Sifting through Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Reading the great Germanic polymath, Rudolf Steiner, is, by any measure, a challenging experience. His formal literary output is prodigious and includes a very healthy array of weighty philosophical tomes, most of them written early in his career, while the collection of transcripts of his lectures – covering the first two decades of the XXth century up to his death in 1925 – is truly vast and spans an astounding spread of topics. His complete works run to some twenty or more volumes. So in terms of sheer quantity, the boast of having “read Steiner” is a feat in itself. Reading even ten percent of Steiner is a task of several years, at least. More to the point, though, the content is especially challenging on several levels. Herr Dr Steiner is perhaps best described as an “esoteric philosopher” - to put it kindly - and much of his thinking is very esoteric indeed. Ordinary, unsuspecting folk are likely to encounter Dr Steiner through his education movement (Steiner or Waldorf Schools) or perhaps through alternative medicine (Anthroposophical Medicine) or organic farming (biodynamic agriculture) or curative homes for handicapped children, or one of many branches of the arts, or sundry cultural initiatives that are extensions of Steiner’s work, but when they first open up a book by Steiner, or more likely wade into some of his lecture transcripts, they are confronted by an intellectual world that is not only unusual or even eccentric but is, frankly, bizarre. Steiner has been, and remains, a very influential figure in modern European culture, but the intellectual foundations of his influence are strange and dense and obscure and, for most, inaccessible.

In the estimation of the present writer, who is unashamedly interested in things that are out of phase, this is something that recommends him. There are surely few thinkers who are quite so out of phase, so at odds with the pedestrian and the standard, the accepted and the prevalent, as Rudolf Steiner. Reading Steiner will certainly twist one’s world-view out of a settled complacency and remove one from the dry, comforting world of familiar ideas. His capacity to step out of the structures of modern, materialist, scientistic thought and to see the world through a very different paradigm is one of his great accomplishments, and something that betokens his genius. It is for this that the present writer has ventured into Steiner’s works at regular intervals over a period of some thirty or so years. Let it be clear: Steiner is certainly worth reading. There is really no one quite like him. He is an outstanding figure. One does not throw around the epithet “genius” too often, but there can be no question that Steiner was a genius, a man of quite extraordinary intellect, a figure of rare brilliance.

For all of that, however, he is a mixed bag. On the one hand his work is based on the very sound foundations of high German philosophy and a deep, penetrating acquaintance with the natural sciences. He made a significant contribution to epistemology in his doctoral thesis, later published as ‘The Philosophy of Freedom’. He was deeply conversant with Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Schelling – the whole crew. He met Nietzche in person. As a young man – recognized for his brilliance – he was appointed as editor of the natural scientific works of Goethe. Independent of these studies, he shows remarkably original insights into an impressive range of fields in both the sciences and the arts: medicine, architecture, dance, music, sculpture, astronomy, painting, pedagogy. One can read volumes of Steiner without once encountering anything derivative.

On the other hand, much – but not all – of Steiner is infected with a highly eccentric strain of theosophical thinking even murkier and more unwholesome than that of Madam Blavatsky. This, moreover, rests not upon the foundations of Dr Steiner’s unquestionable intellectual gifts but upon loose and reckless claims of seership and “clairvoyance” and “the investigations of spiritual science”. Wedded to Steiner’s considerable and unique corpus of scientific and philosophical insight is a vast theosophical construction – dubbed ‘Anthroposophy’ – complete with Atlanteans, epochs, ages, reincarnation and complex hierarchies of spiritual beings. Further, in contrast to Blatavskean theosophy, this construction has had grafted onto it a strangely gnostic Christianity, a veritable casserole of old heresies and a host of new ones which, again, have as their sole authority Steiner’s claim to be a seer with direct access to the spiritual realms. The entire ensemble is decidedly fantastic, to say the least. This is not to say that, even then, his genius does not sometimes shine through. As baroque concoctions of gnostic Christo-theosophy go, Anthroposophy is intriguing and unusually cogent, but it is, all the same, a relic of an age when the Theosophical Society, theosophical occultism and clairvoyance were intellectual fashions. To contemporary readers this aspect of Steiner now seems unaccountably bizarre. Side by side with his brilliant philosophical and scientific insights one encounters an outlandish theosophical superstructure that goes well beyond the borders of credulity. There is the genius on the one hand, and the theosophical crank on the other. Steiner made a serious miscalculation. On the one hand he was far ahead of his time. He is now seen, rightly, as a visionary pioneer of organic farming, alternative medicine, holistic education, and much else. But he supposed that the theosophy that had become popular and respectable through the Theosophical Society was a path to the future. For a clairvoyant he showed a notable lack of foresight into the coming drift of the age. In fact, theosophy came and went as an intellectual movement and today seems spent and archaic. Steiner married his philosophy and science to it, and today that decision serves him ill.

‘Married’, in fact, is the right word in this context. One must ask, as did some of his contemporaries, how such an astute and brilliant mind as Steiner’s ever became entangled with the spiritizualizing gibberish of theosophy? The present author has pondered this question many times. Steiner’s works are replete with startling insight. There is no greater exponent of the Goethean sciences. One is surprised and delighted again and again by his understanding of nature, his capacity to think ‘outside the square’, as the saying goes. But then, it is all marred by the theosophy – or Anthroposophy – by which he frames it. How did this happen? How did such a sublime body of thought become so enmeshed in a web of theosophical nonsense? To read Steiner one must confront this problem. The gems are mired in a mountain of dross. How did this happen? What went wrong?

The answer is that he was swept along by two fashions of his day. One was the theory of evolution, which he embraced enthusiastically and of which he then gave an extended spiritual interpretation. Many other people of his day did the same, but perhaps none so thoroughly and comprehensively as Steiner. In much of his writings, and even more so in his lecture transcripts, everything is seen through the lens of evolution. It is evolution this and evolution that. The other fashion, as already noted, was theosophy, but it is important to note that his embrace of this took a particularly personal form. His second wife, Maria von Sivers, was a keen theosophist, and a key member of the German Theosophical Society. When he met her not only did he find a new companion – and one who actively assisted his work in many fields – but he also found a ready-made audience for his ideas. By his own account, his inclinations towards the spiritual were longstanding and deep. He claims that his clairvoyant powers were ripe at an early age. But, frustratingly, it was a dimension of himself about which he had to keep silent for fear of ridicule and misunderstanding. As it was, Goethe’s scientific theories were ridiculed by hard-nosed materialists. Steiner found it difficult to find an intellectual forum in which he could discuss them and be taken seriously. Maria von Sivers solved this difficulty for him. She inducted him into the Theosophical Society and there he found a receptive audience. For theosophy it was a coup. He was surely the most significant intellectual to ever join that organization. He did so in his search for an audience and – what must not be overlooked - for the love of a woman. 

The Theosophical Society, indeed, was full of intelligent, or if not intelligent then wealthy and important women. Much of its success in the sociological context of the late Victorian era and early XXth century was in that it provided a forum for women to engage with the discussion and digestion of the flood of new ideas exposed by the broader (but male-dominated) Orientalist movement. It was at an early encounter at one of Steiner’s public lectures that the then Frauline von Sivers asked him a question about the possibility of developing a fully esoteric understanding of Christianity. Steiner took to this task and eventually married the woman who had suggested it to him. With Maria von Sivers, he also married theosophy and all that it entailed, and thereafter the nature and tenor of his work changed dramatically. He openly declared his seership, quickly rose to be leader of the German Theosophical Society and gathered a following of sympathetic devotees. At length, he, Frau Steiner and his followers, split from the Theosophical Society proper – the catalyst being the Krishnamurti affair – and formed their own esoteric school, the overtly Christian Anthroposophical Society with its headquarters in Dornach in Switzerland. 

Dr Rudolf and Frau Maria Steiner 

In order to read Herr Dr Steiner today one must be aware of this background. In his early works one encounters the philosophical Steiner, then deeply embedded in the German philosophical tradition. One also encounters the Steiner who was the young genius who edited the natural scientific section of the Goethe archives. Both of these strands – philosophical and natural scientific – continue to be developed throughout his later work. He remained an unsurpassed master of German phenomenology and Goethean science. But beyond a certain date – the early years of the XXth century – it is important to realize that he is writing for and speaking to a different audience, and his outlook is now intermingled with his own idiosyncretic (and increasingly Christocentric) version of theosophy. Thereafter, he attempts a fusion, a grand amalgam, of these various influences – Schopenhauer meets Goethe meets Blavatsky meets the gnostic Jesus. 

Dr Steiner with a model of his first Goetheanum.

The first Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. Steiner's masterpiece. The wooden building was destroyed by arson by German nationalists. 

In fairness we should note that while it is often difficult to disentangle this remarkable all-encompassing assemblage, the idea of freedom prevails throughout, and his work in various fields of the sciences and the arts is, in theory at least, independent of Anthroposophy. He was not a polemicist. He seems to have appreciated that some people might want the Goethe without the theosophical frame. He offers his ideas no-strings-attached. One does not need to be an Anthroposophist dedicated to nurturing the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to see the good sense in many of his ideas about teaching and pedagogy. Nor does one need to be anticipating the reappearance of the Christ-Being in the etheric realm to take advantage of biodynamic agriculture. In the best instances, Steiner kept his Anthroposophy and his Goethe somewhat separate. The agriculture course he gave to farmers, and his astronomy course, are examples. Both masterpieces of Goethean science, they are relatively free of clap-trap. In other cases, though, readers need to carefully separate the inter-mingled strands in order to disinfect his works of the material directed at an audience with a theosophical world-view. One needs to remove Frau Steiner, that is to say. To be frank, women of the Theosophical era often led very able men astray. Even today, perfectly sensible men can be intellectually hobbled by New Age women appealing to the supposed feminine virtue of intuition against the allegedly hardened masculinity of reason. In order to read Steiner it is necessary to divorce him from Maria von Sivers and imagine where he may have taken his genius if he had not married a theosophist. This, and some compensations for the over-played spiritual Darwinism. It is not always easy.  It requires judicious reading. One might need to mentally edit out every second paragraph. It is what makes reading Steiner such a challenge. 

STEINER'S BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS

In almost all cases, though, it is a challenge worth undertaking. Let us reiterate: Rudolf Steiner was a man of exceptional talents who has made a remarkable contribution to modern European culture. He planted valuable seeds. He was not a hack or a charlatan. It is a great pity - arguably one of the intellectual tragedies of the modern era - that he became entangled with the pseudo-spirituality of theosophy. He is a much diminished figure for this. But then, what else could he have done? Such a man, so out of phase but with so much to offer, needs to find a receptive audience somewhere if he is not to waste away in lonely obscurity. And who can blame a man for hitching his wagon to a supportive woman? And, in any case, it is surprising how often it is rewarding to persist with even the most bizarre of Steiner's utterances, to suspend disbelief, and follow his line of insight to its conclusion. The present writer can remember many occasions where his response to reading Steiner was to marvel at what an unexpected and downright weird yet strangely fresh and compelling point of view Steiner presented. Even the bizarre in Steiner makes its mark. 

Much of his scientific work is an extended extrapolation of traditional cosmology seen through the illuminating lens of modern science and deserves particular attention. At the core of it is his conception of the 'threefold man' which has its roots in Plato and other ancient and venerable traditions but which Herr Dr Steiner explores deep into the physical constitution of the human body. Indeed, this is the most impressive aspect of Steiner: while Jung and countless others proposed a bridge between modern science and spirituality in psychology - on the basis of a confusion of psyche and pneuma - Steiner found it rather in biology. This is a great accomplishment in itself, and this alone makes Steiner worth reading. The Steiner perspective is inherently alchemical in this respect. The physical sciences, the study of matter and life, is the place of the spirit. But readers must expect to have to sift Steiner's words as they go. It can be frustrating. Why does he pollute his genius with this rot? one keeps asking. The important thing is not to be put off by the task of sorting the wheat from the chaff. The wheat, when you locate it, is exceptionally high grade. 

One further point of appreciation. We live, according to Steiner, in what he calls a "consciousness soul age" and our spiritual constitution is quite different today than how it was in the past. This follows from his account of the 'evolution of consciousness'. Accordingly, yesterday's solutions will no longer suffice for tomorrow. This is rather over-cooked in much of Steiner, but the present writer has come to appreciate the wisdom of this general proposition much more than in the past. This is especially so in response to the raging popularity of what we might call 'neo-shamanism' and more generally 'neo-primitivism' in alternative spirituality circles today. See a previous post on this issue, 'The Primitive is not the Primordial', here. The spectacle of modern people taking up the primitive mode as a 'path' is a symptom of troubling times. Steiner, at least, knew that much. We cannot go back to a lost past. Modern man is made of very different stuff to the Stone Age shaman. The 'consciousness soul' of modern man - an entirely new arrangement of inside and outside - is a mode in itself, and a legitimate spirituality must find meaning in it. In this present age many paths which served people well in the past are closed or dead ends or else are full of specters and demons. We can only marched forwards, come what may. We cannot evade the consequences of the 'consciousness soul'. There is no way back. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Stars and Trumps

Living, as he has, in the lower southern hemisphere for most of his life the present author has a distinctly southern acquaintance with the night sky. At the southern reaches of the Australian continent the stars appear quite different to how they appear at other latitudes, and especially how they appear in the history-rich temperate zone latitudes of the northern hemisphere. During his recent extended travels, therefore, which have taken him through most of Hindoostan, along the Malacca Straits, across western China, around the Japanese islands and then through the east Indies, he has taken every opportunity to study the night sky from the unfamiliar vantage of northern climes. There were some excellent clear nights when he was in the Himalayas, and again in southern Goa, and in parts of Siam, and in the boat from Shanghai to Osaka, and most recently, in the more equitorial zone, on the long sandy beaches of Bali and Lombok. 

The first thing of interest to a southerner is the pole star: a fixture of the heavens lacking in the southern hemisphere but literally pivotal to the workings of the northern sky. Polar mythology is primary in all the great traditions. The pole star is axis mundi, and the way in which the constellations circle it - notably the Dipper, scooping up the waters of Ocean through the seasons - constitutes the essential motifs of Hindoo and Chinese spirituality especially. This fact was underlined for the present author in many temples and sacred places he visited. The symbolism of the pole star and the cosmology centred on the pole star is everywhere. In some Chinese temples it is perfectly explicit; star maps adorn the altars. Even more ubiquitous, seen throughout the whole of Asia, is the sacred symbol of the hyperborean swastika which depicts the Dipper circling the axial centre, as in this diagram:

You cannot see this from the southern hemisphere. The author was happy to see it with his own eyes. Yet the pole star itself, he discovers, is unspectacular. It is surprsingly dim, isn't it? It is hardly a blazing feature of the firmament. Its importance only becomes obvious through sustained stargazing throughout the revolving tides of the year. 

Some things in the northern skyscape, though, are immediately striking. The three bright stars of Orion draw attention, in the right circumstances, to the enduring importance of Sothis, Sirius, the 'Shining One', which is indeed a blazing feature of the firmament and often dominates the night. It is visible in the south too, of course - the brightest star in the heavens the world over - but in the south it is seen from a different (reversed) perspective. The long history of human fascination with Sothis is not difficult to understand. On one night in eastern India it shone like a diamond high above the Arabian Sea, its light reflecting upon the dark, sedate waters. In Lombok, late at night, it was particularly clear, shining with a steady, intense white-blue light under the black silhouettes of hills, cliff tops, forests and volcanos. There is the Sun, the Moon, and then there is Sothis, the so-called Dog Star, which has loomed large in human mythology and starlore since the beginnings of the human adventure. On one occasion on his travels the author saw it in a classical arrangement with the three stars of Orion pointing to its brilliant presence low in the sky during the depths of the night. This is the arrangement of stars that some suppose is alluded to in the Three Kings and Star of Bethlehem story in Christian mythology, as in the picture below. It is not so obvious when seen in southern climes. In the northern hemisphere, at certain times of the year, it is too plain to be overlooked.

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This star-gazing, in turn, has set the author to consideration (exactly the right word, to con + sider, sidereal = star) of one of the key cultural representations of stellar mythology in the western tradition, the Star trump in the tarot. The possibility that the story of the three kings describes a particular arrangement of stars, and that the 'Star in the East' that the kings pursue is Sothis, reminds him that the earliest representations of the Star trump in the tarot depict that mythologem. Thus:

The first question to be answered regarding this tarot card is: what star is it that is being depicted? The most likely answer, surely, is Sothis. Let us note, for start, that this card is one of three that form a set and a sequence, the 'celestial' trumps: The Star, the Moon, the Sun. These seem to be deliberately arranged in the traditional tarot sequence in order of increasing luminosity. The Sun is the brightest object in the sky. Before it comes the Moon, the second brightest. And before the Moon card is The Star, the third brightest object in the sky - in which case it would follow that the star in question is Sothis. 

The identification of the star on the trump with the Star of Bethlehem is made explicit again in some modern tarot designs, such as this:

But it also seems to be the relevant identification in other early designs that show a handsome youth who, in context, is most likely King David (the star being King David's star, Bethlehem indicating the House of David and the Davidic royal line). Thus:

The context of this iconography, of course, is Renaissance Italy and when we compare this crude sketch of a male figure with the classical David we see the resemblance, thus:

To reiterate: these early designs are concerned with the Star of Bethlehem, the Star of David - simple Christian symbolism. When Christians think of stars it is the star that presided over the birth of Christ that must come first to their minds. The earliest tarot designs have this basic Christian meaning. Arguably, the star in question is Sothis, third most luminous object in the sky, and the star to which the "three kings" of "Orion's belt" point.

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At a certain juncture in the development of tarot symbolism, however, this simple Christian symbolism became complicated with a different iconography and the three kings of the east, or King David, as the case may be, were replaced by a female figure. It seems that this first occurred in northern Italy in the late 1400s. This is the symbolism that became standard and which continues in the tarot to this day. It introduces a second question regarding this trump: who is the female figure on the card? 

Again, many of the early designs deviate quite markedly from the later ones. Here, for instance, is one of the early depictions of the 'Star':

This is not Christian symbolism: it is pagan allegory. The female figure is most likely Ourania, the ancient Greek muse of astronomy in her night-blue attire. The star, in that case, need not be a specific star but is merely generic although, again, Sothis must be regarded as the prime candidate simply because it is the brightest star in the sky. Sothis is THE star, per se. 

Whatever the case, a female figure, rather than kings and David, makes her appearance, and in tarot designs thereafter the star is associated with a woman. Most likely, too, another factor assisted this shift. In some early sets of trumps the Christian virtues, personified in the medieval manner, appear in place of some of the now familiar designs. In such cases, the virtue of Hope (as in the trinity Faith, Hope and Charity) appears in place of the Star. Thus the female figure who later appeared on the cards is an adaptation of Hope, and indeed this positive attribution has continued to be part of the divinatory meanings ascribed to the card by cartomancers. 

On the other hand, this same woman becomes naked in the course of the transformation of the card designs and she thus appears to be the same female figure who appears on the Temperance card, the World card and elsewhere in the iconography of the trumps. In this respect she seems to be a representation of Anima Mundi - the World Soul - of Christo-Neoplatonic cosmology who was routinely depicted as a naked woman in this way. The World card, the last in the sequence of trumps, in particular, seems to confirm this identification. As with all the tarot trumps, the Star card is, we can see, a convergence of many different streams of late medieval and Renaissance symbolism, both pagan and Christian, iconographical and moral.

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It will be noted that in all the various designs of the star trump considered thus far there is no appearance of the waters that feature in the later designs. Historically, this is a late element in the design. First there is the star - some early designs simply show a star with no other details, as in the so-called Rosenwold Sheet, an uncut printing of card designs. See below:

Secondly, the female figure appears with the star, replacing kings and male figures. But only later does this female figure become associated with water. In the design that became normative, of course, she is holding pitchers of water and pouring them out. Star. Woman. Waters. These are the components of what became the traditional design. 

How then do we explain the appearance of water in the Star card, and how is water associated with (a) the star and (b) the woman? This is the third of the three questions to which the trump design gives rise. What are the waters we see on the card? There are three questions to be answered: 

What star is it? 
Who is the woman? 
What are the waters? 

On the face of it, the appearance of the water in the symbolism of the card seems to reinforce the view that the star in question is Sothis. The connection coincides with the ancient Egyptian themes that many have detected in the tarot trumps. No doubt, claims that the tarot is of ancient Egyptian origin are unfounded in themselves, but certain iconographical themes in the traditional designs, albeit of Italian origin, do seem to perpetuate motifs that go back to ancient Egypt. The Egyptian association of Sothis with the cycles of the Nile - and the star with water - is an association that persists in Europe well beyond ancient times. One can make a good case that this is why water appears in the symbolism of the card. The cycles of Sothis are related to the flooding of the Nile and hence, by extension, to fertility and irrigation. What star is it? Sothis. The water symbolism of the card tells us so. No other star has such a long-standing and archetypal association with water.

In that case, as many commentators suppose, the woman depicted may be meant to signify some Egyptian deity related to Sothis, most usually nominated as the goddess Isis. This, at least, would satisfactorily answer our three questions. The star is Sothis. The woman is Isis. The waters are the waters of the Nile. What has happened in the evolution of the card, then, is that these Egyptian motifs have been collected together in conjunction with the other streams of ideas such as Hope and Ourania and the Neoplatonic World-Soul. The final element in the design, the bird in the tree - almost always identified as an ibis - is likely to have been imported as part of this Egyptification at much the same time. 

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There are, all the same, other questions to be answered and other considerations that might count against such neat identifications. The tarot designs are complex and their origins and history notoriously obscure. There is much scope for speculation. Nothing is ever simple. What are we to make of the posture of the woman on the card, for instance, and her act of pouring out the water? In some early designs she holds a single pitcher and pours the water into a river (or other body of water, the sea?) In what became the canonical design she is holding two pitchers or jugs and is pouring one onto land and one into the body of water. What symbolism is afoot here? And why is she positioned as she is? 

As historians of the tarot relate, the prototype for the two vessels of water would seem to be alchemical depictions of the mermaid Melusine of folklore, an allegorical figure representing the conjunctio oppositorum, the union of opposites. In alchemical iconography she is depicted expressing milk from one breast and blood from the other, as below:

This is probably French symbolism, although the legends of Melusine were known in Cyprus and may have come into Italy through certain Milanese-Cypriot connections. Some tarot designs, old and new, are clearly related to this iconography as the following two versions of the Star card show. Without drawing attention to vulgar colloquialisms, the breasts of the mermaid become the 'jugs' of the female figure on the card, a somewhat obvious adaptation: 

In any case, the mere fact of water in the design becomes further complicated with the importation of the idea of duality, two jugs (pitchers) - the two breasts of the female figure - and the idea, by extension, that the two vessels contain two different waters or waters for two different purposes. Blood and milk in the Melusine symbolism signifies the salty and the sweet respectively. It is a fair surmise, then, that the two vessels of water represent the two types of water, salty and fresh (or sweet). This distinction is then formalized in the tarot design by having the female figure pour one vessel into the body of water (the salt water of the sea) and one on land (the fresh water of the rivers). At the time that this further distinction was made the female figure was turned around to be facing the left rather than the right and she was given a distinctive posture. This again, as historians of the tarot have remarked, is not unprecedented. The female figure seems to have been adapted to the typical posture of personifications of the zodiacal sign Aquarius, the Water-bearer, in medieval astrological symbolism, thus:

The basis for this further collapsing together and blending of symbolisms is plain. The evolution of the figure on the card now identifies her as water-bearer and a figure of conjoined opposites represented by the two modes of water, salty and sweet. In this we see astrological and alchemical influences upon the design, co-mingling with all the others we have noted, until it arrives at its canonical form, thus:

   

In a Christian context, this final symbolism is rich in allusions. Let us note, for example, a passage from the Revelation of John, 10:1-2:  

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.  

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It occurs to the present author, all the same, that there are other possible interpretations of this symbolism. One further feature of the design requires an explanation, and it suggests that perhaps a quite different order of symbolism was in play during the development of the trump. In the early designs, as we saw above, there was often just a single star depicted upon the card. It was almost always eight-pointed. In the canonical design this eight-pointed star blazing in the centre of the card is accompanied by seven smaller stars. These, presumably, represent the seven planets, or alternatively, it is conceivable that they represent the seven sisters, the Pleiades, since that grouping of stars is in the same proximity as Sothis. But the seven stars appear quite late in the evolution of the design. As we see in the examples depicted above, when the Melusine motif of two jugs (breasts) - the conjunction of opposites - was introduced there were four stars, not seven, accompanying the central star. Here it is again:

The stages of development, then, were one star, then four, then seven. The question is: how many additional stars should there be and what do they represent? 

If there are seven stars then we have some reasonable answers to the second part of this question. The additional stars represent either the planets or perhaps the Pleiades. But what of the four stars? When four stars were added to the design, what did they represent in the mind of the designer? The additional stars seem to be added to the design at the same time that water became associated with the star, and at first there were four stars, not seven. What, then, do four stars represent? The seven stars of the canonical design, it will be noticed, tend to be arranged somewhat awkwardly and are crowded in the given space. Designs with four stars on the other hand have a natural symmetry: the large star is in the centre and the four stars are arranged neatly around it. Perhaps the four stars are simply decorative devices just as the seven stars are instances of Hermetic exuberance? But that is unlikely. Every detail of all the tarot trumps seem to be deliberate. The designs may be arcane and there may indeed be a confusion, a hotch-potch, of various types of symbolism, but no details seem to be unintelligent or merely aesthetic. 

There is, however, no natural correlative to the four stars. Seven planets or the seven sisters (Pleiades) are natural models, but there is no natural set of four stars except, perhaps, the great Southern Cross, but that is a feature of the southern skies, not the northern. Most likely, then, they represent the four directions and/or the four seasons. The large star that they surround, therefore, takes on the symbolism of the centre, the axis. We have a central star and around it four smaller stars representing north, south, east and west and/or winter, spring, summer and autumn. But if that is the case, then we must question whether the central star is Sothis for it does not naturally carry such four-square significances. The star that does is, rather, Polaris, the pole star. Sothis is the brightest star in the heavens, but it is not, for all of that, axial. The pole star is dim to the eyes but it is the star around which the whole cosmos turns. 

It seems to the present author, in any case, that certain elements in the design of this trump might be better explained if we take the star to be the pole star rather than Sothis, or perhaps what we have is an overlapping of two different orders of symbolism. There are two great stars in the northern heavens. Sothis is the brightest. Polaris is the most axial. They are significant in two different ways. Perhaps, then, both stars come together in the Star trump? Perhaps they are interchangeable? Many of the themes we have considered might conceivably apply to both of these stars. We said, for instance, that Sothis is naturally associated with water, and it is by virtue of its association with the waters of the Nile, but the Dipper that, as we saw, circles the pole star, is conceived mythologically as a water-scoop that dips down into the waters of Ocean and irrigates the heavenly meadows. Thus, although it is perhaps less obvious and less appreciated, we might just as well attribute the water symbolism of the card to the pole star as to Sothis. 

In this respect, let us note - as some commentators have in the past - the fact that the female figure in the later designs is in a peculiar posture of arms and legs that somewhat resembles the swastika. Let us see her again:

It is clear from other tarot trumps - consider the Emperor card or the Hanging Man, for example - that the arms and legs of the figures are often made to form symbolic shapes. The Emperor's legs makle the sign of the planet Jupiter, for instance, and the Hanging Man's crossed leg makes the alchemical glyph for sulphur. Such devices are well established in tarot symbolism. In the canonical design, the naked water-bearer on the Star trump is very deliberately depicted with her arms and legs in a peculiar arrangement, and that arrangement strongly suggests the four arms of the swastika. 

We can explain that peculiarity by assuming that the star above her is the pole star. Other symbolism follows. In the Soofi tradition of the Mahometans - to draw upon another order of symbols for the sake of elucidation for a moment - much is made of various Koranic references to the "two seas" and their meeting place. These "two seas" are the two modes of water, salty and sweet. Their meeting place is the so-called bazahk, a symbolic notion of that place, the "heart", where a being of the physical world (the salty waters) can encounter the spiritual (the sweet). Such ideas are crucial to Soofi spirituality and by extension feature in Mahometan alchemy as well. By further extension, these same alchemical ideas inform the occidental alchemical tradition too, and this is what we find in the symbolism of the Star card insofar as it is alchemical. What this amounts to is this: that the bazahk, the meeting place of the "two seas", the physical and spiritual realms, is in the heart, the centre of one's being, and so to reach that place is to return to the spiritual centre, the axis of one's Self. The pole star has exactly such significances in a cosmological sense. The axis is where the "two seas" meet. 

One can interpret the Star card of the tarot in these terms. There is much more that one can say. Again, the symbolism of the tarot is rich and multivalent. These considerations are, at least, a starting point. In the first instance the meaning of the card is Sothic. The star is Sirius. But other streams of symbolism converge in its iconography. In particular, the axial symbolism of the pole star very well accounts for many of the themes of this card. The star is not only Sirius, but Polaris as well. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Regarding Homeopathic Potencies

It is a matter little known concerning the author of these pages that in a former life, long before he embarked upon a lacklustre academic career and then a pseudonymous lifestyle as an itinerant blogger in obscure corners of Asia, he was an ardent student of homeopathic pharmacy. This is to say that he had a passion for poisons - toxicology - and studied the same through a German company then based in South Australia. He was not, it must be stressed, a practitioner of homoeopathy. His interest was rather in the homoeopathic materia medica, the toxins deployed in homoeopathic medicine and the means by which such toxins are prepared. This topic has been broached once before in these pages some time ago, in the article entitled Succussion in Alchemy, here. This current post is in some respects a companion to that article, or at least it adds to matters discussed therein.

Specifically, the purpose of this post is to explain in simple terms the nature and purpose of homoeopathic dilution, or what homoeopaths are inclined to call "potencies". For many, of course, this is a matter of some humour, because homoeopathy is routinely ridiculed and rubbished by the skeptical and has been for over two hundred years. What homoeopaths call "potencies" the skeptical call "water". There are many excellent jokes on the subject. Here is one:

Readers will probably be aware of the reason for the mirth. Homoeopathic dilution - potentization - consists of diluting the original substance (usually a toxin) in graded steps, shaking or "succussing" the dilution at each step, until, at length, there is absolutely no trace of the original substance remaining. Undetettered by this physical fact, though, the homoeopath swears that he has made a "potency" of the original substance, the essence of which has somehow been imprinted upon the neutral medium of dilution (water or alcohol). The homoeopath calls it a "potency" and claims that it has curative properties - the rest of the world calls it "water" and claims that it is nothing more than quackery.

It is not our purpose here to mount a defence of the homoeopath's position, or to rehearse the evidence for the powers of homoeopathic dilutions, nor to rebutt the dreary predictability of the skeptics who have rattled on with the same objections ever since the days of Samuel Hahnemann, modern father of homoeopathic medicine. Instead, our single purpose is merely to clarify why it is exactly that homoeopaths make and use "potencies" and to elucidate for skeptic and believer alike the basis upon which a homoeopath selects a potency in any given case. There are many potencies that might be used. There are several different scales of dilution. The most common is the so-called C scale, whereby the original substance (tincture) is diluted by increments of 99 to 1 (centesimal). Others use a decimal scale of 9 drops of dilutant to one drop of tincture. Thus: 

In any particular instance the homoeopath must select not only the medicine to be applied to the patient but also its potency. Such potencies are usually referred to as "low" or "high". A low potency means that only a few dilutions have been made. For example, a common low potency is called 6x. This means there have been six steps of dilution on the decimal scale. Similarly, 6c is regarded as a low potency on the centesimal scale. But often medicines (remedies) will be chosen at so-called "high" potency - 200c, for example, which is to say one drop to 99 has been taken and succussed (shaken) in two hundred steps. There are potencies as high as M, one million dilutions, CM, one hundred million, and so on. Generally, the point at which there ceases to be any physical substance remaining in a dilution is about 12c. Conventional science, therefore, supposes that all potencies "higher" than that are necessarily inert, and potencies as high as M or CM are simply ridiculous. 

Practising homeopaths are sometimes divided on the question of potency. Some are low potency men and some reach for the high potencies and swear by their powers. Others will use low or high potencies according to various criteria and according to the perceived needs of a given case. Ever since the beginning of modern homoeopathy, though, the entire question of potency has never been very clear and has often been a cause for controversy and dispute. In some jurisdictions - such as France - the low potency advocates have been successful in getting high potencies banned by law. In other places, such as India, high potencies are the norm and low potency prescribing is deemed dangerous because low dilutions are still likely to contain traces of actual toxins that can harm patients. Homeopaths deal in very nasty substances: snake and spider venoms, toxic metals, poisonous plants. These toxins will still be active ingredients in low dilutions. Peddlers of low potency homoeopathy are condemned as reckless by their high potency colleagues. 

Other questions arise too. Some homoeopaths suppose, for example, that high potency medicines act upon the mind while low potencies are centred upon the physical body. Some suppose that very high potencies act upon the spirit or soul - and it is here that homoeopathy, much to its detriment, adjoins spiritualism. Others suppose that certain potencies are suited to certain remedies. It is commonly held, for example, that white arsenic (Arsenicum album) is most potent at a dilution of 200c, or that the venom of the cobra (naja tripudians) is best at 30c. Still other practitioners select potency according to the so-called 'constitution' of the patient. A patient with a cold, sluggish constitution might require higher potencies than someone of a more sanguine and reactive temperament, for instance. 

All of this, in fact, amounts to a certain degree of confusion. Indeed, no other aspect of homoeopathy causes more confusion and less agreement than the question of potency. In any given case, a dozen different homoeopaths might all agree upon which remedy is required, but none of them will agree on potency. Let us, therefore, try to set the matter straight. What is the guiding principle for selecting potency in homoeopathic medicine? When does one use low potencies and when does one use high potencies? What are the particular uses for particular potencies? 

* * * 

The basis for selecting a homoeopathic remedy is much clearer. The basis is: similitude. Medicines are selected according to the similitude that exists between their known properties and the symptoms displayed by the patient. Belladonna poisoning, to cite a crude example, will include fever and dilated pupils. If a patient has these symptoms then the homoeopathic medicine is belladonna. The law of cure in homoeopathy is: like can cure like. That is the whole basis of homoeopathy, both ancient and modern. When a person is sick, the homeopath tries to find a substance (toxin) that will create similar symptoms in a healthy person upon the assumption that like can cure like. This is a much more defensible aspect of homoeopathy. The power of substances to cure the very symptoms they induce has been known since the ancient Greeks, at least. It is the issue of dilution and potency that invites the ridicule of skeptics.  And, frankly, it is confusion on the question of potency, more than anything else, that has brought homoeopathy into wide disrepute. It is a matter than needs clarification. 

Despite what its sundry critics propose - and indeed despite the fact that it often attracts the harebrained and the half-baked and deserves all the criticism it attracts - homeopathy is remarkably rational and systematic. It is one of the great ironies of our age that such a rational system of medicine, a product of the Enlightenment, has come to be associated with quackery and spiritualism. It is constructed from careful axioms and a systematic empiricism. The selection of potency, as much as the selection of remedy, is a matter of science. In fact, the two things are directly connected. 

To understand, we need merely to realise what it was that led Hahnemann to dilute medicines in the first place. Because in the beginning he used raw tinctures. At first, experimenting with the principle like can cure like, he tried administering raw toxins to his patients. Not surprisingly, this made them sick. He therefore - very sensibly - started using smaller and smaller doses. Even so, however, he observed the following: if there was a near similitude between the patient's symptoms and the chosen remedy, even a small dose will aggravate the patient's condition before it begins to cure. Hahnemann observed aggravation. Thus, for example, belladonna might cure a patient with fever and diluted pupils, but before it cures it will aggravate. The more similar the toxin is to the symptoms of the patient the more the toxin will aggravate. Let us say that again: The more similar the toxin is to the symptoms of the patient the more the toxin will aggravate.

This is what led Hahnemann to experiment with succussed dilutions (potencies) - sometimes called Hahnemanian dilutions. He was looking for a way to avoid the effect of aggravation. There are, of course, degrees of similitude. Some types of fever are very similar to the fever typical of belladonna poisoning, other types of fever less so. Again: Hahnemann noted that the greater the degree of similitude, the more likely a toxin was likely to bring about a cure, but also the more likely it was to first aggravate the condition. Similitude is the principle of cure, but it is also the basis of aggravation. If you select a remedy the toxicology of which is very similar to the symptoms of a patient, then you have found an agent for cure, but that same agent will - for the same reason, namely similitude - aggravate. How do you retain the curative power but avoid aggravation? This is the problem that led Hahnemann to develop so-called "potencies". 

The whole point of "potencies", that is to say, is to avoid aggravation. The objective, always, is to cure without aggravating. The greater the degree of similitude, the greater the danger of aggravation. This makes plain sense. If someone looks like they have belladonna poisoning and you give them ten drops of tincture of belladonna, you are going to multiply (aggravate) their symptoms: like plus like. Hahnemannian potency is an attempt to retain the curative effect of like can cure like but avoid aggravation. And this fact reveals the basis for selecting potency. That is, one selects whatever potency is likely to cure without aggravation. And in general, one selects the potency according to the degree of similitude. The greater the similitude, the higher the potency. Potency is not magic. Or spiritual. The whole purpose of potency is to avoid aggravation. 

Homeopathy rests on this demonstrable foundation: the organism is super-sensitive to the similar remedy. If the homoeopath can locate a toxin that is very similar in its effects to the symptoms of the patient, then the patient will be super-sensitive to that toxin. If you have the symptoms of belladonna poisoning, you will be very sensitive to belladonna. Thus, very little of the similar remedy is needed. But conversely, only a small amount will trigger an aggravation. This is the art of choosing the potency. In any given case, the homoeopath must choose a potency that cures without aggravating. Too low a potency will aggravate. Too high a potency will either have no effect at all - other than placebo - or else will distort the symptom picture of the patient in question. 

This is the guiding principle of homoeopathic potencies. The mistaken idea that high potencies are for mental symptoms arises from this, because - in most cases - mental symptoms will only be present where there is a high degree of similitude. Belladonna again: one of its mental symptoms is delirium. If delirium is present, as well as fever, and diluted pupils, then there is a deeper level of similitude between the patient's symptoms and the toxicology of the poison. In most cases mental symptoms, so-called, indicate a deep level of similitude. Thus mental symptoms typically call for higher potencies (in order to retain curative power but avoid aggravation.) 

Whether or not this principle can be extended beyond the limits of physical substances into imponderable dilutions is another matter. Even if we concede that the organism is super-sensitive to the similar remedy, does this make it super-sensitive to a remedy in which not a single molecule of the original substance is present? This is the mystery of Hahnemannian dilution. Thus far, we must admit, the homoeopathic fraternity has not been able to provide a rationale for the action of such dilutions consistent with known physics. But at least we can be clear as to why it is homoeopaths use such dilutions: they are looking for a dose of the similar remedy that will be sufficiently large to cure but sufficiently small to avoid aggravation. It is unfortunate that homoeopaths are rarely clear about this important facet of their art.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Chinese Red - Temple Vermillion

The moment you take even a step into the Sino-Asiatic world - any part of east Asia with a significant Chinese population or under Chinese influence, or else into your nearest Chinatown - you enter a world coloured with red. It is very conspicuous. The Chinese adore the colour red. It features in all of their adornments, both domestic and public. But it is not just any colour red - it is a very particular type of red. Not fire engine red. Not Santa Claus red. Not Red Cross red. Not communist red, either. No. It is Chinese lantern red. Chinese temple red. It is a particular, unmistakeable shade of red usually identified as "vermillion" or else, in the past, as "cinnabar". See the colour square above for an example. 

There is no official definition of the exact shade but in the sample given above "vermillion" has the Hex value #E34234. Any shade of red near to it will pass as "Chinese red" as we will call it here. You will find it used in a thousand different ways. Red lanterns. Red ribbons. Red signs. Red seals. The present author has recently arrived in the Chinese section of George Town on the Prince of Wales Island and this "Chinese red" is on display everywhere. He recently ate at the "Red Garden Food Paradise" which is literally "Chinese red" from top to bottom - red tables, red chairs, red writing, red uniforms on the waiting staff. Everything in this distinctive "Chinese red". 

The standard explanation for the love of this colour among the Chinese is entirely unsatisfactory. We are told, unhelpfully, that the Chinese regard it as "auspicious" and that it brings "good luck." More detailed explanations are equally uninformative. We are told that it "symbolises fire" and this "represents spring" and the "direction south" and is therefore "lucky" or "auspicious" for this reason. Certainly, the Chinese are given to preoccupations of "luck", but surely something more lies behind the ubiqitous use of red, and this particular red. How do we explain that this red - this "vermillion" - is regarded as "auspicious", and also why it is so completely and comprehensively "auspicious" that the Chinese use it so extensively in all contexts great and small? What is it about this red, this particular red, that renders it so important to the Chinese? In the pictures below we see some examples of its many uses:

Tradition lacquerware

Temple entrance with lanterns 

Row of lanterns

Traditional seal (or "chop")

Chinese wedding 

Calligraphy

* * * 

The present author offers the following explanation for this characteristically Chinese phenomenon. It is not difficult to piece together the symbolism of this colour in the Chinese tradition:

Until the development of synthetic alternatives, this particular shade of red was traditionally prepared from 'cinnabar', which is to say from Mercury Sulphide (HgS). Cinnabar is a sulphide of mercury that, when ground into a powder, yields a strong, stable permanent red that can be used in paints and lacquers. Good, stable red colourings are relatively rare in nature, so this preparation - a by-product of mining and metallurgy - was especially valued. 

It was not exclusive to the Chinese, though. Cinnabar (the name comes from Greek but is probably Persian in origin) was known and used in other cultures as well.  We see it used as a red ink in medieval European manuscripts, for example, and as a paint used in the murals of Roman Pompei: 

But the Chinese adopted it as their own. The reason for this is that the Chinese tradition - and especially Taoism - is essentially alchemical and cinnabar, as a metallic essence, is a key ingredient in Taoist alchemy. In the Occident alchemy is, and has always been, a peripheral or 'fringe' tradition. In the Chinese spiritual order it is far more central and mainstream. The colour symbolism of 'Chinese red' and its associations with 'good luck' have a basis in and are to be explained by the significance of cinnabar in Chinese alchemy. 

The primary alchemical significance of cinnabar is this: during the mining of gold the miners might encounter 'veins' of red cinnabar (Mercury sulphide)in the bedrock. Gold and cinnabar are often found together. This is because both gold and mercury are heavy metals and such metals tend to be found in the same geological strata. (For the same reason, arsenic and other heavy metals are often found with gold.) 

Thus cinnabar is associated with gold and in the alchemical mythology of gold mining is often called 'Dragon's blood'. Dragons are believed to store and protect gold in their 'lairs' in the womb of the earth. When miners encounter 'veins' of blood-red pigments running through rocks near and around gold deposits they imagine them to be veins of Dragon's blood. This idea is suggested by the word 'vermillion' too, since it comes from the same root as the word 'worm', and a dragon is a 'worm' in many languages. 'Vermillion' means 'the colour of the dragon/worm'. 

The basic idea here is simple and straightforward. Vermillion - dragon's blood - is "lucky" because it signifies the proximity of gold. When a miner encounters cinnabar (dragon's blood) he is in luck, because he knows there is likely to be gold nearby. When he strikes dragon's blood he has struck gold. 

By extension, this colour is associated with gold and with the auric properties of gold in a general sense. Gold here carries its alchemical significance. It is not merely a precious metal valued in terms of wealth; it also signifies spiritual perfection. Accordingly, the Chinese surround themselves with things the colour of 'dragon's blood' because it points to the perfections of gold. Indeed, as we see in the case of the calligraphy illustrated above, we often find the colour gold with 'Chinese red'. Cinnabar/vermillion/dragon's blood goes with gold in Chinese colour symbolism. You can walk into any Chinese temple and see instances of this. 

By understanding these alchemical associations, and by appreciating the inherently alchemical character of the Chinese tradition, we are in a position to appreciate why this particular colour red is so highly regarded by the Chinese. To a large extent, of course, the traditional connections may be forgotten, and so people will merely regard 'Chinese red' as "lucky" in a superstitious way, but the reasons behind the superstition can still be discerned and understood. In effect, the colour signifies gold, as well as all the things that gold itself signifies, especially the spiritual perfection of the 'Golden Race' and such other parallels. It is remarkable that this metallurgic symbolism has persisted and become so pervasive in the Chinese order. Understanding the symbolism of 'Chinese red' is one of the keys to the entire Chinese tradition. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black