part we develop what we previously have created the seed for together with the Gods, that is Sentient soul (Orektikon), the Intellectual soul (Kinetikon), and the Consciousness soul (Dianoetikon), The three aspects of Isis/Sophia. Those who don’t unite with the spirit, stays back.
New Jupiter
Planetary Seal of New Jupiter
The New Jupiter is known as the New Israel, or New Jerusalem, Paradise or Shambhala, which already exist in embryonic form. Here we will develop Angelic Consciousness. All creation of Old Saturn are one Wave, and it’s our responsibility to get every creation of Saturn, from mineral to man, with us in the development. And this is part of our task now and in the future, and it is a result of the work toward this goal, transforming our astral body to Spirit Self, Manas. The minerals of Earth is transformed to vegetable matter.
New Venus
Planetary Seal of New Venus
On Venus we are transforming the etheric body to Life Spirit or Buddhi, and on Vulcan we are transforming the physical to Spirit Body, Atma. On Venus the lowest kingdom is the animal kingdom and on Vulcan the lowest kingdom is the human kingdom.
This cycle of seven planets are bound to the Chakras, where Earth corresponds to the Heart, to Christ, who transformed Earth, gave it life, for the new future, called New Jerusalem, the New Jupiter.
The Creation are described by Steiner in “From the Akasha Chronicles” and Max Heindel in “The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception or Mystic Christianity“.
In each of these Earth-incarnation man develops a higher level of consciousness as described:
There are seven grades of human consciousness: trance consciousness, deep sleep, dream consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic, super-psychic and spiritual consciousness. Actually these are in all twelve stages of consciousness; the five others are creative stages. They are those of the Creators, of the creative Gods. These twelve stages are related to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The human being must pass through the experiences of these twelve stages. He ascended through the trance, deep sleep and dream consciousness up to the present clear day consciousness. In the succeeding stages of planetary evolution he will reach still higher stages. All those which he has already passed through he will also retain within him. The physical body has the dull trance consciousness as this was gained by man on Old Saturn. The human etheric body has the consciousness of dreamless sleep, as this developed on Old Sun. The astral body dreams in the same way as one dreams during sleep. Dream consciousness derives from the Old Moon period. On our present Earth, man achieves waking consciousness. The ego has clear day-consciousness. RS
What are the feminine and masculine sides we all talk about?
Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Dream Interpretation, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism on January 17, 2009
We all talk about our feminine and masculine sides without really knowing what we talk about.
I read Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucian literature, Jung, Fromm, and other psychoanalysts, adding to my intuitive understanding, but I still didn’t grasp it fully.
Many interesting, partly frustrating, experiences gave finally a long searched result. I will not describe precisely what Animus and Anima are, as it is explained better by others, but I will show where they fit into the seven layer model of man, and how they fit into the Steiner and Aristotle model.
I will take it a little further by explaining a few but basic rules around Dream Interpretation and the Roles of the participating figures.
Jung and the Aristotelian model of the Soul
The model of Steiner/Aristotle split in three groups, the Body, the Soul, and the Spirit. Each part can again be split in three, the body as Physical, Ether, and Sentient body, and the soul as Sentient, Intellectual, and Consciousness soul, and the Spirit as Spirit self, Life spirit, and Spirit body. The model is described in The Essential Nature of Man.
Age contains the periods where each body and relating chakra is developed. (7) signifies change of teeth and (14) start of puberty. The Crown with 49 is by grace not through work. Following the Hebrew’s a person was first adult at 50.
The Bodies of Man |
Steiner Aristotle |
Age From – To Chakra |
Feminine associations | Usage In Dreams | ||
Man | Woman | |||||
1 | Physical body Malkuth |
Physical Body | 0 – (7) Root |
|||
2 | Etheric body Yesod |
Ether or Life body Threptikon |
(7) – (14) Generative |
Lilith | Anima | Animus |
Sentient body Aesthetikon |
(14) – 21 Solar Plexus |
|||||
3 | Astral body Hod Kama |
|||||
Sentient soul Orektikon |
21 – 28 Heart |
Maria Magdalene | ||||
Lower I The Persona |
||||||
4 | Ego Netzach Nous Monad |
Intellectual soul or Heart and Mind soul Kinetikon |
28 – 35 Throat |
Maria, Cleophas wife | ||
Consciousness soul Dianoetikon |
35 – 42 Brow |
Virgin Sophia | Higher I The Divine Child |
|||
5 | Manas Tiphareth Transformed astral body |
Spirit self | 42 – 49 Crown |
The Teacher The Wise Man or Woman |
||
6 | Buddhi Chesed Transformed etheric body |
Life spirit | 49 – 56 |
The World Mother | ||
7 | Atma Geburah Transformed physical body |
Spirit body | 56 – 63 |
In Dream Interpretation
The three Soul components:
- Sentient soul represents Anima for men and Animus for woman,
- Intellectual soul represents the Lower ‘I’/Persona/Ego, and
- Consciousness soul represents the Higher ‘I’.
Anima/Animus
Anima/Animus represents the base unconscious Feelings and the Ether body, and are represented by female actors in mens dreams and male actors in womens dreams. It can be your husband/wife, friends, colleagues, classmates, old girlfriends/boyfriends, or an unknown person.
As it concerns feelings, you seldom speak with your Anima/Animus, it’s mostly some kind of action, Love or some affection, or the opposite to that, showing the state between your feminine and masculine side.
Animus/Anima can in real seldom situations represent your physical body, if there is something which should be taken care of. And remember, it’s the opposite of your own gender.
Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’
The Ego, the Lower ‘I’ represents Thinking, and is represented by the dreamer in the dream. One of the goals is to unify the Lower ‘I’ with the corresponding Anima/Animus, that is Feeling and Thinking. The relation is connected with the Chymical Wedding.
Shadows or False Ego’s
There can also be other actors (Shadows), playing the role of False Ego‘s . Typically friends, classmates, colleagues, or less common, typically in groups, unknown players. These persons sometimes characterize traits which tells what the dream is about, but in all circumstances it’s easier for the “dreaming facility” to use an existing person than to create a new personality.
The Shadow’s I see as debris flowing around in the unconscious mind blocking the Chakras. They are the background for the plot of the dreams.
The False Ego’s are the persona’s we set up when relating to other people to hide us behind, protect our selves, or to impress other persons. Their role in the dreams are to show that they are there and to remove them you have to recognize them. There can of course be persons in the dream which is only extras just to give the background, but then they will be out of focus, they will be difficult to remember.
Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child
The Higher ‘I’ represents the Willing, and is usually represented by a child, or teenager in the dream. Whatever happens to the child is a result of your life. The more the child prosper the better. The goal is to become the Divine Child.
The Wise Teacher
One more role is the Teacher, which I presumes represents the Spirit self, and in dreams usually shown as your Father, Mother, a Teacher, or Chief from your real life, who you have some respect for. They can in the dream be connected with the next floor upstairs. Can be both sexes, but I think it’s mostly of the opposite gender.
Dream Symbols
Three other symbols which are paramount in dreams are your House, various Schools, and Transport Vehicles:
In dreams the House usually represents your physical and psychical state of development. Is it clean, is it in chaos, are you building on your second or third floor, is it finished?
The schools tells a little about how it is going, are you in a kindergarten, school, High School, or the University? Are there room for you, have you forgotten your books, and so forth.
In dreams transport vehicles tells about how your journey is progressing. If you are riding a bicycle you are not doing especially well. Your car can go out of gasoline, you may have lost your ticket for the bus, come late for the train, or you got a first class ticket for the airplane.
Numbers
It is extremely seldom that numbers in dreams are remembered, as they normally have no meaning. It’s like reading a book in a dream, where the reading is remembered not the text. If you remember a number it’s important to write it down quickly. What the number signifies depends on the context, it could be the number of days, time of day, number of hours, a specific date, and so forth.
Names
It’s also seldom to hear Noun’s in dreams, so when your hear one, try to find out what it stands for. Some of these names can be quite humorous, but still contain vital information.
Anonymous dream persons
Actual people from the real world will be played by anonymous players, you have to use the context to decipher the real world implication.
Here and Now
Most dreams are rather concrete, and they accentuate specific problems from the day before, and these problems are typically waves of underlying currents, life themes, which should be handled.
What makes dreams difficult to understand are that we live in the middle of our problems, that we cant overview our own situation; but our dreams can, and if we learn to interpret our dreams it will help us to understand our own situation.
Dream Interpretation and Chakras
From time to time there may be dreams telling about your progress or in which areas you have problems; here some symbols and colors related to the Chakras.
The Figure are the symbol of the Chakra, hold the cursor above the symbol, a short text maybe with a word in UPPERCASE, tells what which part to look for, as an example is Muladhara’s symbol a Square. Clicking on a symbol opens a Vortex of Light description of the Chakra. The Crown chakra has no dream symbol as I am aware of.
Chakra | Color | Animal | Figure | Comments |
Sahasrara Crown | Purple | Moon ? | ||
Ajna Third Eye Pineal |
Indigo | ![]() |
Clairvoyance, psychic abilities, imagination, dreaming, Mercury. | |
Vishuddha Throat | Blue | White elephant | ![]() |
Pressure when you are not communicating your emotions properly, Venus. |
Ahanhata Heart | Green | Birds, animals with antlers | ![]() |
Lack of compassion, Sun. |
Manipura Navel Solar Plexus |
Yellow | Sacrificial animal | ![]() |
Personal Power, anger or a sense of victimization, Mars. |
Svadhistana SacralHara | Orange | Water animals | ![]() |
Emotional problems or sexual guilt, Jupiter. |
Muladhara Root | Red | Elephant, horse, and other big and heavy animals | ![]() |
Earth, survival, grounding, stillness, Saturn. |
Examples
The Tin Drum
A friend of mine had a dream where she was going in front of a group of girls in a concentration camp playing on a tin drum.
The group of girls were her false ego’s, she put up whenever she met any of her friends, family, and so forth. She was trapped like in a concentration camp by that behavior. She understood the dream herself.
To met a person again.
I walked on the platform going to get a train. I met a young girl, but walked on. I then sat down between two girls, where one of them was the same I passed earlier, but older.
Or
I were in a discotheque and met a girl, I then continued walking around before i ran into her again.
Both dreams was preparing the same meeting with an old acquaintance, and contained in the small group of dreams about the future.
A real short dream
Saw a Trampoline.
The person had the previous day done a lot of work without coming anywhere; if the dream theme is recurring a change in the theme of life is needed.
Literature
Dreams
Myths-Dreams-Symbols
based on Eric Ackroyd1 & 2 and Edward C. Whitmont.
The Individuation Process: The Shadow, Anima/Animus, Mana personalities, the higher Self.
Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding
Af Herman Riffel
Many believers read the scriptural accounts of dreams and never think it could happen to them. Today, though, many are realizing that God has never ceased using dreams and visions to guide, instruct, and warn. This book will give you a biblical understanding of dreams that you never had before!
A Step-By-Step Approach
I find that a very useful guideline for dream interpretation, especially at first, is to take everything in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer.
For example, if the dream involves the person travelling in a car with their uncle, then the car represents some aspect of the person’s life, and the uncle also represents a part of the person. This isn’t the only way to interpret dreams, but it’s a very good starting point, I think.
Here’s the step-by-step approach that I use.
I hope that by going through the example and then trying the exercise you’ll start to get a feel for what’s involved in trying to interpret a dream, whether it’s your own or someone else’s.
This Step by Step Approach contains a description of Dream Interpretation which is quite usable with my terminology. It also contains descriptions of how to combine the I Ching with Dream Interpretation.
Dream Encyclopedia
Example: The House in Your Dream
…..
Each dream image holds enormous data, emotional response, and created patterns of behaviour. So in considering the house in your dream you need to remember you are in touch with a full surround databank of fantastic information about you, your past and your possibilities. You can interact with this information by exploring it in the right way. And to help with this let us look at and question some of the possibilities your dream house might hold.
…..
Contains many interesting and usable entries about the Archetypes used in dreams.
Dream Dictionary
Example with House:
Seeing a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity. If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. Dreaming that you are cleaning your house means your need to clear out your thoughts and getting rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement. Seeing an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. Dreaming that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied. Dreaming of a haunted house means unfinished emotional business, related to your childhood family, dead relatives, or repressed memories and feelings. Dreaming that a house disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.
This entry looks quite ok, I havent checked other entries.
Dreams and Dreaming
Dreams as not really nonsensical, but a lot of them are crypted somehow. Major psychologists have studied how dreams work and why they appear, and whether they occur according to patterns, and which patterns. Carl Jung, Medard Boss, Calvin Hall, Montague Ullman and others have decreed that dreams do carry meanings, but you need to understand how dreaming functions. Dreams functions on their own terms. Through the basics of dream interpretations to get a hold on many of them.
Some dreams reflect mind content that pertains to tasks and problems and other issues the mind gets deeply involved in. And parts of the jumbled “video clips” within may just present “left-overs” from days before. Dream interpretations need to be tentative, perhaps open-ended too. Consider the deep feelings and messages involved in the recurrent and most impressive dreams you have had.
Decode and interpret the flows of various icons, images, scenes, actors, happenings, concomitant feelings so as to arrive at tentative or putative postulates about what impressive dreams could mean. In such work there is help in mulling over single, outstanding ideas or episodes inside the stream or flow of a single dream. Take notes of them and learn to draw special illustrations that serve you in a log book. all of it could help, but it may be time-consuming work that had better be done for the whole life. In short, you have to learn to assess well.
Carl Gustav Jung on Dreams
Here we come upon something of the utmost importance for the applicability of dream-analysis: the dream describes the inner situation of the dreamer, but the conscious mind denies its truth and reality, or admits it only grudgingly.
More on Carl Jung’s Archetypes.
Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice
Catching the Thread:
Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology
Aristotle
In Greek Sculpture and the Four Elements J.L.Benson references Steiner on Aristotle’s description of the soul of man:
Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul.
J.L.Benson writes in Greek Color Theorie and the Four Elements :
To my knowledge Steiner, working closely with concepts from Goethe’s scientific work, is the only modern thinker to give full weight to the macrocosmic aspect of the microcosmic foursome. Above the physical body (which Aristotle dealt with en passant : de An. 411a he uses the term etheric body for Aristotle’s threptikon or nutritive soul, astral or sentient body for the aesthetikon or sensitive soul and ego for nous .
Rudolf Steiner
On dreams:
One gradually notices that one’s dream life takes on a more regular character. The spiritual world flows into this at first. Meditation is the occult key for this. One should get a notebook and briefly write down characteristic dreams in the morning. Thereby, one gets practice in retaining what flows to one from higher worlds. That’s the first elementary method to later get to bringing spiritual experiences through, that is, that they break through into bright day consciousness. Dreams that are only reminiscences from daily life or that are based on heart disturbances, headaches or other bodily conditions are only of value if they’re clothed in a symbolical form, for instance if the thumping heart appears as a cooking oven, or the painful brain as a dome into which animals creep, etc. Only the symbolism is of value here and not the dream’s content. For the symbolic form is initially used by the spiritual world to introduce us to the forces of higher worlds. That’s why one must pay attention to the fine points of this symbolism. In your case — according to your capacities — it’ll also be good if you compare the dreams that you become aware of with the experiences of the next day. For your dreams may soon take on a portentous character. If this happens we’ll say some more about how this thing can be made productive for your spiritual life. Please give these indications a try and tell me how things are going in about eight days.
The Essential Nature of Man from Theosophy.
Chakras
This site offers an abbreviated introduction to the Chakra System, applications for meditation and healing using this system, and its relationship to other healing systems.
Visual appealing page on the Chakras.
Contains information on a deeper Esoteric level