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A quantum leap in humankind' s intellectual development occurred in Sumer 6000 years ago when cuneiform writing was invented in order to record a dramatic starburst.
Every pulsating thrust of the technology with which
humankind surrounds itself today was initiated when a star died in a
dramatic, brilliant explosion.
Literally "overnight" in evolutionary terms, the Sumerians gave the world a law code, the first love song, the first school system, the first parliament, and the first directory of pharmaceutical remedies. The origins of contemporary Western culture were nursed in Sumer, the cradle of civilization.
The roots of the Judeo-Christian religious beliefs
grew from the "tree of knowledge," the Garden of Eden, which
tradition places in that same area.
George Michanowsky, a specialist in Mesopotamian astronomy, saw how the very first and most fundamental symbol of Sumerian script was one which represented "star."
He went on to show how the first word ever written by a human soon became linked with the symbol for "deity," thus communicating "star god."
Michanowsky saw the death-blaze of Vela X to have been such a profound sky show that it became a "cultural organizing principle" that forced human knowledge to take a dramatic leap forward.
The priest-historian Berossus chronicled the account of Oannes, half-man, half-fish, who surfaced from the Persian Gulf to instruct the early inhabitants of Mesopotamia in the arts of civilization.
Oannes was said to be one who was possessed of an insight into letters, sciences, and every kind of art.
Oannes was but an ancient Greek form of Ea (En-Ki), the star god of the Sumerians.
Reference to a god who was said to be half-man, half-fish suggests, once again, an amphibious intelligence.
Later, we may recall a great
teacher of righteousness, a "fisher of men," who taught the Way and
whose followers identified themselves to one another by making the
sign of a fish.
As the neurophysiologist who demonstrated the transmission of electrical impulses in the brain, he declared that his research led him to conclude that evolution alone cannot explain man's awareness of himself. Sir John became increasingly convinced that there must have been the intervention of some transcendental agency in the infusion into humankind of Soul.
Simply stated, he
maintained that the brain and the mind are separate entities which
interact, but it is only the brain that is the product of genetic
evolution.
As he stated once in an interview in the Washington Post [April, 1981],
Eventually these select humans produced what might be
called demigods, divine human beings, who, in turn, could relay
instructions from higher intelligences.
The children of the divine universal power, those who have the "seed" within them, will be able to initiate the more advanced members of humankind. People so initiated will be able to receive revelations and perform what others will consider miracles.
The initiates will go on to become the
mediators between humankind
and the higher intelligences.
Although he had experienced encounters with the mystical and the unknown as a young child and was guided by an adept he would only refer to as the "Master," Steiner's early academic accomplishments were in the scientific fields.
His father had wished him to become a railway engineer, so that had led Rudolf into a study of mathematics, which seemed only to whet his appetite for the material sciences, leading him to pursue studies in medicine, chemistry, physics, as well as agriculture, architecture, art, drama, literature, and philosophy.
Fascinated by the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Steiner began
the extensive task of editing Goethe's scientific papers, and from
1889 to 1896 worked on this project. It was also during this period
that Steiner wrote his own highly acclaimed The Philosophy of
Freedom.
In the twentieth century, Steiner said, humankind began to
enter the "fullness of time" when the Christ principle, cosmic
consciousness, might once again become manifest.
There were, of course, the physical seeds of male and female, which intermingled to produce the whole human being. But there was also something in each human that did not arise from the blending of the two physical seeds.
There was, so to speak, a
"virgin birth," a something ineffable, Steiner says, which somehow
flowed into the process of germination from quite a different
source.
The human intellect, Steiner
insisted, could be trained to rise above material concerns and to
perceive a greater spiritual reality. The human consciousness had
the ability to activate the seed that the great Spirit Beings had
implanted within their human offspring.
When human consciousness had been raised to the spiritual level where it can experience the eternal element that is limited by neither birth nor death, then it can comprehend its own eternality and its ability to be born again in subsequent life existences.
Sensitive
observers of the contemporary scene have taken careful note of the
fact that thousands of men and women throughout the world are being
activated by a heightened state of awareness that comes to them in
dreams, visions, and strange memories. These individuals are feeling
the seed bringing forth new life within them and they are concerned
about the spiritual needs of the human souls around them.
He knew that even the slightest infusion of this energy into the physical seed of male and female would transform the individual into a citizen of a higher dimension of reality, the "Kingdom of God."
And, at the same time, he taught that the doorway to enter such a wondrous kingdom lay within the heart of each sincere pilgrim who sought to join him there.
White observes that while Jesus, the man, was a historical person, the "Christ" is an eternal, transpersonal condition of being.
When we distinguish between the eternality of the "Christ consciousness" and the man Jesus, we can more completely understand the promise given in John 14:12:
In White's view, Jesus was an evolutionary forerunner of the higher race that will inherit the earth, a,
White gives the name of Homo Noeticus (pertaining to higher consciousness) to the evolving form of humanity:
Numerous mystics and seers, quite apart from the Christian tradition, have noted that there appears to have been some dispensation of cosmic energy that occurred at the time when Jesus was seeking to raise awareness.
Some believe that when he preached about a new way that had come from his Father's Kingdom and which had blended with the feminine principle of the Holy Ghost, he was talking about a literal transmission of energy being broadcast to Earth from some higher realm.
Pentecost, those metaphysicians will say, was a powerful demonstration of that energy.
The apostles were so glowing with the cosmic energy that
they appeared to be on fire to those who witnessed the absorption of
the Christ principle into their physical bodies.
All over the planet, contemporary citizens of Earth are
having their individual Pentecosts, as the seed within them, their
spiritual legacy from beyond the stars is being brought to fruition.
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