Contemplations on the Being of Sophia

Contemplations on the Being of Sophia

 From Heavenly Sophia to Practico Sophia.

CONTENTS – Clicking on a Section # will take you directly to that Section – continuous scrolling through the complete document works as on other pages!
1 – Introduction and Personal History (Creating Context)
2 – Dedicating a Community
3 – The Sophianic in History
4 – Coming Soon – Sophia and The Mystery of Golgotha
5 – Coming Soon – The Next Step of the Sophianic Impulse
6 – Coming Soon – Practico Sophia

1 – Introduction and Personal History (Creating Context)

This consideration of the Sophia is written now at the time approaching the darkest days of the year. This is the time of the year when fall passes into winter. When the outer light diminishes, so the hope here is that the inner light of the Sophia can penetrate this darkness. My first contemplation on the Sophia was undertaken this Spring. At that time, I wrote about “Easter In The Light Of The Sophias”. The Sophia contemplation grew out of a question about the two mothers. At the time, the cycle “From Jesus to Christ” was being taken up for the Easter study at the Fellowship Community. The present contemplation on the Sophia originated from a request to speak about the Sophia at the local Branch Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society. The group which represents the branch work of the Society in the Threefold Community meets every Wednesday evening in the Auditorium of this community.

When the question about the Sophia surfaced this Spring I was unaware of the fact that the Sophia was the theme of the General Anthroposophical Society for this year of 1997. I had been concerned with the question of the Mothers and the Sophia for many years — in a way from the time of my teens when I began to read the lecture cycles on the Gospels together with some members of my family, my father and Margaret Deussen. When the request came that I say something about the Sophia at the Branch meeting, I spent every spare moment preparing so that I could unfold my thoughts further and bring a different perspective from that articulated at Easter time. My goal was, and is, to take the impulse of Sophia and see how this can be led into the practicalities of life. In preparation for this consideration, I went through the Cycle on “Ancient Myths” by Rudolf Steiner. Also, the lectures on “The Isis Sophia” were a part of the preparation.

The book by Sergei Prokofieff on the “Heavenly Sophia And The Being Of Anthroposophia” was worked through. I read this book and made extensive notes trying to find the similarities between my views and his and as well, the differences. I made note again and again that I thought it necessary to rise higher into the spiritual world than articulated by Sergei, and at the same time reach more deeply into the physical world to meet the Being of Sophia as She has come to evolve out of the cosmos and through the human being. The considerations by Sergei Prokofieff was entitled The Heavenly Sophia, and he made no pretense of trying to follow Her Being into other domains of existence except for the soul of man. The title of the book, of course, indicates that he did not direct his attention to the practical which is the goal of my considerations here. His views, however, often run parallel with mine, and his writing, in my view, offers considerable support for my perspective offered at Easter time. There is no question that his orientation is quite different from mine, but it is and has been very helpful to meet someone seeking in a similar direction. For his work I have much appreciation.

A bit of Personal history or Contexting follows. My quest for the sophianic began when I was in my mid-teens. At the age of fifteen or sixteen I had to travel from my home in Amherst to Cleveland, Ohio. This was necessary for several years and involved a bus trip of an hour and a quarter. I had to visit an orthodontist there because of progressive malocclusion of my front teeth. One of the first orthodontists was located in Cleveland, so I had to travel there. During these bus rides, trips, I could spend time reading or dreaming. This care of the teeth I could add to an already busy life in high school with some sports, a life on the farm, the time spent practicing the violin and a lively interest in the social life of a small farming town of 1800 souls three miles from my home.

Once in Cleveland I then had to walk for several blocks from the bus terminal to the dentist’s office. An arcade was located halfway. A bookstore, an antiquarian, was a part of the arcade, for me the essential part. After some visits to this bookstore, with shelves covered from floor to ceiling, I found a collected volume of Plato, one of the first books that I ever bought.

Something of the unusual struck me about this volume of collected works by this philosopher. The ideas were quite refined and ethereal. I was a bit prepared for this adventure into an ethereal philosophy by the two members of my family (Fritz Scharff and Margaret Deussen) who were interested in the thoughts that human beings can have about existence out of an Anthropo-sophy. At the same time my mother (Georgia Scharff) was busy practicing medicine, while we lived very involved on a small truck farm. The Scharff family moved to the farm for the sake of a handicapped young man (Carl Scharff). The farm was not cultivated for the sake of economic needs. An effort at a deeper view of the human being was being cultivated by the two souls just noted. This setting was necessitated by the illness of a human being. Carl Scharff was an epileptic with uncontrollable seizures whose life would be endangered in a city.

These few details are shared as a philosophical bent lived in this setting and an anthroposophical one, as well. This was the preparation for meeting the collected works of Plato, the philosopher Plato. With Plato’s writings, as noted, I was struck by the fine etherealness of the ideas written about in his dialogues. Another world seemed to radiate out of the dialogues, and I could easily feel myself transported not only into another world, but a world closely allied with an earthly space, that is Greece. The volumes on art history, located in the family library, had also very much caught my interest, even earlier in life. The art of Greece shown with particular light for the soul of a growing boy.

At the same time this farm and home setting laid the ground, the foundation for this current effort to consider a “Practico-sophia”. The philosophical and anthroposophical perspectives were and are essential for this present consideration. What is being written about is anchored in early life by the sharing with these two elders and the practical demands of a home with an ill brother and a small truck farm with gardens, animals and woods. (Five sandstone quarries and a pure hill of sand was a part of the setting bringing the geology of existence to the immediacy of life.) The philosophical of Plato stood in stark contrast with the many demands and the practicalities of life. Such was a life that was lived as Plato was discovered on the shelf of an antiquarian. Philosophy was not a part of the curriculum of a public school in the middle of a small town surrounded by farms and a sandstone quarrying industry. What did exist in the public school, however, was a superintendent of schools that loved to speak about the Greek, Greek times and the processes of mathematics. Later I was to learn about the Greek thinker and mathematician, Pythagoras.

A “Practico-sophia” must have a rich life circumstance in order to come to birth. The rich life must be inward and outward as well. For me the sophianic could be cultivated by virtue of my father’s interest in philosophical views on existence. My father was interested in the thinking capacity of the human being and the views on existence which could arise out of human thinking. He met this thinking approach to the sophianic through Johannes Walter Stein on the battlefield in Europe during the First World War. Through Johannes Walter Stein he was introduced to a lecture cycle by Rudolf Steiner entitled “Human And Cosmic Thought”. This cycle of four lectures he translated for me when I was still quite young and did this because of my interest in the various views of existence which human beings could evolve through the capacity to think. By this means the Platonic perspective could become one of the many possible views. But an interest in the sophianic process awoke in a home for a handicapped boy, on a small farm, in the midst of mid-American farmlands.

Thus, I came to a kind of love for wisdom in a setting which for most has or had nothing to do with such an approach to life. Family relations served this need, while the practical world was very much alive on all sides. Life itself asked for solutions, asked for solutions out of the demands, in a home where the mother was busy with a medical practice and the home needed tending by all, on a farm and in a community. The ethereal of the Platonic sophianic was challenged in the face of life, the many sides of life. A small industrial city not far away, where my mother practiced medicine and my father worked in the administration of a large steel mill, offered the more modern dimensions of existence in addition. Also not so far away was a small town with a college where the aura of medieval existence hung in the air to a certain degree. The college is well known to many -Oberlin College whose motto is “Learning and Labor” a motto taken from John Frederick Oberlin himself.

With this diverse background I then grew into more mature life. I chose a vocational life where “practice” is the method of serving. This vocation is the “practice of medicine”. However, the antiquarian with Plato has never faded, but has always asked that the sophianic be extended to practice in the flow of life. So, it all began in a secondhand book shop, as it were, when it comes to the quest for a “Practico-sophia”.

Where I grew up in a small farming community, on a farm with an ill brother, the interest of the farmers was not at all what I had at heart. Most of my friends were “practical” (they claimed) people from the land as well as sons and daughters. The farmers with whom I mingled had no patience for the philosophical “stuff” I found interesting. My friends also tended to consider my philosophical bent as farfetched. What I could note is that even if they thought my interest in ideas and philosophy was far out, they none the less tolerated me, as I worked along as best I could with them in whatever project demanded physical effort and strength. I could early on note that even if they were not interested in the world of ideas, they would listen when I involved myself in practical affairs and shared my ideas. I saw that I gained a certain respect from my peers and older friends because I not only involved myself in philosophical thoughts but also tried to master many practical tasks, very much trying to learn what the physical world was about — no easy task in any way if ideas are important at the same time. Everything at hand seemed to have a hidden “something” which I would call the light of the idea — but it had to be worked for and the purely physical penetrated.

Such an interest in the physical world (which included the mechanical), as well as an interest in the life of thoughts, and in addition being a very slow intellectual learner, set me a bit apart from my friends and associates. As a part of a small farm community, I could experience a mix of being made fun of and also gaining some respect from others because skills were worked at and slowly won. During my teens, despite the usual adolescent fun making and insensitivities, a social milieu was present, and a kind of natural tolerance was alive. This small town and rural setting of mid-America, with a steel town nearby and a college town as well, birthed a constant sense for intimate social process. Most neighbors knew each other quite well for a generation or two. Everyone had to learn a certain social tact in what was said and shared as idea and conviction, since all had to live together. The land and farming seemed to birth a kind of tolerance evolved out of life practice, particularly when a helping hand was needed.

As I lived on a farm, on a farm with a handicapped brother who had difficulties speaking and learning, with a teacher-eurythmist trained in special education, with an engineer father interested in ideas and with a physician mother who loved people and animals, there was ample opportunity to pursue a rather diverse program of learning outside the usual public education. Workshops at home and at neighbors, barnyards, gardens, fields, forests, plants, animals and many different types of human beings, also human beings who lived in nearby Oberlin with its college, all were a basis for an education of a diverse kind. Ideas and social interest were a part of the entire scene. Art was also very much a part of the picture at home where all adults were involved with music and the visual arts. At the same time my father had a very marked interest in those ideas which laid a foundation for science. Religious life, fortunately, was left open for my own striving, and for this I am very grateful now in my present older years. In my mid-teens as noted the interest in philosophy began to emerge — though in no way did I follow up a purely philosophical training.

Later at Oberlin College I had the opportunity to follow up some of my interest in philosophy only in a very cursory way. I did not have much time as pre-medical and scientific courses were quite demanding. All courses asked for considerable attention and time, so that I could enter medical school later. It was during this time that I began an effort to penetrate Rudolf Steiner’s “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”. The way ideas were formulated in this book struck me, as there was not only idea articulation, but a way of thinking. There was a very definite look to the soul of the thinker. This led me to think of this book of “philosophy” as a book which did not lose the soul, while dealing with ideas. Even more, the book tried to take a scientific approach to activities of the thinker. A mix of philosophy and psychology was met, to my way of thinking. A scientific introspective method was, is, presented. I found little or no echo in my usual courses. The professors who taught were, by and large, involved with a thinking that was highly intellectual and not in the least in search of a definite relation to the practicalities of life or the workings of the soul. This was the case even if the college motto was as noted, Learning and Labor.

In philosophy courses in college, the ideas were dealt with without the activity of the thinker being considered. In psychology courses, the emphasis was on Watsonian and Skinnerian behaviorism. Thinking was reduced to reflex circuits and associative electrical processes. Human action followed from the activities of the complex electrical processes of the brain that sent electrical impulses to the muscles of the extremity to bring about movements. Where Plato could have found his ideas was a real puzzle to me with the usual thoughts that lived in the souls of those around me. The approach of Rudolf Steiner to the human soul and to the thinker was much more alive, though very difficult to grasp. I had to struggle to live through this dichotomy of academia and the thinking demanded by Rudolf Steiner. This was a solitary struggle, and it could not be shared with others as it was then not clearly formulated. My searches led to a particular kind of crisis which was that the printed word appeared to the outer eye without idea content. Time was needed to penetrate the black and white of the paper and print to come to the idea by dint of one’s own, my own effort. This was a kind of shocking awakening when it was the intellectual content that was asked for as a student. In a way, I could make the white page disappear, along with the print, but the darkness that resulted, did not contain idea content. A kind of basic relearning to read was needed just when I was to stuff the soul with all kinds of content. Fortunately, I was able to weather the trials and did manage to get into medical school where, again, there was little interest in ideas as a kind of pure culture.

With medical school, marriage and then a growing family, I had much demand from various sides so that academic philosophical pursuits were never possible and not desired. What did, however, come about was a real interest in some of Rudolf Steiner’s epistemological writings, and from them I tried to learn what I could. This interest I have continued and forms a part of the pursuit which has given rise to what will be attempted in this essay. With this background, with these questions about the thinking, a deeper view of the soul has been searched for. This deeper view I would call the sophia of the soul, and it is commensurate with the term used by Rudolf Steiner, that is “psychosophia”.

Dedicating A Community

With the founding of the Fellowship Community in Spring Valley, New York in 1966, the personal biography can be left behind. The work with and for this community, as well as a family and medical practice, began to demand a much less personal pursuit of inner life. A depersonalization of the sophianic came as a question with the dedication of the community. What should, could or might such a community be dedicated to? What might context a community which would have to take on the long-term care of older human beings? If one dedicates a community, there should be seriousness about intents and purposes which should not be restrictive, should permit evolution and a participation by many. A dedication should, could or might speak to a future, but one that is open and not determined. How could this be done? A finite dedication had to have a kind of toto-potential quality about it. It was such considerations that plagued me at the time of the dedication. I had been very much involved in the bringing about of the community as it stood ready for dedication in the middle of 1966. The result was that I felt a definite obligation to struggle with a dedication process and a modest story.

The concern for such a dedication had already begun in 1959 when the Rudolf Steiner Fellowship Foundation was incorporated. I was one of the original signers of the legal documents.

The direction I chose for the dedication was one which I felt could be underpinned by my own way in life, could draw on the spiritual science of Anthroposophy and permit an open potential for the unfolding of a community for the future. Something from the world of philosophy was needed from my perspective, but something which permitted the philosophical to flow over into the social. This I thought might meet the need for the future. After much wrestling I turned to the four-lecture cycle by Rudolf Steiner called “Anthroposophical Ethics” or today, “The Spiritual Foundation of
Morality”.

With this cycle, ideas, action directed ideas, moral ideas are dealt with. Ethical ideas are those which set the stage for ideas to flow into the actions of human beings. Such ideas I thought could be noted and addressed, where a human being could be responsible for actions and a future. Individuality, freedom, and creativity were needed as a foundation.

In the case of this lecture cycle, it is Saint Francis of Assisi who is the individual chosen by Rudolf Steiner to demonstrate the evolution of ethical ideas which are penetrated by the Christ. The emphasis with the life of St. Francis is deed, the imitation of Christ, Imitatio Christi. Francis acted, acted far more than taught or offered wisdom in word. His path was action, a love of action, of all existence, and of Christ. Actions were Christ penetrated. The deed revealed his idea as ideal. In the case of this lecture cycle, as I understand it, St. Francis is the historical figure used by Rudolf Steiner to demonstrate how the Christ worked directly in the will of St. Francis. The result was the healing capacity of this Saint and as well, the influence of this individual on mankind because of his deeds. He was not a wise man but acted wisely and healingly. (Such was needed by a community to serve long-term care and to heal the ill at that time and could serve as a stimulus for a community in present times.) St. Francis had a deep love of all existence. The kingdoms of nature were nourished, the ill were healed, and a spiritual path placed before the world. The path can be called a Christian-Buddha path, which now needs a further transformation through the wisdom of the human being, that is Anthroposophy.

For the reasons just given I created a dedication story out of the lecture cycle, trying to bring a mythical and legendary quality to the life of St. Francis. The story is appended to this contemplation. For me what was significant was that at the dedication there would be an effort to speak about “practical wisdom”, which could ultimately point to a “Practico-sophia”. The effort was to try to foretell of the effort by human beings to find wisdom in the practices needed to serve needy human beings. The intention with the dedication and the story was to place the effort in a historical context. The past was searched, to flow through the dedicated moment for the sake of the future.

If one turns to the life of St. Francis of Assisi, two elements might be pointed to in relation to the just noted cycle of lectures by Rudolf Steiner. Its orientation is such that one is taken into the world of ethics articulated by Plato. The Greek ethos given by Plato is used by Rudolf Steiner as an example of what is needed as a starting point for a moral foundation. This point of departure is also that of western culture. The ethos of Plato, the ethical ideas, pointed to wisdom, courage, temperance and justice as potential for action and social structure. Rudolf Steiner says that these ethical ideas were the outcome of earlier mysteries, those of Atlantean times. The same mysteries birthed the “class” structure in ancient Indian times. In ancient times this class structure was of birth origin, hereditary origin. The Greek ethical idea was not of hereditary origin but was graspable by those who could become thinkers. Out of the work with ideas, Plato suggested a social structure which was “class” in nature but not hereditary in origin. “Wisdom” gave the basis for social structure. If the striving for wisdom is then followed out further in Western cultural evolution, it can be found as a point of departure with wisdom eventually giving rise to a learning process. Social class out of wisdom later birthed the classes in educational institutions.

Rudolf Steiner again and again pointed out that the Greek culture was based on slavery, so that he in no way sought to bring this form of social structuring to our times. The wisdom-based culture did, however, offer a basis for the evolution of learning and individual unfolding, where freedom could eventuate, even if it did not exist in Greek times, and did not exist in Plato’s ideas of the social structure.

What Rudolf Steiner did with the ethical ideas of Plato, was not to bring them into our times as pure ideas, but rather he tried to show how they were actually lived out by mankind in the evolution of the western world and the unfolding of the human makeup, that is his sentient-, intellectual- and consciousness-soul makeup. This perspective is what I would then take up here with this second aspect of the lecture cycle – the first being the emphasis on the life of St. Francis. The perspective I will take then is to try to follow out the ethical ideas into the evolution of western culture – to find the ideas in the life and actions of human beings in the process of evolving western culture. This means, to try to follow out western culture in the light of the four major ethical ideas articulated by Plato.

To take up such a direction permits one to consider that the Atlantean Mysteries have played themselves out in the unfolding of the west. The ethical ideas of Plato are the steppingstones from mystery culture, from the Mysteries of Atlantis, through Greek culture to our modern times.

If this approach to western history is taken, the first culture of the West has a wisdom orientation. The wisdom orientation in the history of mankind had its origin in the East. This ethic moved west to be taken up in Greek times by Plato and then other philosophers. As the ethical moved west, crossed the Hellespont as it were, the ethos of wisdom was transformed into the ethic of courage. This took place as culture moved west. Wisdom can be found in the cultures of ancient India, Persia, Assyria, Egypt and Greece. As the Turning of Time drew near, courage, courageous acts with wars and conquests, rose to the fore, and this can be followed to the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, into the first millennium or more with the unfolding of western culture. Rudolf Steiner has detailed this with many of his historical revelations. Bravery supplanted wisdom as a driving force in western evolution. Battle and bravery came to play a significant role and is portrayed out of the east in the Bhagavad-Gita. A less well documented war-like cultural impulse that lived along with western evolution is that of the Scythian development. Today this is just beginning to surface as a significant impulse in our eastern to western world historical evolution.

With the Middle Ages, the warrior birthed the knight. The brave knight became a part of the evolution as the Middle Ages drew near. European culture unfolded with war, and gradually the warrior, and then the suitor, the knight, was transformed as war turned to conquest for the sake of beauty. This means that the knight came to conquer for the sake of the beautiful queen not only for land, riches and wealth. Human beings began conquests for the obtaining not just kingdoms of the world, but sought beauty, waged war for beauty. Conquests for wisdom, then earthly space, passed into conquest for beauty. Slowly the conquest could pass inward and into the conquest of the soul itself. With the turning inward of the conquest of the soul, the time of “temperance” could begin to emerge in the west.

There followed in western cultural unfolding, the stage of the craftsman with the tempering of the human soul through graded trainings. Three stages of soul conquest, stages of mastery in life came into existence as the feudal system died into small city states and then more modern types of cities. The staged training, which led to outer mastery of a vocation and an inner mastery of the soul, was threefold in nature. The stages of apprentice, journeyman and master were born in western Europe and are known to us today. With these three stages, something of the older initiation practices can be seen if looked for, and this has been done by more than one anthroposophical searcher.

This view of western cultural unfolding from this lecture cycle leads from Greek times to the Middle Ages and then from the Middle Ages to more modern times. The “modern” began with the “Industrial Revolution”. In modern times the flowering of commerce emerges wherein world economic processes and justice, or human relatedness with rights must be considered. The great question with the ascendancy of economic processes on a world scope is what happens to the single individual? What is the right of the human being in the light of world economic process? Today, if one follows the economic deliberations, it can be noted that the purse strings become attached to human rights issues, as is the case just now with China. Here the ethos of justice enters the domain of economics in a very real way. Often the economic whip is used to determine human rights issues, and only slowly is this to be seen with a view of the whole world. Thus, in the time of human rights, “justice” as world view becomes quite essential and the search for those with a world view becomes increasingly important and a need, if justice is to be considered on a theater of world practice and history today. A world view becomes increasingly important today for human beings who go about their practical activities of daily life – seeking justice. A world view is needed today to come to a judgment about many of the activities of the human being. An example is such a practical matter as burning brush. Such a practice is now outlawed in many communities because of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Rudolf Steiner gave one such world view, that of the threefolding of the entire world as a basis for judgment in our day.

It is just in our time of world economy that the ethic, the ethos of justice is becoming so very important. Those who work and those who live in underdeveloped countries come into question when this ethic is considered. What is the role of the simple laborer, the unskilled worker or the role of the nation without the economic power of developed industrial nations? These are pressing questions today regarding human justice. Such were and are considerations that were lived with when the Fellowship Community dedication lived in its inception.

Though the four ethical categories of Plato stop with justice, there is a fifth that did not surface with Plato. The fifth category that Plato did not take up, however, made Greek culture a reality. What made the Greek culture a reality, often pointed to by Rudolf Steiner and already noted, was slavery. The simple worker, the untouchable in the Indian caste system, the pariah, gave the wonderful Greek culture a solid footing in reality. Needed now is an ethos that brings the souls who in the past slaved at life into a socially respectable position in the domain of human relationships. Needed is to see that the ethical impulses of the Greek times are included into the life of our time in an appropriate way. However, also needed is to bring the untouchable, the worker, the one who might have to slave in work, the socially serving human being, into a domain of justice, that is human rights processes. Today many, many human beings are at work. There is intellectual work, social work, as well as physical laborious activities. (Admittedly there is a growing number of very wealthy who govern much of the economics of our day and who do essentially no work. They live for leisure and pleasure. I would suggest that they, unless they become socially responsible, will become a focus of severe social unrest as time goes on. They do not offer economic justice unless they come to serve in a new way. It can be asked if Getty, with his new museum in Los Angeles, is a possible example of serving justly out of wealth.)

What is needed today is an ethos for human beings who spend at least a third of their time in their life at work. They need an ethic, an ethos which can help that their services to the world is met in a just way. I would propose that a “Sophia of Practice”, a “Practico-sophia” must be sought.

In order to redeem modern human beings from the slavery of work, to redeem work, there is the need for an ethic to surface. One can say from the foregoing that the four ethical ideas of Plato have played themselves out in western unfolding. Now what is needed is to bring a new ethical idea or ideas to the fore. In this way our time, the time of consciousness-soul, can lay the seed for the future in human ethical striving, the striving for spirit-self. The ethos of the future could be seen as the bringing of the four previous philosophical perspectives, ideas, to the class of the worker. (The worker today must be seen with all professions and all vocational activities, when as they come to play themselves out in the economic process. Note can be made that teachers, physicians, and soon house mothers will be unionized for the sake of economic justice, but more, for their own self-respect).

In Greek times, the ethical categories depicted four classes, that is the wise man, the warrior, the craftsman, and the jurist. As noted, the fifth was present but not taken into consideration by Plato. It is the fifth which is being sought here in this essay, but I would say stood as a question at the time of the dedication of the Fellowship Community. Rudolf Steiner tells that seven classes, or human ranks, came out of the Atlantean Mysteries but we only hear of five in ancient India. Plato only drew on four of the seven potential initiation steps with his “virtues”.

As noted, the fifth class was that of the worker, who in Greek times was a slave. These five classes were of hereditary nature in ancient eastern societies, and only with the ethical perspective was the hereditary basis for class supplanted by personal acquisition (a surfacing of the thinking, free and equal human being). In the eastern societies, the fifth class of human beings was called the untouchables, the pariahs. This group, this class, remains to this day in the east and only slowly is being taken into the larger social evolution to be given rights and new social status. Slavery was eliminated in this country only in the last century, and freedom from slavery is still not alive in the hearts and souls of all. Today our modern culture has managed new forms of slavery such as the culture of selling of one’s services, selling one’s soul, on the economic market — selling ones soul for wages.

Plato with his ethics did not touch this fifth domain of ethical consideration and left the slave of the times just where he was. Only over time and with the evolution of western culture does individuality, freedom and equality surface in a very meaningful way as three significant human impulses in our times. The question for our time has become, however, not only the individual, the free and equal human being, but the redemption of work that all come to do for the sake of mankind as a world culture emerges. The service to the other human being, the work for the world, this needs a new dimension and new perspective to liberate and redeem the pariah quality of all work. This includes the liberation of work from work-a-holism. The latter can be considered a semi-social illness of those who have little self-control and find a certain freeing in activity. On the other hand, there are those that term any form of discipline and effort work-a-holism, and here we have a cover for laziness – also a social problem of our time.

More and more what is deemed the need of human beings would in the past be delegated to the pariah, to the untouchable, the slave. Such can no longer be the case. The care of human beings in particular needs much that in the past would be delegated to the untouchable. If the evolution of our care “industry” is looked at, the industrialization of care points to the pariah quality given to the care of the ill. The care of the land and the care of the younger person (day care industry) is all now a part of the pariah process as most men and women go to work. Though work is downgraded, more and more come to participate. Thus, the meaning of leisure and spiritual pursuits is being questioned. The great ethical question of our time becomes that of the worker, particularly the social worker.

Unfortunately, it is mainly the union movement which has taken up the questions related to the worker. The ethical thinker has stood at the side lines and the worker often has few ideas, be they ethical or otherwise. Ideas for the redemption of the worker and work, as a central issue in our time, are not formulated so that ethical ideas can emerge. Here an ethos must be sought in this sphere of increasing import as more and more human beings go about modern life. I would venture that it is for this reason that work is often depicted as slavery, and the great need is to get away from work.

That “head activity” is work, is easily overlooked by the “limb worker”. The ethos, the ethic of the mental or the non-mental worker is not sought. Those interested in philosophy, in ethical questions, often have little sense for the one busy with the limb. Wisdom is not followed into the details and practicalities of life. For this reason, a “Wisdom of practice”, a “Practicosophy” is needed. It is just this “practical wisdom” that Rudolf Steiner addressed in this lecture cycle as the outcome of following the four ethical ideas, perspectives, into our times. This I saw in trying to come to a dedication perspective thirty-one years ago. The ethereal Platonism of the past had to become earthly in our times, as Aristotle had tried to do through Alexander in Greek times. Alexander had to go out into the world to conquer through war. Today in caring for human beings, the land and social process, the human being needs a capacity to conquer in a new way that is will-filled, but not war based. Such a will has been called a courage, wisdom-filled will, which can shine in the gaze of Michael. This demands a new “wisdom”, a new “love” and a new “social orientation”. This was evident thirty-one years ago with the dedication of the Fellowship Community. A “care” community needs a basis in the soul, the spirit and hearts of human beings.

If a community which is to take up long-term care, care of people, land and social process is to be dedicated, then an ethical perspective was and is asked for — to my way of thinking. In dedicating a community with a rather specific direction, but with many potentials, at least a quarter of a century must be anticipated. Does one not have to look to history and the flow of history to dedicate a community for the sake of its future? What comes into existence must fit into history. If this is not the case, then it becomes an anachronism and a throw-back in time. With the foregoing considerations, the effort was made to anticipate the future and as well to look to a real link with the past.

For me it was rather evident that a work in our time has, as one aspect, to serve the redemption of work itself. Something of the past must be taken up and transformed into the new, that is the work with the little thing and the service to the human being. Needed is a wisdom for the serving of life in all its breadths and depths, its simplicities and complexities. This is not the wisdom of the past, the gift of the wise man, but a wisdom that can be gained in service to the practical, to the littlest, to the least important, which might become most important in a given circumstance. A glass of water for the one paralyzed in arms and hands, a button on a shirt for one who must appear in public, a light bulb needed for the lecturer, or a cane for the lame individual, all of these are small details, small items which can be of the greatest import in a given situation. Needed is a wisdom in which the large and the small can be seen in juxtaposition, and with significant meaning.

It is just this “practical wisdom” that Rudolf Steiner points to in the lectures on “Anthroposophical Ethics”. If wisdom is not brought to the smallest of details, if wisdom cannot emerge in the service to the smallest and the most insignificant, then pedantry will be the only means of accomplishing life’s tasks. With pedantry, Ahriman can show his power. If the tasks demanded by life, especially the small tasks are left undone, then Lucifer has a chance to insinuate herself into the soul. With the tasks left undone, an illusory wisdom replaces the needed deed. Often the social planner is of the latter type. An even more serious outcome can be that human souls become bored when the element of wisdom does not surface with deed. Here the situation is set for quarrels among those who are bored, and this contributes much to unsettle work circumstances. In the case of long-term care, care of the land or care of social circumstances, the pedant, the illusory dreamer, and the directing social planner cannot well serve social needs. In fact, it often is the pedant, the dreamer and the directing planner who creates the social problems. Even more problematic is when the human being comes to sell his soul for a wage. Wisdom does not surface when one sells one’s soul, and all too easily a barren soul results. In every situation, healthy social circumstances demand that the soul is nourished by wisdom, by “practical wisdom”.

Again, with a dedication at hand, not only did the past have to be considered, the present, but the future. What appeared to be so significant, and remains the same today, is the aspect pointed out by Rudolf Steiner, that is the need for human beings to experience, and be able to come to “practical wisdom”, in planning and in deed. For this reason, the germ for what is being written about today, thirty years after the dedication, was laid.

The Sophianic In History

From Rudolf Steiner we gain a sophianic view of history in the soul-spirit and intellectual evolution of the human being. It can be outlined quite easily. Three basic sophianic revelations can be noted – Theosophia in ancient times, Philosophia from the Greek times to the turn of the recent century, that is 1899. With the turn of the century there began the potential for a new and future sophianic revelation, that is, Anthroposophia.

A view of the world where spiritual beings exist to direct the events in the environment of the human being and in the soul-spirit of the human being can be found in the times of the Indian, Persian and Egyptian cultural epochs. With the Greek period of cultural evolution spiritual beings and the soul life of the human being become entwined. Before this intermingling of spiritual beings and the human soul, spiritual beings stood more distant. Slowly, the sophianic and the human became more intimate so that the sophianic today is seen as very much soul-spiritual dependent on man. This is a history of ten to twelve thousand years which constitutes the background of our modern western culture. Of course, there are those in our modern times who say that history only began with our immediate times, that is since the coming of the industrial revolution with modern economics. With this economic view, all history can be seen from the perspective of economics, from barter, trading to the current complex economics of modern times. The history that begins with the industrial revolution is a history that does not follow the cultural epochs being noted. It is a history of the more modern intellectual who can be quite a snob with such a time and self-centered perspective.

The cultural epochal history and the modern industrial revolution-oriented history are not alone in historical perspectives. The history of peoples and nations is becoming very much alive in our day. The so-called third-world folk and peoples brings quite new vistas of the historical process, quite different from the western cultural history that we will be considering in our contemplations on the emergence of Practico-sophia.

The cultural epochs can be seen as periods in which there is an unfolding of mankind so that the physical world can be taken up. This cultural history brings a focus to the western evolution with science and a thorough-going materialism. There are cultures that are not in this direct line and these cultures are those where there is still today a non-scientific impulse in human soul-spiritual evolution. Much of the so-called third world fits into this perspective. Only now, and gradually in our day, do we here in the west become deluged with the cultures of the Mongols, the far east with Taoism, with older Buddhism, with the religious cultures of the Meso-Americas, etc. The culture of black, yellow, brown and red peoples finally begins to surface alongside that of the white European with science and materialism.

With this current of the many cultural streams in mankind today, there is now an influx which challenges the typical western bent. How to fit these cultures into the evolution of the sophianically-oriented perspective on history is for many thoughtful human beings a dawning question.

A detailed and thorough perspective on the evolution of western culture could be most helpful. With the surfacing of the many cultures of the many peoples of the earth, what Rudolf Steiner has given as a sophianic perspective of western cultural unfolding could be seen in comparative light. Then the gradual birth of the Sophia could be more easily perceived, as it were, birthed in the souls of men. From all that I can gather, the sophianic is crucial for the future. My sense is that if the sophianic is not seen in perspective, in comparative perspective, then it can be taken in an exclusive way. Such a limited view most likely will only cause offense. The evolution of culture in the light of the Sophia belongs to a deepening insight into the non-mainstream impulses of the industrial west. In the last fifty years, cultural anthropology, sociology, and third world cultural studies have begun to surface the diversity of human culture, but the sophianic is lacking except in the case of anthroposophy. For this reason, such an effort as the present one has a justification. It would be my hope that with more attention to the sophianic in history that greater perspectives can be gained which might help human beings from many cultures to gain a greater understanding of their own standing in the world. If this does not occur, the battle of the cultures is certain to surface with a vengeance, as for example we hear about with the Indians of North America, the Jewish culture, the Arabic, the Black and the like. If a sophianic perspective appears as exclusive, then it will be attacked as beginning to happen more and more.

The cultural epochs in themselves are a designation of history out of the sophianic impulse in human evolution where soul-spiritual factors are taken into consideration. In fact, one might say that it is out of the light of the cultural epochs perceived by Rudolf Steiner that he has revealed the Sophia to us. For this reason, I would think that those not familiar with Anthroposophy could be puzzled about the handling of history.

If the sophianic is not introduced into history, history can be reduced to biological processes, to artifactual history (comparative anthropology), or economic struggles. As noted, the latter is the most modern approach. The Darwinian view of competition and the selection of the fittest is also a more recent and animalistic view of history, though the animalism may well be that of human beings and not necessarily that from the animal kingdom. This is what can be heard about Darwinian evolution by those who love animals.

Currently, with the world-wide research into the genomic make up of the human being, history is being reduced to biological-biochemical processes out of which there arises that which drives men. I would suggest that a sophianic impulse is, on the other hand, a way to approach the human soul-spirit, which gradually emerges as primary even with the present emphasis on material factors in human biology, that is the genetic makeup.

Thus, as this essay progresses, the other perspectives on history need to be kept in the background. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer created charts where he listed 1) political history, 2) migrations, wars, 3) religion, art and science and then 4) the sophianic process. These are the four categories he used for a comparative approach to history. The charts begin with 500 BC and carry through to the present time. With this comparative method, something of the sophianic as given by Rudolf Steiner, from his spiritual science, can be better appreciated. The charts have now been put into printed form and were for years only in handwritten form.

More About The Sophia
The ancient teachings about spiritual beings can be thought of as a sophianic view of the world. With these older teachings in sophianic history, there is a polytheistic perspective. This theistic, this God-centered view, appears as characteristic of the sophias of ancient times, as far back as the Indian Cultural epoch. The polytheistic orientation can be seen as a foundation for the monotheistic perspective which emerged with the Hebrew peoples and culture which came to constitute a religion as a sophianic perspective. The polytheistic orientation is often designated by the term pagan according to the Hebrew orientation that was born 3000 BC. This theistic view can then be followed through the times of the Hebrew evolution and only with the advent of the Greek philosophical impulse in about 8-700 BC do we find the birth of a new sophianic cultural impulse. Thus, for a period of 21-2200 years we can find a theistic impulse in mankind, with the transition from polytheism to monotheism and paganism. With this perspective we can see culture in a theistic light. The sophianic of that time is Theosophic. The Sophia carries the garb of a Godliness.

There now follows the birth of the philosophical impulse in culture, and with this, the evolution of philosophy in Greek times comes into consideration. There are those who do not consider that philosophy was born at that time, and rather trace philosophy into the most ancient times. From the research of Rudolf Steiner, philosophy was born 8-700 BC. If we take this view, then we can consider that the theosophic gave way to the philosophic as a revelation of the sophianic.

The transition from the Mystery Centered Culture to philosophic centered culture is accentuated with the founding of the School of Athens by Aristotle out of the major impulse of Plato. As the monotheistic view was born, the pagan perspective could be identified. In a similar vein, it might be considered that the heretic was born with the birth of the philosophical-cultural impulse during the philosophical Greek times. The pagan experienced the elemental beingness of existence as the single God came to be reckoned with. With the birth of philosophy, divergent philosophical views could be identified. A philosophy divergent from a major philosophical trend came to be identified as heretical. As the pagan turned to elemental spiritual beings of the physical world, the heretic turned to the spiritual beingness of existence as philosophy became more and more materialistic. A spiritual orientation in human thought life, became progressively heretical as philosophy took its materialistic bent in ^ western evolution.

With the philosophical view of existence born in Greece, that is a view where the thinker is seen as thinking out of himself, not inspired, or incorporated into, the independent thinker was born. The independent thinker could take up the physical world as culture progressed to our times. Similarly, an even more independent thinker was born who tried to take consideration of the spirituality of existence alongside the reality of our material existence. The latter can be thought of as the heretic, a divergent thinker from the mainstream of thinkers.

The independent thinker, who came to think differently, or had a different world view than the so-called conventional Christian thinker, came to be known as the heretic. This designation can be spoken of as born out of the institutionalization of Christianity. As the Hebrew came to designate the pagan with the birth of monotheism, the heretic came to be identified, as Christianity became institutionalized. The potential free thinker, born of the Greek philosophical impulse, became evident when a human being came to think independently of the view promulgated by the Church, which also evolved out of Greek times.

Thus, two sets of streams might be noted. The first set is with the theosophical period of human culture. Monotheism and paganism came to be identified. A second set of streams can then be identified as the theosophic orientation was metamorphosed into the philosophic. The second two streams might be identified by the philosophers of institution (the Church) and materialism (i.e. St. Augustine) and the heretical philosophers who continued to seek spiritual elements in physical reality (i.e. Manicheans).

Thus, it can be thought that the theosophical evolution which culminated in monotheism, helped birth a more conscious theism with many spiritual beings, that is paganism. The Greek and then Christian impulse in human history came to identify the thinker, who supported the institutionalization of religious life and the independent thinker who kept a spiritual perspective with the progressive evolution in human cultural life. Dogmatizing of religious life (institutional dogma) and the origin of natural science can be found in the period where philosophy gradually became the mantle of the Sophia.

It is the philosophical evolution that was researched with infinite pains by Rudolf Steiner. He used the thinking capacity of the human being, evidenced in a philosophical perspective, as a way to show the changing consciousness of the human being. This means the change in the human soul in relation to the physical and spiritual world was carefully researched by Rudolf Steiner. He used the writings of the thinkers who have contributed to the evolution of science and art in the west. Rudolf Steiner presented his research in the book entitled “Riddles of Philosophy”. The research is an intimate look into the human soul, the soul who thinks, who slowly evolves his intellectual capacities. With this research, the depths of the thinking human being comes to the surface. This search into the sophianic evolution, the philosophic, from 8-700 BC to our times, is painstaking and carefully documented by Rudolf Steiner.

This second sophianic period, the time of philosophy, evolves so that the love of Sophia is lost. With the coming of our present time mankind lost a love for Sophia. As modern materialistic science evolved, there came theorization with mathematical thought and research. (Theo-sophia became Theo-retica). A love for Sophia disappeared. Sophia as a Being was replaced by forces, energies, atoms, and substance elements (110 elements to be found in our periodic table). Sophia died out of human consciousness. A rebirth and a reawakening became necessary and is still necessary. With this we can consider that Anthroposophia was introduced to mankind.

As Rudolf Steiner researched philosophical systems, and then turned to the physical makeup of the human being (aided by the work of Goethe), he came across a new sophianic revelation. This revelation is a Sophia that becomes evident by dint of research on the physical makeup of the human organism. This organism is material of course, but it is living, ensouled and enspirited as well. The research with this organism therefore contains the potential for revealing an infinitude of secrets. One of the great secrets is the sophianic makeup of this organism.

Rudolf Steiner worked diligently to make this discovery, and the discovery is documented in his autobiography. To this day, and this may be my particular karmic circumstance, I have never heard or read of an anthroposophist who has made reference to the brief note that Rudolf Steiner made in regard to this significant, nay momentous, discovery. The quote is — “Anatomy and physiology struggled through step by step, to this sensible-supersensible form. In this struggling through my look fell, at first in a very imperfect way, upon the threefold organization of the human being, about which – after having pursued my studies concerning it for thirty years in silence – I first began to speak publicly in my book “Von Seelenratsel (Riddles of the Soul)”.

This discovery I would like to call a revelation of the Sophia in the Garment of the Human Organism via the human soul. (Another view might be that this was a physical-etheric revelation of the Being of Sophia in the garment of Adam Cadman coming to manifestation in the human soul, the thinking soul of Rudolf Steiner). As noted, Rudolf Steiner researched, wrote and lectured for thirty years about this emerging Sophia of the human being before writing publicly about it. He as well carefully researched the writings of searchers and thinkers in the western world in more modern times to find how mankind stepped from the “love of Sophia” to a “Sophia of the human being”. He wrote about this research in his book “The Riddle of Man”.

With this brief overview, it is possible to follow the history of the Sophias from the time of old spiritual theocratic times to a philosophic transition of some 2100 years beginning 8-700 BC to the present. The present permits a new Sophia manifestation in human history, one which points to the next several thousand years. This Sophia is the Sophia of the Human Being, Anthroposophia. I would like to propose that there may be a further Sophia revelation of Sophia. This revelation I would call “Socio-sophia”, who is revealed as a “Practico-sophia” in the course of daily life in our time.

The Cosmic Sophia
It has been interesting and helpful to work through the book by Sergei Prokofieff on the “Heavenly Sophia” just because I thought I might have a different perspective on the origin of the sophianic impulse in world events. He begins the Sophianic with the activity of the Kyriotetes during Sun evolution and develops the Sophianic unfolding from this cosmic historical time. My starting point is a little different and cannot be substantiated in quite the same way as his but touches into the view that he has developed. Therefore, I am grateful to Sergei for his work.

My point of departure, and my point of origin, is the very beginning of Saturn. In Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual investigations, he has come to outline a time in Saturn birth and evolution when there was pure “spiritual light”, then pure “spiritual soul life”, and then “pure spiritual warmth”. These three came into existence before the manifest soul warmth of mid-Saturn evolution. This sequence of activities in the early evolution of Saturn, can be found in the book “Occult Science”.

If one then turns to the five lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave in relation to the “Inner Aspects of Evolution”, one can find that all the above could take place because the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, had developed an etheric body as their lowest member. The other spiritual beings of the Hierarchy, other than the Thrones, had only developed to the point of having an astral body. With such an etheric, the Thrones could sacrifice their astral body as a basis for the evolution of physical substance. The physical substance of our present world was in an astral condition to begin with and had to be transformed gradually from astral physical substance to living substance, then soul-like sentient substance and finally inanimate and non-living substance. These states of substance follow the states of matter from warmth to air, to wateriness and then solidity – during Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth evolutions.

Thus, it is that physical astral substance from Saturn, after having a living quality impregnated into it on Sun was transformed to become mobile and sentient on Moon. Only on Earth did the physical become ego penetrated and assume the makeup of our present physical substance – dead physical substance after the “Fall” of the Angels and the “Fall” of substance – after both Falls.

If one turns back to Saturn and the ether substance of the Thrones, I would suggest one can consider this ether as “mother-ether” substance while the physical substance (in an astral condition), might be called “mater-nal substance”, or “physical material substance”. The astral of the Spirits of Will is sacrificed into this etheric substratum. The ether of the Thrones might be thought of as a kind of maternal life and substance for the birth of worlds. The etheric and the astral-substantial might be considered as a kind of womb with the birthing of the world. The physical-astral substance of the Thrones, as noted, is the “mother substance” of the world, and the “mother-ether” is the life womb of the world. In this way, one comes to the maternal of our world and a use of the concept of mother and maternal as a direction in birthing the world. The birth process, in a way, can be thought of as kind of “Divine” virginalis birth process, to be mirrored later with the Mystery of Golgotha. The soul returns to this time of existence to become virginius.

If we now survey the evolutionary stages of Saturn, we come to indications that the Spirits of Wisdom became active in the very early phases of the “unmanifest” Saturn. It is the Kyriotetes, possibly twelve Pleroma, I would designate as those born to become later known as the evolving Sophia. (Note can be made, that to consider the spiritual beings as evolving, is quite new in the thinking of western mankind as far as I know – as new as the idea that matter is of astral origin.) At this stage let me call the Kyriot activity, perhaps twelve Kyriotetes of mighty spiritual dimension, as the IE stage of evolution for this spiritual Being, Sophia. This involvement in the ether of this stage of evolution I would ponder as the stage when the body of Sophia is being formed – an ether body.

Thus, on Saturn: IE might be sounded in order to enter the beingness of Sophia in a more living way.

Turning to the next stage of evolution, the stage of Sun
evolution, we can ponder the stage where the Spirits of Wisdom can give of their own substance, that is etheric substance. Now the sounding of our world towards the birth of this Spiritual Being might become IEA, with the Ah indicating the birth of this Being where the physical of Saturn is brought along with the “h”. This is a further step in the evolution of the Sun when the physical which was given on Saturn as astral substance, becomes a part of the Sun evolution. It is then that I would suggest that for the first time the element of the consonant is added to the vowel as with the “h” for the sounding of IEAh.

Thus, on Sun: IEAh might be sounded to live into the Being of Sophia in a more active way.

During the Sun evolution something of a slightly lower ether state can be considered. The ether state on Saturn might be thought of as more “life-spirit” in nature, while that on Sun evolution might be more of soul makeup, perhaps “intellectual-soul” makeup.

With the Moon evolution the next step in Sophianic cosmic evolution can be taken. Now it is the 0 that is added to IEA. The “h” again can be thought of as the physical from Saturn evolution that is brought along and penetrated by the astral. Now one can begin with IEAO and add the “h” so that we have IEAOh.

Thus, on Moon: IEAOh might be sounded, to experience the Sophia inwardly.

The ether of the Moon evolution might be thought of as a transition from light- to warmth-ether so that with Earth evolution actual warmth-ether can “de-volve” from light to warmth. Rudolf Steiner has addressed this devolution, but it has not been noted by anthroposophical researchers best as I can see. This devolution process is crucial as there is another direction, an upward evolution, in ether unfolding where tone-ether and life-ether evolve to ever higher workings, towards the “Spirit-life” of Saturn.

The next step is the Earth evolution, where the three cosmic evolutions are recapitulated at outset. Now it is the physical that is first recapitulated to become the JIE, sounding of Sophia. This is the first recapitulatory period of the Earth. A “J” can be added to sound the consonant which needs to be added to the vowel of pure cosmic evolution of the Sophia before the unfolding of Earth.

Thus, on Earth (Polaria): JIEh might be sounded for the first recapitulatory phase.

With the second recapitulatory step of earth evolution, that is Hyperborea, we can meditate a next sounding. The Ah is added so that the JIEh can become JIEAh. JIEAh sounds in the light of the sun that streams to the earth which has existed in the moon-earth, and in this light is the future Being who comes to be known as Sophia later.

Thus, on Earth (Hyperborea): JIEAh might be sounded for the second recapitulatory phase.

The third recapitulatory step reflects Moon evolution. Here the astral is added to the physical and etheric. Now the “Oh” can again be added so that the sounding becomes JIEAOh.

Thus, on Earth (Lemuria): JIEAOh might ring forth into the space around us filling the soul with “soulness” in tension.

The sun was withdrawn from the earth by the activity of the Elohim who were the accompaniers of the IEA, that is the Pleuromic Elohim. The Elohim from Saturn evolution who stayed behind to remain with the Kyriotetes of that time, can be called Pleuromic-Elohim, while the lofty Elohim who accompanied the coming forth of the human being with the earth evolved to become the Jehovah-Elohim at the time of Lemurian unfolding. This development of Jehovah Rudolf Steiner details in his lectures on “Genesis”. The Pleuromic impulse I have suggested might be Twelve Kyriotetes. They can be thought of as accompanying evolution from the outset and in whose bosom lie the six Elohim who later join the Seventh and as well the later mighty Archangel Michael. The Seventh is the Elohim who is elevated during the time of Earth evolution up to Lemuria to become a Jehovah being (God as father). As best as I can derive from the lectures on Genesis, the deeds of this El-ohim bring about the condensation of the light-ether of Sun evolution to warmth-ether of earth. This warmth-ether is needed for the incarnation of the human ego into a physical body as the earth loses the moon. This condensation of the light-ether to warmth-ether I have often pointed to, but again note that it is seldom taken into consideration by others. This condensation is important for the Sophia to make a next step towards the human soul, that is the ego of the human being.

With the extraction of the moon by Jehovah-Elohim, which was preceded by the extraction of the sun by the Pleuromic-Elohim, the recapitulatory stages of the Earth have come to an end. With the extraction of the moon from the Earth, Earth evolution as such commences. This is designated as the time of Atlantis or the Ice Age, the time of the cooling of the Earth and the unfolding of the solid state of materiality. With this stage the JIEAOh becomes JIEAOVAh among the gods, and EVA becomes a human being among the mortals. She carries the impulse of wisdom in the inner-most of her being.

Before EVA a first man had stepped on to the earth, that is ADAM. This ADAM was able to incarnate the ego for the first time, the ego which was given to man by the Exusiai out of a process of death. A dying out of a spiritual being is the birth process of the human ego and brings death to our existence. This original death process does not appear to be like the complete darkness with death in our day. The ego of man is given by the Exusiai and is mirrored in death as it takes place here on earth by the human being. This first Adam left part of his being, part of his ego, his more etheric cosmic existence, in the spiritual world. This more etheric-cosmic side of ADAM came to be known as Adam Cadman in esoteric circles as best as I can find from my research up to this time. One might say that ADAM by the extraction of Adam Cadman became Adam. This extraction of Adam Cadman from Adam, I often think may be the instinctive spiritual basis for our spiritual striving all together.

The just depicted events lead from Polaria to Atlantis. With the birth of an EA impulse in a human being, Adam received an accompanying soul, Eva. The EVA of the cosmos became more human and became an Eva,(Eve) the wife of Adam, while Adam Cadman unfolded as a “sister-soul”.

Thus on Earth (Atlantis): JIEOVAH-EVA might be sounded in an effort to rise to this Being when Adam and Eve were born.

A summary of the cosmic stages of evolution of Sophia then might be
as follows:
IE ——Saturn evolution
IEAh ——–Sun evolution
IEAOh ——–Moon evolution
JIE ———-Earth (Polaria)
JIEAh ——–Earth (Hyperborea)
JIEAOh ——-Earth (Lemuria)
JIEAOVH ——Earth (Atlantis)
JIEHOVA ——Beginning of the age of darkness
EVA ——–Beginning of the age of darkness

The Gradual Incarnation Of The Sophia Into The Souls Of Human Beings.

The next step is to try to find how the Being of Sophia might have unfolded her soul and spirit. What has been portrayed might be considered her bodily and soul evolution. This evolution is based on the changes in the etheric during world evolution. Her cosmic bodily unfolding we have tried to contemplate, consider. We have noted her cosmic, heavenly bodily birth in early Saturn. We then have tried to follow her unfolding of cosmic “soulness” with the reincarnations of our earth. Now we can try to find how Sophia gained her spirit through the soul life and the spiritual life of the human being.

It can be noted that there is yet no S or P consonants that unite with EA, IE, or EA, the Wisdom Being of our World. She has yet to gain Her spirit. The bodily condition of Sophia we can meditatively gather with the early phase of Saturn or as Saturn is born, as just noted. With the further cosmic evolution Her soul can be sought. It is only with the birth of the human being into a body, and the evolution of the human being from body to soul, and then from soul to spirit, that the spirit of Sophia comes into existence as spirit. Thus, there is no real Sophia being until the human being becomes a true earth dweller and can in his soul make space for the IE, IEAh, IEAOh and then JIE, JIEAh, JIEAOh and then JIEAOVh. With EVA we can consider that the human soul finally incarnates EA while an earth dweller.

The descent of the EA into the human soul to become a spirit, I take as indicated in the Legend that has to do with the birth of Marduk – the birth of Michael-Marduk. This is an Assyrian legend, where the birth of Michael-Marduk is addressed. I would place the legend in the third millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha. This legend is pointed to by Rudolf Steiner in the cycle called “True and False Paths of Initiation”.

Thus, we can look to the 3000 years before the Mystery of Golgotha as a time when human beings for the first time began to sense the Being Sophia in their own soul. I would like to think at this time, that the entering of the Sophia impulse into the human soul 3000 BC inaugurated the possibility for human spiritual striving out of the soul-spirit of the individual. Before that man was overshone or inspired by spiritual beings. Before the coming of the Sophia impulse into the soul of the human being, the human being was essentially passive and was led, led by the spiritual world or by the initiate leaders of the human race.

Three thousand years before the coming of Christ, was the onset of the age called the “Age of Darkness”. This was the time when the “age of darkness” settled into the souls of men. It is then that EA is born out of cosmic times as noted above, for the first time to become known to the human being within his darkness. TIAMAT the being of darkness came to occupy the human soul. EA birthed Marduk-Michael, the mighty Archangel, in order that darkness would not prevail. Michael had the task, has had the task, to bring the light of EA into the soul of the human being so that the soul could be enspirited with light, as darkness became a part of the soul.

This activity of Tiamat ( Asuric-Ahrimanic) during the third cultural epoch, 3000 BC., offered each human being the possibility to come to darkness, so that out of this darkness he could out of his own effort come to light, come to light out of self-activation and freedom. The Age of Darkness came as a need for the evolution of the human being. But, just as darkness was a need, so the possibility of a striving for light, the light of wisdom, this was also part of the greater plan. In a way we can think that the darkness was given to man later in his development so that he could out of his own inmost existence strive to the light through Sophia.

The EA impulse born of the most ancient time, then comes to the human being so that She can become a spirit, and the human soul out of darkness can out of his own “I”, I or JI, come to the light of EA or through EA. For this to occur the fire of the ether world had to be incarnated into the human ego. This fire can be found in the letter “S” and can be sounded and heard by the human heart – so we might meditate. The fiery S-S-S must be taken into the “I”, or JI. This fire in the soul, in the Oh becomes a step to the EA. SOHEA becomes a sounding, inspiring the soul, enspiriting the soul, while the “V” of the soul is not yet sounded. From above, as it were, there now sounds the “Pe” instead of the “Ve”. With the “Pe” brings the spirit impulse into the soul by the human ego on fire with the spirit as it were. Sophia comes to be sounded in the soul over the next several thousand years, from 3000 BC. to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. During the next two thousand years the basis is laid for the birth of a love for the Sophia. In and around 8-700 BC, Philosophy is born in the souls of human beings. Here the fire of the Spirits of Love unites with the light of the Spirits of Wisdom.

The Birth Of Sophia In The Human Soul – The Three Hebrew Millennia
The Mystery of Golgotha, which took place at the Turning Point in Time, came to bring a new dimension to this light that began to shine in the darkness. This was not the light of Wisdom, of the Kyriotetes, but the Light of Love, which can accompany the fire of Spiritual Love (enthusiasm). This new light can enlighten hearts and heads for deeds while warming both with love.

The love of Sophia, the philo-sophia, can be considered as a prerequisite to a further unfolding of the Sophia in the life of humanity. Again and again, it can be thought that the Michael activity is in the midst of this light of the soul, that is rising to the light of the spirit through Sophia. It is then from the spirit that the light, soul and spirit light, flows into deeds if possible. One might think that love is the basis of light becoming deed, life. The struggle for the enlightening of the soul by the spirit, for the sake of human action, can be said to have lasted for five thousand years during the Age of Darkness, Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga served as the ground on which this inner evolution of the human being could take place. During this time, Sophia had to work for the enlightening, the bringing of love to the human soul, and at the same time experience her own evolution. Only in 1899 did this age of darkness conclude and now we can begin to actually use this new light if we so strive.

IE, IEAh, IEAOh, and then JIE, JIEAh, JIEOh, etc. can be thought to have come into existence to be born into the human soul by the Archangel Michael. With this it became possible for something of the eternal feminine to enter the souls of human beings to help that the light of the spirit could develop for the sake of the future. I would like to think and then sound, that EA which was the Being heard three thousand years before the mystery of Golgotha, when the human being was given his spirit by Michael, the ruler of Cosmic Intelligence. He carried the light of EA into the souls of men when EA as soul wove in the cosmos, filling cosmic intelligence with wisdom. Here wisdom was first brought to the human being in the form of intelligence, as it were, by overshadowing the human soul. At this stage, the human soul is given intelligence.

The great initiate, Abraham, was given this intelligence at the hand of his initiator, Melchizedek. In the culture of Assyria, EA was manifest as Light, Spirit Light. With Abraham this light was brought into the soul, and there could be gradually metamorphosed with the birth of mathematical intelligence. It is for this reason, if I comprehend correctly, that Rudolf Steiner called this third millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, the millennium of Abraham. At about the same time in the Assyrian culture the EA impulse came to be used by EA-bani and Gilgamesh for the sake of transforming culture, star culture, ancient mystery culture into earthly culture, wisdom penetrated. With the Greek culture, one might think that this EA impulse began to live in the soul in the form of mythological thought and picture and the heavenly gods of the Greek.

As darkness gradually settled into the souls of men, a second millennium unfolded. This second millennium has been called the millennium of Moses, so designated by Rudolf Steiner. The first millennium is the one which saw the EA born into a physical body, that is the body of Abraham, the brain of Abraham so that he could do mathematical processes in the soul and have them reflected in the body. It can be contemplated, that at the same time the life body of Abraham was so organized that it could become the basis for physical heredity, that is the life of an evolving people. The race of the Jew is thereby assured, and Abraham becomes the Father of a People. As EA enters the soul to structure the brain for mathematical processes, so Jehovah enters the life of the body so that a stream of heredity can be assured. Thus: EA as spirit in the human soul structures the brain of a human being, Abraham, to meet the world mathematically. This becomes the physical body of Sophia through the soul of the human being, Abraham.

(Another aspect of EA is one that is not so earth bound but is more heavenly bound, cosmically bound. This might be contemplated with the Being of Isis. With Isis we have the EA impulse where the trend is to ever higher realms of spirituality. Isis can appear as an ascending Being, supported by the life or ether world of Osiris, on the way to birth a son, Horus. With the birth of Horus, a reflection of earlier cosmic evolution can come before the soul. This is the IEA of the cosmic Sun evolution – so I would like to contemplate. In this way what has been said about the cosmic aspect of EA can, with the Egyptian cultural epoch, appear as a retrospect through Lemurian times to this Sun evolution of EA. With Horus, the I of EA or the IEA stage of EA evolution can be contemplated. This IEA comes slowly to earth as just noted with IEAO to become EVA-eve in the time of Atlantis).

The second thousand years, the Moses millennia, permits that Sophia gains an etheric body – an earthy human etheric body, not a cosmic etheric body. Her three ether bodies have been noted – 1)from early Saturn, 2)from the gift of the Kyriotetes, and 3)from the extraction of the sun from the earth. During the millennia of Moses, he was initiated into the etheric world so that the coming forth of the world and the human being, the embryogenesis of both, could be given to mankind. The penetration of the world and man by an etheric body, and the wisdom related to this, this is what is given to humanity by Moses. It is the penetration of all of evolution by the etheric, which was given to Moses with his initiation, that gave Sophia the basis for an etheric body. (Here the working of the embryonic membranes on the unfolding human embryo can be seen as the basis for the enlightenment of Moses as indicated by Rudolf Steiner.) This is where Moses acquired his wisdom and the way that EA gained a human ether body. It is this penetration of the whole of physical propagation, generation and development with wisdom, by the souls of the Hebrew people that can be considered to give a life body, an etheric body to EA. She then comes to penetrate the ether with her wisdom and thereby becomes a SEA. Thus, in sounding the EA of the first millennium, her sounding might become SEAh.

Thus, SEAh as spirit in the soul of human beings structures the etheric body for evolutionary possibilities through spirit it becomes the etheric body of Sophia.

This unfolding of an ether body within the Jewish race has a parallel with the unfolding of Greek culture. The Greek with the first millennium unfolds the Mycenaean culture, where the intelligence is a concern of the greatest import. The generations of the Gods can be translated into varying states of consciousness as has been indicated to us by Rudolf Steiner. The second period, the Moses millennium, finds the Greek busier with the unfolding of Mystery Temple Culture. The mythological period of the Greek is transformed into Mystery Temple culture and initiation practices directly. During this time the Jewish culture went through a consolidation because of the initiation of Moses by Jethro thus giving the potential for EA as just outlined.

Thus, we can note the mythological-Greek time and the Abrahamic first millennium as an unfolding of the EA as spirit into the soul of the human being to fashion a physical body. Next with the second millennium the Greek evolves his mystery centers with initiation practices and the Hebrew consolidates as a people around the initiation of Moses. In the first period EA gains her physical body, and during the second her etheric body. There are indications from Rudolf Steiner to substantiate this line of contemplation which has been put together in such an able fashion by Sergei Prokofieff. Here my own line of contemplation unites with what this author has given in his book on the “Heavenly Sophia” – though it has quite a different twist.

If we designate the first period as the time of EA, and the second as SEAh, then we can be prepared to move on to the third millennium, the time when EA gained her astral body. This time, this millennium, has been designated by Rudolf Steiner as the time of Solomon. It is the time of temple building for the Jew, and the time of the birth of philosophy for the Greek. It is the structuring of the soul, the temple building with its disciplines which guide the next step for the Jew. The Greek on the other hand, began a careful structuring of the soul at the hand of the spirit, and out of this work came the birth of philosophy. It may well be that the legendary Queen of Sheba, the Queen to King Solomon, is the sophianic counterpart of the sophia of the Greek, who founded the love for her — that is PHILOSOPHY.

The exoteric of the temple building we can gain from usual history, religious history for the most part. The “Temple Legend” has been given to present the esoteric of the same process. In Greece while temples were built, the esoteric was carried out in philosophical exchange and disputes. The philosophical process can be thought of as the structuring of an inner temple, as it were.

This temple building, inner or outer, may well be thought of as giving an astral body to Sophia, structuring an astral body out of the laws of the cosmos and then gradually laying the foundation for structuring the astral body to become soul supportive. If we follow the way that I have been trying to use sounds to depict this process, then we can think of the EA who needs a physical body, fashioned in the time of Abraham to become a SEA-h. In the next thousand years She receives an etheric body out of the work of Moses. She might be sounded as SEAO- without the “h” as she becomes more and more ethereal. With the third millennia EA might be sounded as SEOI with the absence of h. This can be an ascending formative activity within the astral of EA.

So, an outline might be:
SEA-h – time of Abraham – body of EA within the physical bodily transformations of the human being.
SEAO – time of Moses – the ether body of EA within the
transformations of the human etheric.
SEAOI – time of Solomon – the astral body of EA being formed so
that the ego can incarnate next.

If we follow the outline of a “theosophy” of the human being as given by spiritual science, then as just indicated, EA needs an ego given by the souls of men. We can look to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Turning of Time, to seek the ego birth of EA. Here we can look to the two Mary’s of the Jesuses to support the ego birth of EA within the soul of human beings. One birth and egoness for EA might be sought in the life of the young Mary of the Nathanic Jesus, the mother who died early and rose into the world of the divine of spiritual heights. This young Mary rose, as it were, to the greatest of heights, to virginity of soul, to holiness of soul and then to divinity of soulness. These stages of the Nathanic Mary, if I understand correctly, resulted in the rapid ascent of this ego of this Mary to the heights of spiritual existence of the cosmos. Here I would think that the ego birth of EA could be sounded as SIEVA with the evolution of the human ego on a path to the Divine.

The second ego impulse in the life of EA might be followed with the older Mary, the mother of the Solomonic Jesus. This second mother lived through the first twelve years of her Solomonic son, then took on motherhood for the next eighteen years for the Nathanic body. In this way she could live with the Ego of the Solomonic Jesus, the Zarathustra ego, so that the Solomonic ego in the body of the Nathan could give over the body of the Nathanic ego to the incarnating Christ. For three years she then becomes the mother, the EVA, of the Christ Jesus. Here we might sound E-V-A-I. During these three years she not only became virginius, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, but she can be thought of as gradually coming to a state of holiness, so that slowly she could become the “Mother of John”. It is this mother element that we can then try to grasp in the next sounding of EA who begins a two-fold evolution – the one to the Divine and the other into the souls of human beings, into the innermost core of the human being. To her we can sound – S-O-P-H-I-A.

Though Sophia was incarnating in the Greek cultural stream, within the mystery stream, to become a beloved Being, that is “Philosophia”, she became an actual mother within the stream which was developed to permit the incarnation of the Christ. She can be thought of as a mother incarnate in the Nathanic mother. She by this means could acquire an ego and lay a foundation for helping the human being to find individuality through the Mystery of Golgotha. When she died at about twenty-five years of age, she, as already noted, ascended to the highest spiritual world but remained at the same time to overshadow the Solomonic mother. The Solomonic mother (overshone by the Nathanic mother in the spiritual world) became the mother of John at the Foot of the Cross. A new form of motherhood became possible and a new form of “sonship”. The mothering of the human soul, the further evolution of the soul became possible by the new relation between mother and son. The old purely hereditary ties could begin, for the first time, to step a bit into the background. The “mid-wifery” of Plato-Zagreus, and Plato the Younger, could become a mothering for the maturity of the soul, but in the case of the mother at the foot of the cross and the son at the foot of the cross, a Christic impulse was added to this relationship. This potential for human maturation out of the sophianic, and for a new relation with heredity, can be considered with the events at the foot of the Cross. The Christ, however, plays a role, the Christ spirit, not of the body, plays a role. Therefore, the scene is placed at the Foot of the Cross by the Gospel writers and later by artists.

Thus, our outline here can be extended for the evolution of the EA through the events of Golgotha. Slowly her evolution begins to parallel the development of the human being, the higher development.

The outline –
EA —– cosmic existence
SEA-h — time of Abraham
SEAO — time of Moses
SEAOI — time of Solomon
EVA —- turning of time – Mystery of Golgotha (mother impulse)
EVAI — time of Baptism
SOPHIA — time of Crucifixion

Coming Soon a Continuation
4 – Sophia And The Mystery Of Golgotha
5 -The Next Step of the Sophianic Impulse
6 – Practico Sophia