“They’re going through a stage,” we hear parents or teachers saying about younger people, though we say it about each other, too. Social scientists and psychologists often describe our lives as occurring in stages. Piaget refers to four stages from birth to adolescence. Rudolf Steiner describes our lives in 7-year cycles beginning at birth. Learning these frameworks gives us ways to make sense of our lives, ways that help us understand ourselves and others at every age.
In spiritual science we begin to look beyond the single life into previous lives. We begin to grasp that the history we learn is about us and our contemporaries in previous lives. We’ve evolved from our caveman days, and we will continue to evolve in our future lives. We aren’t the only beings evolving. The spiritual beings of the Third Hierarchy that we’ve been talking about this past year—the angels, archangels, and archai—are evolving, too. So are the beings in the Second and First Hierarchies. What causes evolution? Steiner says that evolution comprises different stages of consciousness.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
… It makes little difference whether a person takes his stand on Darwinian materialism or whether he speaks about the Gods in a more or less religious sense. It is much more to the point to become livingly aware that we ourselves have ascended from lower stages of existence and have yet to ascend to higher stages. We must realize that we have a relationship both with what is below and what is above.
Instruction about the Gods was first systematized by Dionysius the Areopagite, the pupil of the apostle Paul. It was however not written down until the sixth century… The Akashic Chronicle teaches that Dionysius actually lived in Athens, that he was initiated by Paul and was commissioned by him to lay the foundation of the teaching about the higher spiritual beings and to impart this knowledge to special initiates. At that time certain lofty teachings were never written down but only communicated as tradition by word of mouth. The teaching about the Gods was also given in this way by Dionysius to his pupils, who then passed it on further. These pupils in direct succession were intentionally called Dionysius, so that the last of these, who wrote down this teaching was one of those who was given this name.
This teaching about the Gods, as given by Dionysius, encompasses three times three ranks of divine beings. The three highest are: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. The next degree: *Dominions (Kyriotetes), Mights (Dynamis), Powers (Exusisai). The third degree: Primal Beginnings (Archai), Archangels, and Angels… After the Third Rank follows the Fourth Hierarchy: Man, as the tenth in the entire sequence.
The names of the Hierarchies do not refer to individuals but to certain stages of consciousness of the great universe, and the Beings move from one stage to another. Eliphas Levi perceived this clearly and laid stress on the fact that with these names one has to do with stages of development, with Hierarchies.
*Names in parenthesis have been inserted for this blog.
Excerpt from: Foundations of Esotericism: Notes of Thirty-one Lectures by Rudolf Steiner. Lecture 13, October 8, 1905. Berlin.
Recognizing that there are individual angels, for example our own guardian angel, we now see that the term angel refers to a level of consciousness. In the same way, we recognize that there are individual archangels, some of whom we’ve named in previous posts, but the term archangel refers to a level of consciousness different from angels, and so on. Thus, we come to see that we are all different human beings, but the term human refers to a level of consciousness.
As we advance in our consciousness, we become a more ideal human being. When we don’t evolve according to “our time” we become less and less content with ourselves and the world we live in because we aren’t developing and using the spiritual tools we’ve been given that are appropriate for our time. By studying spiritual science and by taking just a few minutes a day to meditate, we are choosing to put in front of us the ideal human being we are meant to become.