Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE ETHERIC BODY
The fundamental components of the physiognomy of the etheric body were already extant on Ancient Sun, the etheric’s creation home. These are light, the color yellow, and triangulation; especially the triangle itself, and its 3-dimensional counterpart, the tetrahedral pyramid. The ‘angles of incidence’ created both by the diurnal and annual path of the sun are also etheric in nature. Others are the air in general, and the breath, with its rhythmic patterns, in particular.
On the Earth, with its more advanced ‘Sun’ epoch, Hyperborea, we find all the above, but in a denser state of manifestation, Indeed, so sense that the higher Sun beings, which had so far accompanied and aided evolution, could no longer endure the same materializing world. So, with the finer solar elements, they departed for higher realms, creating the now separate ‘planets’ of Sun and Earth.
These rarified ‘substances’ were of course etheric in essence and are still today poured as life-giving gifts down onto the planet.
Most cultures recognize the sun as the primary bestower of life, the etheric of course being the ‘life’ body. These forces descend in the manifold forms of the descending triangle, especially expressing in such creations as the inverted triangle form of many trees, such as palms. But this Sun Spirit departure didn’t leave the etheric bank account on earth completely empty; some of these spiritualized life elements remained in our ever-hardening world, to bond with the plants in particular. As further densification occurred, the very soil the plants created became charged with etheric life, invigorating the earth via the cycle of growth and decay.
Where this process is minimal, cosmic ether forces tend to dominate; but where active, a blessed cooperation between the ascending and descending etheric forces is evident. These life ‘substances’ ever yearn to rise again to their heavenly home, again in triangular forms, but this time with the apex uppermost. This is an etheric expression of metaphysical levity, as opposed to physical body gravity. Many conical pines are a pure manifestation of this aspiring earth-life triangle. The ‘body of formative forces’ of man, and indeed all life, is timelessly re-created by the two triangles.
These two invisible ‘triangles’, the descending, and the ascending, bear etheric radiations of various kinds from heaven to earth and vice versa. Informed folk of the past knew this as surely as today we know that the earth is round. They informed their various ‘flocks’ by weaving this mighty verity into symbols; the compass and square of the Freemasons and the Star of David being just two examples.
Not only the physiognomy of plants, as seen in palm and pine, but that of animals, is another steppingstone I an observation of man.
The cat family wonderfully expresses these etheric currents through their body form, yellow eyes, and among other things – their breathing. This is a finely-balance expression of the harmony of cosmic and earth ethericity; so delightfully experienced when a cat sits on your lap purring in pleasure. Felines of all, um, stripes mainly comprise triangular forms; where this seems to be contradicted, it will be as a counterbalancing element, such as the astral curve across the back of many in the cat family. (Astral? They are, after all, carnivores.) Even the physical body-dominant dog can embody etheric elements; seen especially in the triangular fox, with its yellow eyes and graceful rhythmic movement.
No surprise then that many human beings display these same etheric features. For instance, those who move with athletic confidence will most likely have a strong or conscious etheric body, as will yellow-toned souls (hair, skin, eyes), and triangulated individuals, whether in the head-face or the whole-body form.
Indeed, humanity roughly divides into two between the descending and ascending triangles. The dominant descending (divine ether) men with their wide shoulders and narrow hips are generically opposite to the wider hipped ladies with their narrow shoulders, an image of the ascending (earth-ether) triangle.
The relative body triangulation of an individual indicates, like palm and pine, from which of the two etheric forces s/he is primarily created, and in which – body or head – areas. For instance, the classic descending wedge shape of champion swimmers permits them to engage in mindless, rhythmic (etheric) training every day.
This ascending life-body form of the meditating yogi assures the same thing – a training on a different plane! A trespass of soul turbulence into this sanctuary by the astral body, or even the ego, will surely disturb the etheric tranquility.
The creative duality of these twin cosmic triangles is embedded into every human body and head. Both have six nodal points over which a hexagram can be drawn (see earlier chapter). The dominance of one or other triangle is an indication of the relative inspirational well (divine- or earth-ether) from which the owner can draw living water. In an elementary way, we can observe the relative properties of a person’s individual head or body hexagram to determine which kind of Being – Divine or Earth – is the dominant one ceaselessly toiling away behind the scenes in that person’s soul.
The most unearthly proportion, with both triangles being thin and tall, is 1:3, the so-called Luciferic ratio; hence the owner finds an uneasy dwelling place in today’s materialism. The 1:3 indicates a fundamental metaphysical aspiration. This type was common in Medieval (Northern) Europe, and in many of the oft’ lugubrious statues of the time, as seen on Chartres Cathedral. It reflects a yearning for the far future, for the Spirit. As such, the person with such a vertical face-body is more likely to be dole than droll!
The opposite from the 1:3 is the Ahrimanic proportion of 1:1, with the two triangles of the hexagram perfectly (or near so) in a state of balance. This specifically earth incarnation reality is found especially in Semitic people, who, if Jewish especially, can be, as opposed to the 1:3, very witty indeed. As usual, none of these observations are to be taken as value judgements; the individual arriving on earth with the ideal proportion to manifest his/her sacred destiny. Hence terms like Luciferic and Ahrimanic are mere convenient descriptors – though they do indicate the nature of the supersensible inspirers behind the corporeal proportion. It is this comfort with the 1:1 earth realm, this fine balance between the two interweaving ether forces, that acquit the Jewish people so well to an earth existence; excelling as they do in virtually every field of endeavor. This balanced hexagram is actually the purest expression of the etheric body, one of complete harmony between above and below.
That which holds the balance between the 1:3 and the 1:1, is the Christ proportion, the 1”2, as seen in Rudolf Steiner’s Representative of Man. Many people whose souls are awakening to the ever-emerging forces of the Etheric Christ, swelling as it now does in the etheric, life-nourishing mantle of the earth (‘walking on clouds’, as the Bible describes it), have this inherent 1:2 ratio.
All these cardinal hexagrams are narrower than they are wide, including the hexagram of Man, the most pleasing of all – to us at least! This is the ratio of the Golden Mean, 1:1.616 (approx..); found to perfection in the statues of Ancient Greek heroes. Naturally, over the period of one’s life the ratio changes, with a 1:3 much more common in old people than babies, with their (physical body) 1:1; the 1:1.616 rather being the ideal ration for the person in the so-called ‘prime of life’. Also, gender can be an hexagram determinant, there being more women with the luciferic proportion, more men with the ahrimanic; to quote the extremes.
So, let’s look at some of the specifics of this etheric influence on man. Raised, triangulated shoulders indicate social fear, sloping shoulders, social indifference; leaning forward, social aggression; leaning back, social superiority. The ideal, that of a person who is socially well adjusted, is the straight square shoulder line; after all, the social realm is specifically governed by the ether body.
A vertical band in the second quarter of the face (beside the mid-face physical-body band) is that of the etheric, which strongly influences all features in this area. Any shiny skin denotes good health, or vital activity, a quintessential life-body quality. For instance, a shiny forehead denotes vitality in thinking.
Large nostril openings are lust for life, as experienced when one sniffs deeply to welcome the new day. Small nostrils rather indicate a difficult in getting enough air hence low energy. So much physiognomy is pure common sense! A deep line curving up from the mouth and arching over down onto the top of the nose ales (Greek ‘wings’) is a tendency for looking into darkness, actually an anti-etheric-light factor. This is a good feature of policemen.
Here again we see a so-called ‘negative’ feature being necessary to fulfill the karmic mission of the individual. Deep etched nose-to-mouth lines (the actor Bruce Willis) show contempt for stupidity; a tole type he plays often. Their opposite, a smooth area is naivety – natural of course in children. If the (etheric) second quarter of the top lip, from the center, curls up unpleasantly, this shows a predilection for contempt; a feature deliberately developed by many teen rock idols (like the eponymous Billy Idol!). A smooth dip here is rather an indication of respect. The eyebrows in the same second quarter are the obverse, a dip indicating irreverence, a peak, veneration.
As mentioned earlier, opposite, but in a different way, is the bottom from the top lip; here we see again the cooperative working between the Spirits of Harmony and Form to create a balance between such horizontally symmetrical features as eyes and lips.
In the bottom lip it is the third quarter that is the etheric zone, rather than the second, as in the op. A blemish here of some kind, or a lump, indicates the liar – which they’ll deny, of course! A white streak beside the nose is a sign of perennial apprehension; and further down, in the same vertical zone, the lines of life wisdom often develop in older folk. The high second quarter of the top eyelid is adoration, common in paintings of angels. The third quarter of the lower lid (another ‘harmony’ principle), if it dips, extending even into the ear line, is the region of endemic misery; even sometimes found in people who have nothing special to be miserable about!
Sad-type clowns often paint this line on their otherwise funny faces to create a psychic contradiction. pointed pixie ears are tuned to etheric listening. Early balding is attributed, by Steiner, to a too-intellectual education, diminishing the power of the etheric forces as it does. Women, who of course rarely go bald, are largely protected from this due to their more flexible ‘life body’ natures. Of course, balding in very old men is rather a general dimming of their life forces. If the plants are the hair of the earth, as The Master assures us, then hair is the protective plant mantle of the head.
The relative vitality of the hair is a mirror of the cerebral activity within=: light-colored hair is light in thinking, red hair, fire in thinking; black hair, image in thinking, and grey hair, ego in thinking.
Spiritual luminosity, as well as the physical lumens – both synonymous with the etheric life of the sun – actually cultivates (an apt term) healthy hair, as it does in plants. Casper Hauser, the sad lad who was incarcerated in darkness for 15 years, emerged with snow-white hair as fine as gossamer. In general, the nearer people have evolved to the Equator, the richer, and darker, the hair growth.
The current idiocy of putting hats on children, constantly hiding their lovely hair from the vivifying sunlight, can lead to not only unhealthy hair, but in the fullness of time, pueril thinking.
The eye whites are an etheric feature, clear birth white being of course the best: while too yellow is an indication of suppressed movement; common in Africans who are prevented from dancing!
Red eye whites are rather a warning sign of physical exhaustion; red being the nominal color of the physical body. This yellow to red contracted etheric light is seen also in pimples, and pus in general.
Here some soul disturbance has blocked the life-body flow, causing a damming of the inner light. A small, triangular chin is an expression of Luciferic will, or will in idealism. If the chin juts out, like the puppet Punch, it has an Ahrimanic element, and becomes will in materialism. Both examples can be seen in Steiner’ statue of the figures of Lucifer and Ahriman in the Representative of Man.
The four main incisor teeth are essentially etheric: the two front ones arriving with the ‘Etheric (or ‘Rhythmic’) Aspect of the Etheric Body’ development in the child’s eighth year. If these two teeth are too big, their owner can’t stop jumping around like a buck-toothed rabbit. If too small (or too late), an etheric vitalization of some kind, like diet or eurythmy, might be called for. Speaking of eurythmy and the two front teeth, Rudolf Steiner once told his teachers that a eurythmy program with too great an emphasis on form, a specifically etheric quality, coupled with a dearth of imagination or variety, would result in some children’s two front teeth becoming too large. What responsibility we bear as educators when we can even influence the hardest part of the child’s anatomy!
The top lip curling up to expose these front teeth, like a gnawing incisor of a rodent, is a sing of the capacity to aggravate, to gnaw away at everyone’s peace of mind! The sub-ordinate incisors are called the ‘cats’ teeth’; hence are also etheric in nature. If these are sharply pointed and triangular, like a cheetah’s, the person can be ‘catty’ indeed, being capable of delivering a sharp bite without warning (or when one’s back is turned). The triangular, especially prominent, nose is the inquisitive, or ‘sticky beak’ in the argot of the back fence. Its higher title is mobile susceptibility, a habitual state ultimately resolved in the second mansion of Kamaloca, the etheric or ‘Form World’ we visit after death. This is also the nose of trespass, as expressed in the second – Life Body – invocation of the Lord’s Prayer. The nose of course is an etheric organ par excellence, concerned with breathing as it is, so almost any nasal feature embodies this ‘life’ element. The general dispensation of the four main facial features of mouth, nose, eyes, and ears is, in the same order, physical, etheric, astral, ego.
The ancient Greeks incarnated the Rational Soul into human evolution – the “semi-transformed etheric body”. Its region is the central horizontal band on the forehead, as often emphasized in Greek sculpture. Whereas the second quarter vertical band of the brow is of the etheric body itself, expressing as it does in various lines, ridges, spots, et al. This vertical etheric band is the region of form in thinking, the horizontal Rational Soul rather movement in thought. When the head teacher of the Bolshoi Ballet observed a young Nureyev’s nose, she exclaimed – “He has nostrils like a stallion, he’ll be the greatest dancer in the world!”. Such is the deep knowledge of physiognomy of people in high places.
The nostrils indeed are an indication of artistic movement, the elliptical being of the finest (the ellipse, as any Steiner geometer knows, is the ‘curve of the etheric body’). So, we have as a logical extension: tiny nostrils, tiny movements, like those of a miniature maker; round nostrils, a cruder earth movement; flared nostrils, the movement of flight – or fear! Many higher animals of course flare their nostrils in fear – the better to take in more air for flight or fight.
Thin nostrils are a mark of disdain; think walled nostrils rather the aesthetic; the opposite being the gross, naturally. ‘Disdain’? I learnt this one from a novel by Taylor Caldwell; one in which she took up to two pages to describe the facial-anatomical details of each of her main characters. She was truly one of the greatest describers of human physiognomy in the 20th Century. Naturally I have had legion opportunities over the decades to confirm the veracity of her many astute observations. Hence writers of this high ilk, like the dance teacher above, are a rich source of physiognomic information.
But then more lowly souls can have specific knowledge of feature and gesture. One example is the incredibly perceptive Chinese women (always women for some reason?) routinely employed at Asian airport gates to detect lawbreakers of various kinds – just by looking at them!
But back to the nose: broad, usually thick, alae, again common in more primitive souls, express endurance; while prominent cheek bones are a sign of its higher equivalent, perseverance.
As the nose, the critical organ for breathing, is the etheric of the four head orifices, or ‘windows to the world’, we conclude this Life Body chapter with a few general nasal observations.
Even the form of the nose is etherically consistent, being the shape of an ascending triangle – the earth-ether form. This is, against the odds, from all angles, front, side, and even the top and bottom views.
As the organ of the sense of smell, the nose is especially related to Scorpio, and its ‘quality’, understanding. A court judge, whom we hope has a greater power of ‘understanding’ than the hoi polloi, is known in the vernacular as ‘the beak’. This arose due to many judges having a Scorpio-type nose. Thus, an acute smell sense indicates a heightened understanding in the individual of one kind or another.
This was certainly the case with American Indians, who could often smell the approach of, say a raiding party, prior to seeing or even hearing them, their ‘understanding’ of their environment being acute.
There are also noted for their ‘eagle noses’, the eagle being the original Scorpio (St. John) symbol. Big dogs with big noses, like bloodhounds, smell better than small dogs with small noses, like pugs.
So, it generally is with humans. The gest smelling animal of al is the elephant – and you don’t get a bigger nose than that! This is also related to memory, a kind of understanding, of the past at least.
In this eagle context, birds are the nominal vertebrates of Scorpio: no wonder then that Rudolf Steiner tells us that, although not specially gifted in the realm of immediate smelling, migratory birds employ a more refined faculty to navigate over half the planet! Scent molecules, perhaps even in this homeopathic state, travel on the air (taste rather in the liquid element). Nematodes, the Scorpio evolutionary phylum, look just like magnified olfactory nerves. They also find their habitation in the Scorpio region, of the bowel and the like – a particularly potent smell center! The Scorpio plant phylum, the Magnolidae, containing the eponymous magnolias and such, are among the strongest scented flowers of all. Like most of the other senses, the human being can become acclimatized to even grossly evil stenches Hence the feces-strewn streets would have smelt like new-mown meadows to 18th Century Londoners – the house of a person who keeps dogs inside smells like a kennel only to visitors! One can’t smell one’s own halitosis due to this familiarization factor. But to a loftier vein.
As can be seen from the too-few examples above, the etheric seems to specialize in refinement, an apt foundation upon which to build the next stage of our Study of Man, that of the Astral Body.
Far left: the 1:2 ‘Christ’ proportion – Rudolf Steiner’s Representative of Man.
Left: the 1:3 Luciferic proportion, in this case on Steiner’s upside-down model of the ‘Fallen (still falling?) Angel’
Below left: The ideal proportion of Man 1:1.616 on Steiner himself. Note his descending – divine ether – triangle is larger, was with most Europeans.
Below right: the Ahrimanic 1:1 proportion from the master’s all-revealing statue. All the above proportions are approximate only.
VISON OF EZEKIEL
“… the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of god … they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side: they four also had the face of an eagle”. Ezekiel Chapter 1. Painting by Raphael.
This four-fold Creation revelation persists right through Western history, with even the four gospels, Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, being represented by the winged man, lion, bull and eagle respectively.
The four are of course the very basis of Anthroposophy in general, and physiognomy in particular, reflecting, in the same order, the physical, etheric, astral bodies, and ego as they do.
Even the temperaments, based on the life body as Rudolf Steiner informs us, express through (adults only – see details next chapter) dominant physical body winged man melancholics, leonine etheric body phlegmatics, bovine astral body sanguines, and eagle-like dominant ego cholerics. The four nominal physiognomic forms, elements and colors are, again in the same order: circle-fire-red, triangle-air-yellow, curve-water-blue, square-mineral-violet.
FROM: Sacred Faces: A Study of the Human Being in Light of Steiner’s Spiritual Science
Four Kingdoms Companion volume to: Sacred Places Minerals & Land; Sacred Fauna Botany; Sacred Fauna Zoology
Important Earthschooling Notes
Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss.
END NOTE
Alan has presented dialogue in his writings in an expressive form, where he tries to capture the accent of the person he was with to give his writing more authenticity and to allow the reader to “be with him” in his experience. In no place in his writings is he using expressive language to make fun of or demean the speaker. So, as a person with a linguistics and anthropology degree I find this enriching and informative to me as the reader. Thus, we have made the decision to leave all expressive writing in its original form.
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