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…
SEVEN SPIRITUAL SCIENTISTS
The Language of Form in World Fauna
The Seven Spiritual Scientists should have been more surprised when they turned a corner of the mountain path and saw the Archangel Raphael standing – rather hovering – before them. Well, maybe one or two of the Magnificent Seven were taken aback; but a training in the metaphysical sciences somewhat prepares the neophant for a meeting, usually unexpected, with higher beings. The seven women stopped abruptly, the seventh and last bumping into the sixth!
Raphael, meaning ‘God heals’, descended to rest on a long log, a moss-covered relic of some long-past alpine tempest. The log rested precariously on the edge of a dizzy-high cliff. The view over valley, towns and far-off ocean was spectacular. The God of Healing seemed to be staring intently at some unseen (by the girls) point in the distance.
He turned, somewhat reluctantly, to greet them.
Er, good morning” stammered Number 1. Although the nominal first, she was not actually the leader, there being no pecking order in this particular henhouse. Each was equally valued for her unique contribution; each taking leadership in various endeavors, scientific or artistic, according to merit. Number 1 had a boyish, closely-cropped haircut of indeterminate color framing a face of hidden strengths.
“Hello ladies, share a log?” Raphael’s manner was easy; he knew why they were there. Being a Mercury divinity, he didn’t stand on formality, but got right to the point. “I’m waiting for Spring to bless the winter-weary world below; only then can I infuse my Being with the nature forces, elevating and nourishing them in the sanctuary of the human soul to the realm of culture – in a higher sense, to genuine spiritual experiences even.
“But Raphael – Sir,” queried Number 2; she knew a spring archangel when she saw one. She was older than the rest, her once black, wavy hair now forming an aureole of silver light around her beautiful face. “we’ve just come up here from the world below, and it is Spring: the weather’s warm, the peach trees have flowered…”.
Raphael’s glance was impatient “But the jasmine hasn’t – in this part of the world, in that town down there, in that house by the creek – no, the one to the left nestling under the hill, the jasmine flowers on September 1st; or very close thereon. Actually, that soaring, bird-shaped dwelling was only finished yesterday after five long years of toil; just in time for the heavenly-perfumed jasmine to welcome it.
Surely this is a prescient symbol of the light and beauty this new house – cultural center? – will embody over the years. So, I refuse to descend until the jasmine flowers. Anyway, my hibernate colleague, the Archangel Gabriel, still has some seasonal tidying up to do before he retires for a well-earned sojourn prior to his mighty task, in about three months’ time, of dispensing Winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
But enough of me and mine; you’ve made this mountain pilgrimage to seek enlightenment on some of my Form Mysteries; especially those in relation to your esoteric animal studies. So?”
Number 3 brushed her platinum blonde hair back and led in bravely, her gazed focused “Our supersensible inquiries directed us to the first and most fundamental form factor in zoology, the three-fold division of animals into head, chest, and metabolic/limb systems. WE see the need to relate all our faunal concepts to Man (as advised by Rudolf Steiner).
So, the ‘head’ creatures, the invertebrate, are an expression of the human head, epitomized by the marvelous, chambered nautilus. Next to be pressed out in evolution, or extruded actually, were the cold-blooded vertebrates – fish, amphibians, and reptiles. These are, in spite of some seeming contradictions, head-chest animals. A diaphragm-separate metabolism has not yet emerged in the cold-bloods, even with limbed reptiles. These extensions are really still connected to the chest, somewhat like human arms, really. The epitome of this cranial-thorax principle is of course the fish, with its clearly defined head and attached rib cage. The true metabolic-limb animals are the warm-blooded vertebrates, from birds to placental mammals, with their often highly specialized limbs; the huge variety being expressed in such leg and feet designs as seen in bats, seals, birds, elephants…”
Raphael shifted uneasily on his log; he was not used to sitting for long periods – a Hermes god being a very busy one indeed! As well, he was not accustomed to being lectured, especially by such lowly creations as humans. “I thought you wanted to elicit spiritual knowledge from me?” he grumbled.
“Sorry, I was getting to that” continued Number 3 unperturbed. “So, we have the three ‘body’ forms – but what about the soul? Do world will, feeling, and thinking have their animal-form equivalents?”
Raphael dragged his golden eyes away from the jasmine vine on the sunny verandah below. “Of course, they do; will animals assume a rounded or ball-like form, like a wombat or a bear. As in humans, the young – will-dominant – of most animals are basically spherical: this adds naturally to their ubiquitous cuteness. Chickens, puppies, lions – tadpoles eve, all express unalloyed ‘will-ness’ in their circular forms; hence in their roly-poly movements.
The first law of life is survival; the hardest survival period for any creature, even humans, is when it is young. For this critical stage, the first would force, the will, reigns pre-eminent.
The ‘feeling’ animals are the curve dominant, where the circle breaks out to become a sinuous, serpentine form. This is found in many youthful creatures, even into early adulthood. Those that retain this feeling element as an intrinsic part of their being are, for instance, ferrets, eels, and snakes. It is not that the animal itself has a surfeit of emotion, but that it is an embodiment of cosmic and world feeling.
Even world ‘thought’ manifests in animal form. Those creatures that are square in profile exemplify this principle, like the horse and the dog. Indeed, humans are lifting off my groaning shoulders some of the form-creation burden by their skill in breeding domestic animals to incorporate the forms they like best; the square-thought being one of their favorites, naturally. The grand champions at agricultural shows, whether canine, equine or bovine, are the squarest competitors of all: some stud bulls look like horizontal rectangular prisms with legs! – as in humans, this thought element is apparent in many higher animals in old age; where a block physiognomy is most common.”
Number 4 spiritual scientist broke the ensuing silence with a curly question indeed. She was the one with the large, well-deep brown eyes and thick, um, curly black hair.
“Physiognomy you say? When I was small I read a funny children’s verse about people who looked like animals ‘… and Mr. Snark who looked like a shark … and Mr. Blogg who looked like a god …” – ha, ha, ha. The poem had amusing pictures too! It struck me especially because I sensed a reality hidden there. One can’t avoid the realization that there are people who really do look like sharks, and dogs, and seagulls even. What’s the form mystery expressed here?”
“Ah, again we have the old ‘man extruded the animals in order to progress’ principle” Raphael too looked amused; especially as his questioner looked b bit like a dreamy cow!
“So, how did you humans lose the sense of smell – or almost anyway? In order to raise the faculty of independent thinking, its sense equivalent, smell, had to be jettisoned. The olfactory nerve connects straight up into the frontal loves (curiously unlike the optic nerves and others), the most conscious – thinking – area of the brain. This organ, on a higher level at least, literally ‘smell’s. Rudolf Steiner links, in the sign of Scorpio, the ‘sense’ of smell and the ‘quality’ of understanding.
Man’s nose, in the far past when matter was more malleable, grew like Pinocchio’s. In contradiction to evolutionary theory, instead of smelling less back then, he smelt more, much more – soul scents even.
Finally, his nose became a hypersensitive trunk, and when it had reached its sense optimum, it detached in the form of the elephant!
These strange visions have given we gods a good deal of entertainment over the eons, I can tell you – ha, ha, ha.
Ahem, so the elephant took upon itself a near-perfect sense of smell, hence sacrificially limiting its own soul progress – while at the same time enhancing its capacity to survive as a material being. Most of these events occurred on a supra-sensible plane, the condemned creature incarnating into matter much later.
The same kind of picture can be drawn with most of the higher animals: another example being when rampant cruelty sloughed from mankind when his jaws, in mindless greed, extended to become formidable rows of sharp teeth – which externalized as the crocodile.
So, when we see the human being carrying a striking animal feature, lie the sharp teeth of a cat, we know that a soul remnant of today’s feline biting nature will be part of that person’ make-up. Mr. Snark’s teeth may even be angles backwards, like a shark; an indication that what he – usually ruthlessly – takes in, he keeps! These animal metaphors, with the inherent wisdom they contain, are excellent as a starting point in an understanding of human nature.
Even in more general terms we can see this cryptic animal-human physiognomic relationship. The bat has the thinnest ear tissue of any creature and hears the highest frequencies; elephants have the thickest and hear the lowest. Human babies with their delicate ears hear the highest, thick-eared geriatrics the opposite. A small child’s hearing can be irrevocably damaged by high frequency sound that older people hardly even notice – if they hear it at all!”
Raphael returned his gaze to the pregnant buds of the jasmine bar below. He then rose lightly from the log and stretched, flexing his supple legs, and fluttering the wings on his heels.
Then he stepped right off the cliff!
The seven girls gasped – before realizing that this shining Being was, after all, an archangel. Shortly after he reappeared, his smile wry.
“Any more questions on animal form?” he asked.
Number five looked pensive, waiting for one of the more precocious ladies to fill the space, but no one did. She was small and alert, her eyes bright with intelligence and curiosity.
“I was browsing through a ‘straight’ zoology text the other day and saw a set of pictures describing the evolution of the skull. This rich comparative osteology seemed to contain many secrets not so easily seen in the fleshed-out animal head. For instance, the papery fish skull had enormous ear sockets – or holes where the ears should be at least: yet fish do not have ears in the normal sense. Why so?”
“Ah, the fish is actually a swimming ear, the ear an imprisoned fish! (See more details on faunal hearing in my book Horns of Hermes.)
Yes, the whole fish is an ear. But you mentioned the papery rather than usual calcified nature of the skull. This fine-textured substance is designed to receive subtle vibrations broadcasting sound through that wonderful conducting medium, water. A hard skull would be oblivious to this mass of survival information. Sea mammals have different aural mechanisms for the same purpose. Though the fish does have a primitive ear, the first in evolution: this consists mainly of a scallop-like bone that grows throughout the animal’s lifetime. The annual growth rings imprinted on this ear bone are actually used by probing scientists to determine the age of a fish. This marvelous ear bone looks curiously like a fish scale; and indeed, is a transformed scale – just as the scales of a fish are sensitive ears, of a kind. Fish scales are unique to each species, being as good as fingerprints for identification.
As well as the scale-bone-ear, the fish hears along its whole-body surface. In fact, the very large surface-to-volume sensory ratio in many fish (as in the giant sun fish) is an efficient survival mechanism: their flanks being gleaming receiving dishes always alert for the clink of an anchor, the flick of a shark’s tail, the snap of a shrimp. The even hear the signature pulse in the water of its own species, which is how many fish find each other, often in total darkness.
Each scale of a fish is a tiny ear drum very similar in both form and function to that found in the human ear. These connect to the lateral line, that think ridge of tightly packed auditory nerves running the whole length of every fish from tail to head. This conveys vital messages to the brain, with its sensitive ear-bone center. But what did you notice about the amphibian skull, the next plateau of vertebrate evolution?”
“Hmmm, that was just a face, with all other elements much smaller in comparison – a frog’s skull I think it was. It contained, like the fish, no apparent brain pan at all. This face dominance certainly reflected the Jupiter ‘face’ principle; that expressed throughout the whole amphibian world” Number 5 carefully placed her tiny toes together, regarding them speculatively, and continued.
“The snake skull was a worry; it too locked any noticeable cranium but was composed almost wholly of mouth! Like the shark, the rows of tiny teeth face down the gullet. No hapless mouse caught in these pitiless jaws could ever return to the light!
The next vertebrate skull, that of the bird, did have a ‘skull’, in the proper sense of the word; but still vestigial. But this was only in the form of a minor projection at the back, in the occipital region…?”
Raphael looked kindly upon a puzzled number 5.
“Birds are real favorites of mine, you may be surprised to hear, being harbingers of Spring as they are. After all, I am the archangelic regent of his glorious ‘life’ season.
But yes, your observations are correct; the bird does have the first true cranium development. However, this is still a primitive soul consciousness; unconsciousness would be more accurate.
The three levels of consciousness are expressed in the three profile-longitudinal regions of the skull. The frontal is wide-awake awareness; most fully developed in you high-browed lot, as a comparison of vertebrate skulls confirms. Sub-consciousness is in the crown region, including the two side parietals: and the unconscious realm is the occipital – on a higher soul level at least. Occipital-dominant birds are very conscious – at a sensory level, of course. Thus, they note everything of interest to them in an instant. Mind you, unconscious does not mean no-conscious; rather it is more like deep sleep, with the sub-conscious similar to a dream state. But you must have noticed that the bird’s skull was almost all eye, surely?”
“I did! Birds, especially their lofty representative, the eagle, are the great seers (that’s see-ers) of the animal world. If the fish absorbs its survival data through the ‘ears’, then the sharp-eyed avians do likewise mainly through sight. I love to watch a bird after landing on a branch; it turns its head this way – up – up – this way again, taking in a spherical panorama of its whole surrounding. AS for we humans, some of us never look up from the ground!” Number 5 flushed with the effort of being so uncharacteristically negative.
“You may not know it, but every time you walk out onto your sunny verandah, dozens of birds, both seen and unseen, take note; either dismissing you immediately, or changing their plans about coming down to you bird bath! Believe me, there’s no privacy in Bird World!”
“Or in Archangel World, it seems. How did you know that I have a verandah – or a bird bath?! Never mind, speaking of the crown area of skull development, I was struck by the profile of the common cat: its cranium was high in this so-called sub-conscious region and beautifully rounded; yet the face was small. What does this tell us?”
“It tells us that the cat lives, not in primitive soul consciousness like a bird, but much more in the present, albeit in a dreamy subconscious manner. Legend is replete with tales of cats sensing their owner’s ill-will, or an impending tragedy, or even invisible presences; they literally see into this hidden world, a specifically astral zone. Humans are blind here; due to having developed the day-awake frontal region of the skull.” Raphael appeared increasingly agitated as a warm spring westerly wind, his old friend Zephyrus, sprang up.
He it was who fanned the long, brown hair of spiritual scientist Number 6. She sensed by the archangel’s impatient mien that question time was almost over. In fact, he was now some distance away, restlessly hovering over the valley far below.
“What about the Luciferic/Ahrimanic form factor in world fauna: how do we recognize the stamp of these two Creation beings in animal structure?” she asked – shouted really. Raphael reluctantly returned.
“In Number 5’s anatomy book, there is a picture of the skull of a pig. Now compare this with the cat cranium. From a central line drawn horizontally at the mandibular connection to the skull proper, near the ear, you see advanced development above the line with the cat. Yet below the line the pinched features are insignificant.
Now look at the pig with its massive jaws and crushing teeth: how contrasting this is to above the line, which is little more than a puny excuse for higher soul development. This indisputable osseous language tells us that the cat is a Luciferic creature, the pig Ahrimanic.
The cat strives for the – Luciferic – heights (even climbing around on chair tops and roofs!), while its porcine counterpart wallows in the dark mud of matter. The pig’s sub-conscious brain pan is degenerate, almost walnut size; its consciousness being related to the earth only.
Little wonder that some religions forbid the eating of pork!
In fact, almost all higher animals can be seen as either Luciferic or Ahrimanic expressions of creation; even without looking at the skulls in the more extreme cases. Species that appear to yearn to levitate, with small feet, agile movement and skyward facing head extensions of one kind or another are essentially Luciferic, such as horses, birds, and deer.
Those that subject themselves to gravity are more likely to be Ahrimanic, like dogs, bears, amphibians, reptiles – especially dinosaurs.
Note that this is not a moral issue, neither creation principle is good nor bad; both are necessary in the great skein of Creation. The human being, you will note, maintains a precarious balance between the two, subject as he is to the – now moral – forces of the Elohim, a Christ principle; the Middle Way between Lucifer and Ahriman.”
Number 7, the short one, tossed back her thick mane of light brown hair and retorted. “Dinosaurs?! Some people don’t even acknowledge that they ever existed. Even zoologists find it hard to accommodate them, from a physiological point of view anyway. Take the barosaurus; this giant’s neck was over 50 feet long, being designed to crop the tall canopy that other saurian couldn’t reach. However, computer models insist that this is impossible. In every known cardio-vascular scenario, the animal’s blood simply could not be pumped up that far into the tiny – Ahrimanic – head (Luciferic animals tend to have larger heads).
The bewildered scientists state that it would require eight – yes, eight! – hearts to keep the animal conscious, even at the baro’s dim level. Naturally no other vertebrate has multiple hearts – let alone eight; so, this remains a problem. How so?”
“What?” Raphael’s seamless smile belied his distraction “Ah, old barosaurus – it seems like yesterday … But you’re right; the blinkered, reductionist, computer-tyrannized science of today can’t think laterally at all; except with absurd speculations about eight hearts. This solution may please the paleontologists but appalls the physiologists; whose own – mainly theoretical – textbooks would have had to be re-written if an eight-hearted dinosaur ever existed. No, when these giant reptiles descended in the Paleozoic (Hyperborean) era, the world consisted mainly of hot gas. As it moved into the Mesozoic (Lemuria), this gas condensed into hot liquid. Yet the respiratory system of the great saurian still was fiery, a legacy of the earlier age. This has given rise to legends – derived from the Akashic Chronicle – of fire-breathing dragons and the like. The blood of the dinosaurs was just a little below boiling point, hence it was very light – almost a liquid-gas mixture, like a carbonated soft drink. One heart had no problem supplying the rubber-necked barosaurus head with an adequate blood supply.
Heaven knows why these ‘experts’ simplistically assume that all blood was the same in all animals for all time. If these people would only at least consider Rudolf Steiner’s indications on these vexing issues, it would save so much time and intellectual energy!
As well, the forces of gravity were less compelling in ancient times than they are today; due to the mass (affecting gravity) of the earth being less. Indeed, The Great Dying was caused by a gradual increase in mass-gravity – not some presumed meteor hit! – in the Cretaceous era, at the end of Lemuria. These giants were then too heavy to exist, gradually being crushed by their own obesity. In earlier times, in contrast, their great Ahrimanic bulk was required just to keep them on the earth – to defy the Luciferic levitation of Hyperborea!
This cataclysm was an event bought about by the materialism expressed in the story of the Garden of Eden – ‘… and they shall eat the dust of the ground …’. As a consequence, only relatively small animals flourished thereafter, in Atlantis (the Cenozoic) – like the plethora of placental animals we find … ahhah, there it is!”
With that, the Being of Light descended to the world below on the warm wings of Zephyrus. The first jasmine flower had at last opened.
FROM: Sacred Fauna: Zoology in Light of Steiner’s Spiritual Science
Four Kingdoms Companion volume to: Sacred Places Minerals & Land; Sacred Fauna Botany; Sacred Faces A Study of Man
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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