Steiner’s Temporics in Relation to Evolution of Consciousness
Discussion
Jennifer Gidley:
- "Out of the womb of time there is born for us human beings that which is beyond time. . . .For as far as human work is concerned, Eternity is the birth of that which has matured in Time. (Steiner, 1922/1940)What indications are there that Steiner is aware of the nuanced complexities of Gebser’s concretion of time."
There are several aspects of Steiner’s work where one might look to respond to this question. Firstly, it could be noted that many of Steiner’s books and lecture series are related to notions of time, history, mythology or relationships between time and consciousness(Steiner, 1926/1966b, 1950, 1904/1959, 1971a, 1971b, 1971c, 1971d, 1982c). This is by no means a complete list but rather a representative selection. This is also not intended to suggest that he overly emphasized time or did not problematize the terms
time or history — time is just one of the themes he researched in depth. A unique feature of Steiner’s approach is that he does not isolate time from other factors. His writing on time is very complex, and in itself integral-aperspectival, in my view, in that he consciously presents views from a number of perspectives. The themes he discussed in relation to
time include human memory, history, astro-geological cycles and progressive recapitulation. These are all complexly interwoven within his writings.
Time and Memory
Like Gebser, Steiner pointed to the relationship between human memory and the gradually evolving sense of time. Steiner (1950) described a three-stage development of memory that he called localized , rhythmic and temporal memory. Steiner (1904/1959) also referred elsewhere to cosmic memory..
Localized Memory
Steiner (1950) claimed that in very early times—which from the context of his text appear to be Upper Paleolithic—memory was not yet internalized within the human psyche, but was connected with place, with the Earth, requiring signs and prompts such as “memorial tablets and memorial stones” (p. 16). This appears to link to Gebser’s magic consciousness.
Rhythmic Memory
Following this, during the transition from the magic to the mythical—related to his Indian cultural period — Steiner (1950) claimed that memory began to become internalized and we learned to remember by rhythm and repetition, through which “the whole ancient art of verse developed” (P. 17). He referred to ancient Asia as a central location . . . citing the Bhagavad-Gita and the Vedas as later codified examples of this rhythmic memory (p. 18).
Learning by heart is a vestige of this type of memory and Steiner mentions the importance of this in children’s education.
Temporal Memory
Steiner (1950) characterized the temporal memory that “we take for granted today” (p. 17) as beginning in the Greco-Roman cultural period emerging around 800 BCE with the classical Greece of formal history. This of course coincides with the emergence of intellectual-mental-rational consciousness as we have seen in the main paper. Wilber (1996c), drawing on Whyte and Bergson, also refers to the emergence of memory—apparently referring to what Steiner calls “temporal memory” — in association with the mental-egoic consciousness (p. 206).
Steiner (1904/1959) also proposed that through
conscious spiritual development we may go beyond the ordinary, everyday temporal sense and attain access to our
cosmic memory — the deep collective past—and, in some instances, the future. He referred to the field where this information is stored as the Akasha Chronicle or Akashic Record (p. 39). Laszlo—from a scientific perspective — has also recently proposed the term Akashic field , or In-formation field for the field that stores cosmic memory (László, 2007). Gebser’s (1949/1985) notion of “atemporality” or remembering the future is similar—he cites Rilke’s poetic line: “wishes are recollections coming from the future” (p. 504). This future-time-sense is at the core of the contemporary futures studies literature (Slaughter, 1999).
Time and History
Steiner (1924/1973a) also held a very large, meta-historical perspective that he characterized as having three stages: cosmic or heavenly history, mythical or mythological history and earthly history.
He also refers elsewhere to non-transitory history (Steiner, 1904/1959, p. 39), which being beyond linear time, may resemble Gebser’s “time freedom.” I will primarily illustrate with brief quotes from Steiner’s own text, to retain the nuanced flavor of his conceptualizations.
Cosmic/Heavenly History
“Earlier peoples still had this ‘heavenly History’ in their consciousness, and were indeed farmore aware of it than of the Earthly . . . The man of that age, when he came to speak of ‘origins,’ did not relate earthly events but cosmic” (Steiner, 1924/1973a, p. 143). This appears to relate to Gebser’s magical timelessness.
Mythical History
“This . . . was followed by the mythical History . . . [which] combines heavenly events with earthly. ‘Heroes,’ for instance . . . appear on the scene” (p. 144). This is clearly linked with Gebser’s mythical structure. Steiner (1924/1973a) considered these heroes to be more highly evolved beings who worked through the initiates and leaders of the time in various places. Wilber’s (1996c) two parallel strands of evolution—the evolution of the average mode of consciousness and the evolution of the most advanced mode of consciousness—concurs with this(p. 339).
Earthly History
The origins of formal history as-we-know-it, has been present “since the unfolding of the Intellectual or Mind-soul [in ancient Greece]. Nevertheless for a long time [people] continued to ‘think’ in the sense of what had been before [that is, mythically]” (Steiner, 1924/1973a, p. 145-146). This reflects Gebser’s mental time conception. Wilber (1996c) claimed that history began a few hundred years earlier, c. 1,300 BCE, with the Assyrian rulers (p. 213).
Non-Transitory History
Steiner (1909/1959) proposed that freedom from the limitations of linear time could be developed through the new consciousness from the beginnings of the 15th century and increasingly in our times. He also pointed to a new self-reflective period where we would be aware of our actions in linear history and also be able to pay attention to our own historicity. This insight seems to foreshadow contemporary attention to historicity, arising from postmodern philosophy and hermeneutics. Gebser also spoke of divesting history of “its mere temporality and sequential nature” (p. 192).
Steiner’s Progressive Recapitulation as Complex Recursion
The many aspects of RE involve simultaneously: a reactivation of the ancestral past, a production and reproduction of present existence, and arrangements for the future. RE always includes a return to the past that resuscitates it in the present. By this movement, RE catapults the past towards the future. (Morin, 2005a, p. 261)Morin’s notion of RE — representing complex recursion—appears to align with Gebser’s concretion of time and Steiner’s progressive recapitulation theory. Steiner (1910/1939) claims that in each new stage of evolution, there is a “recapitulation” of the previous stage in a way that “is something like a repetition of . . . evolution [that] takes place on a higher level” (p. 155). He considers this process to be operating at every level of existence, including the previous stages of cosmic existence of the earth (cosmogony), socio-cultural evolution (phylogeny), and individual development (ontogeny). Morin (2005a) furthers this perspective. “ Innovation is Inscribed in the Return that it Transforms . . . Evolution is at once a break from repetition, through the upwelling of the new, and the reconstitution of repetition through the integration of the new” (p. 264).Laszlo (2006) observes a similar process in the evolution of societies. “The nonlinear but on the whole progressive evolution of societies is driven by innovations that perturb and eventually destabilize previously stable systems” (p. 105). (See also Deleuze’s (1994) notion of repetition and difference).
One way to investigate evolution’s complex recursivity is to explore relationships between astronomical cycles and anthropo-socio-cultural cycles. While both ancient hermetic science and modern astronomy have investigated such relationships, the potential influence of cosmic/astronomical cycles on the anthropo-social sphere has been largely ignored by modern and postmodern social scientists—in spite of having been already postulated as early as ancient Greece. We will now briefly explore the state of research in this area.
Solar Precessions and the Deep-Time-Cycles of the World
The orientation of the Earth’s rotational axis in relation to the stars and clusters of stars is not fixed, but varies slowly, over time, because of the gravitational influence of the Sun and the Moon on the swelling of the Earth’s equator. If we extend the earth’s axis to the imaginary sphere of the fixed stars, the point of intersection describes a circle of approximately 26,000 years. (Bocchi & Ceruti, 2002, p. 4)Steiner was the first post-Enlightenment scholar, as far as I have been able to ascertain, to substantially research and document the relationship between astronomical cycles such as the precession of the equinoxes and anthropo-socio-cultural evolution. The notion of the precession of the equinoxes, is thought to have been known to the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Nile valley as early as 3,000 BCE, but only fairly recently formalized by modern astronomy. The complete precession cycle is a period of approximately 25,700 years—the so called great Platonic year—during which time the equinox regresses over a full circle of 360°. While paleo=climatologists have begun to recognize the contribution of this process to cycles of climate change such as ice ages, there is little mention of it in the evolution of consciousness discourse. Although Steiner pointed to these links a century ago, neither Gebser, nor Wilber, have indicated any possible macrocosmic influence on the cycles of change in human culture and consciousness. More recently, a humble resurgence of interest is dawning in this under-researched area of human concern from philosophers (Bocchi & Ceruti, 2002; McDermott, 1984;Tarnas, 2006; Ulansey, 1994), and evolutionary psychologists (Sedikedes, Skowronski, &Dunbar, 2006). Philosopher of science Gianluca Bocchi and genetic epistemologist Mauro Ceruti, using a transdisciplinary narrative approach, draw on the notion of the precession of the equinoxes to illuminate the myths of many cultures that refer to a previous Golden Age (Bocchi & Ceruti, 2002).Steiner made a unique potential contribution to the evolution of consciousness discourse inthis area. He explored in some detail, across numerous books and lectures, the 2,160-year periods of the sun’s precession and the relationship of this to the evolution of culture and consciousness. According to Steiner (1971a), in his first post-glacial cultural period—the ancient Indian — the sun at the vernal equinox was moving into the constellation associated with Cancer (p. 52). He claimed that it then continued to move every 2,160 years, transitioning through Gemini in thePersian period, Taurus in the Egypto-Babylonian period, Aries in the Greco-Roman period(Steiner, 1971b), and so on. Historian of religion, David Ulansey, has undertaken and published substantial research into the notion of the precession of the equinoxes in relation to the ancient Roman Mithraic religion and their astrological mythologemes related to Taurean metaphors (Ulansey, 1991, 1994). Such research if extended to other cultural periods could be very fruitful. Philosopher, Richard Tarnas, has recently published the results of decades of research on the influence of astronomical events on human culture and consciousness (Tarnas, 2006). His work, however, primarily concerns shorter planetary cycles and not the large macro-cycles being referred to here.
In Summary
Steiner’s writing demonstrates a complex dialectic between progressive development and cyclical recursion. Like Gebser’s writing, it points to a new stage of consciousness that is capable of beginning the integration of all aspects of human nature. And like Wilber’s writing it also foreshadows the potential of further future stages."