Working Page on Steiner’s Planetary Seals

The planetary seals of Rudolf Steiner have always mystified me, but I couldn’t see the inner logic.

A year or two ago I saw a video by Brian Gray who explained the first five, and it was quite inspiring, although not fully satisfying.

I have since studied the Three Logoi and are now looking at the History of the Holy Grail, and a few days ago I saw the video referenced again, and with my new understanding I believe that these seals describe the microcosm for each planetary Æon. So it’s the holy grail and it contains a picture of the members of the Trinity state, that also are our state.

It’s in two parts, the first gives a short description of the Three Logoi, the Second look at the Planetary Seals. The first part is not necessary to get an understanding of the Seals.

1. The Three Logoi and the Planetary Chain

Here a description of the Three Logoi by Rudolf Steiner from Foundations of Esotericism, lecture 27. Steiner’s text is in italic.

Here we have three definitions of Beings who bring about, who underlie a planetary chain. They are called the three Logoi.

- The Third Logos produces by means of combining.

- When out of one substance something else having new life comes into being, this is brought forth by the Second Logos.
- Everywhere, however, where we have to do with a coming forth out of nothing, we have the First Logos.

This is why the First Logos is also often called the One who is immanent in things, the Second Logos the One who in the quiescent substance in things creates life out of the living, the Third Logos the One who combines everything existing, who puts the world together out of things.

These three Logoi always manifest in the world in and through one another.
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In contemplating the world one continually sees the interaction of the three Logoi.

When a new creation starts, a new Æon, the First Logos sacrifices himself by falling down to a lower level. An archangel becomes an angel by adding an etheric body as a lower body.

The first logos is related to the second, as when, standing in front of the mirror image, we undertake to give our own life to the mirror image. The surrender of life is the original sacrifice in free action. That is the act of the first logo.

The second logos is exactly the same as the first logos, except that it was given its existence by a sacrifice. If one now studies the effect of the second logos, one finds that the essence of the second logos is that it radiates the essence of the first logos back to the first logos.

Thus, the second logos is a reflection of the first logos from which he received his own life, the life that emanated from the first logos.

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First, the First Logos is reflected once again, secondly, the reflection is reflected. This then gives the Third Logos as the reflection of the other two logoi. So it contains the Third logos:

- the mirror image of the First Logos

- the mirror image of what the First Logos in the Second Logos did, namely his life
- The mirror image of what the Second Logos reflects back to the First Logos.

Let us now imagine: The First Logos is mirrored in a. If the First Logos is the creative activity that strives outward, then its reflection in the Third Logos is just the reverse activity of the First Logos. In the First Logos, a is the highest spiritual world light: in the Third Logos, a is the ultimate spiritual darkness.

ln the Second Logos, b is the life that the Second Logos received from the First Logos. It is not the life that sacrifices itself, but the one that has been accepted. The life that sacrifices itself in the First Logos is love. The opposite of this in the Third Logos is the absolute desire, longing, striving for logos, b is therefore the absolute desire in the Third Logos.

In the Second Logos c is the mirror image of the First Logos, which reflects the Second Logos.

The Three, a, b, and c, are the three gunas Tamas, Rajas, Sattva, the three parts of the Third Logos. They combine in the following way through the creation:

These seven world-creative principles correspond to the seven planets but also to the Planetary development cycles, Æons, the incarnations our Earth goes through, but also the shorter development periods follow this sequence.

In the old Saturn æon the seed of the physical body and Atma was created. This is the Father. In the old Sun æon the seed of the etheric body and Buddhi was added. This is the Son. On the old Moon, the seed of the astral body and Manas was added. This is the Holy Spirit.

Much more on this here: The Logos Walks the Earth.

2. Hypothesis on the Symbology of the Seals v.0.3

Here it’s important to remember that the symbol of the Father is a circle, that he is one. The Son is a circle split in two, a U like Vishnu’s tilak, and the Holy Spirit is split in three, his symbol is a Trident.

2.1 Saturn Seal

My guess is that the inner star is the seed of Atma, the Father, where the surrounding space is the created seed for our physical world. The Etheric was created in the previous æon, and the astral in an æon before that.

2.2 Jupiter Seal

Here Atma have developed further, it have become a circle O. I think the white is the physical air, that the open lines must be Buddhi, the Son. But I am not fully sure.