Wet-on-wet Painting As Talisman
Collected waldorf-critics posts by Sharon Lombard
Sharon Lombard is a long time member of PLANS and our resident Waldorf scholar-in-the-making. In January 2001, she shared via successive posts to the waldorf-critics discussion group her research on the meaning behind Waldorf’s signature “wet-on-wet” painting technique used in the lower grades.
She also provided photos of actual Waldorf wet-on-wet paintings that her daughter painted. These can be viewed here.
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:27:02 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Hi every one, it’s Sharon here with 5 batches of talismans for you to look at. Missing from the pile are numbers 14-22 due to technical difficulty. The pictures that I’ve sent are not the best quality, but they are a start, and will help to illustrate a little of what I have found out about the Waldorf wet-on-wets.
I will share with the list an assortment of the clues that I’ve come across in my reading. I will slowly post information under the heading “Talismans”. Take a look at the attachments, all of them are occult moral exercises that my daughter produced / experienced, *except* the batch that depicts the lightning bolts and pyramids. Those talismans were made by an older child, but I’ve included them because I think they are interesting. This is just a beginning, obviously there are many grades and many school weeks.
The images by my daughter were made during Kindergarten through to the first part of 4th grade when she left the school. Missing from her stack are a small pile, approximately 8 or so talismans that I regrettably threw away in disgust right after we left the school. Had I understood what the color blobs were, and had I known that I would find PLANS and become fascinated with the pictures and want to study them, I would have “treasured” every single one.
Also missing from my daughter’s pile are the talismans from a 3 month period at the end of 3rd grade when she did not attend Waldorf. (We took her out of the increasingly religious curriculum thinking that the following year, 4th grade, would level off, which it did not). Instead she attended a little school in Jamaica where we have family. We all loved her Jamaican school but watched her struggle to catch up to the other children, by the end of the three months, she was thriving academically and very happy.) We put her back into Waldorf for 4th grade and ended up leaving for good after a couple of months. I still had not read Steiner or found the PLANS site at this point in time.
The talismans are not in a special order. I will repost certain attachments with specific information during the next couple of weeks. Hope you can open them without difficulty.
I’ll let you digest them.
Sincerely, Sharon
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 20:04:41 -0800
To: Waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
I will begin to share some of my findings on Waldorf talismans and the magic color exercises that children experience as pupils in Waldorf schools. I will slowly post this information under the heading of “Talismans” for those that are interested. I’ve attached some of my daughter’s talismans (numbers 5 – 13). Remember that young children in Waldorf are considered not fully reincarnated and the children can still see the spirit world. Let’s begin:
From the book: “Color”, by Rudolf Steiner, Rudolf Steiner Press, Sussex, C.1992. ISBN: 1 85584 111 8 (cloth) or 1 85584 1169 (paper).
Lecture from Dornach, 8th May 1921, “Colour In Matter – Painting out of Colour”, p 54-55:
Steiner: “…Colour can only be studied properly by taking into account the realm of soul. For it is sheer nonsense to say that colour is merely subjective. And if one goes on to maintain that there is some objective cause outside which works upon us, upon our ‘I’…this is nonsense – and implies an inadequate conception of the ‘I’. The ‘I’ itself is within the colour. The human ‘I’ and astral body are not to be separated at all from colour; they live in colour and inasmuch as they are united with the colour they have an existence outside the physical body. It is the ‘I’ and the astral body which reproduce colour in the physical and etheric bodies. That is the point……Colour actually bears the ‘I’ and astral body into the physical and etheric bodies. “
Same book p 68, Steiner: I have already stressed that one should not keep asking what things mean. Just as there is no sense in asking what the ‘meaning’ of the larynx is, for it is the living organ of speech, similarly we must learn to see that what lives in the forms and colours is the living organ of the spiritual world.”
P 9 Steiner: “When we paint the spiritual content of the world we are not dealing with figures illumined by a source of light, but with figures shining with their own light.”
Sharon: Let’s look at some of Steiner’s instructions for his disciples in “The Stages of Higher Knowledge”, Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophic Press 1967.
p 48 Steiner: “….Imagination may be called a spiritual seeing….. Whoever tries to put a flower before his mind’s eye, and then separates off from his picture everything that does not represent color, so that an image of the colored surface, separate from the flower, is suspended before his soul, can gradually through such exercises arrive at an Imagination.”
Sharon: In other words, if one does exercises of looking at *color* one will gradually arrive at a spiritual seeing. Now, Listen to this:
P 50, Steiner: “When the observer in the higher worlds once knows what Imagination really is, he soon acquires the conviction that the pictures of the astral world are not merely pictures, but manifestations of spiritual beings. He comes to know that these imaginative pictures have reference to spirit or soul being just as do sensory colors to sensory things or beings. In particular, he will, of course, have yet much to learn. He must learn to discriminate between color formations that are opaque and those that are quite transparent and in their inner nature clear and radiant. In fact, he will perceive formations that seem to be continually producing their color-light anew from within, and that therefore are not only fully illuminated and transparent, but are forever radiating light from within. He will link the opaque formations to lower beings, the clear, luminous ones to intermediate entities; the inwardly radiant ones will be for him manifestations of higher spiritual beings.”
Sharon: The children’s pictures must be transparent, they must shine from within. Note that Steiner’s disciples must learn to discriminate between color formations that are opaque and those that are radiant and transparent. (Opaque formations are lower beings.) Now take a look at the color exercises by my daughter below. See how transparent they are? See how they shine from within?
Next time….colors heal!
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 13:59:18 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Sharon here with more about Waldorf wet-on-wets.
Colors Heal.
The following quote is from “The Cresset”, Journal of the Camphil Movement, Christmas, 1969, by Trude Amann:
“The healing power of colors and painting is more and more recognized. But only when the teacher has followed the development of a sequence of paintings does he become aware of the manifold difficulties on the way to achievement: to learn to guide the brush, to control the pressure,…….In our time much stress is laid on the young child’s “freedom” to choose his own materials for his first artistic ventures, out of a bewildering manifoldness. The child’s path to “free expression” is paved forcefully at an early age by modern teaching methods. This is done especially at the time when the school child is trying to find in his teacher one who “knows” – who knows what is beautiful, what is ugly.
Whether conscious of it or not, the child longs to be guided into color experiences by his teacher – to be told, for example, that a blue patch next to a yellow one is more beautiful than green put next to yellow. By providing the child with the right tools for his artistic work, the teacher’s guidance grows into the discipline of painting and drawing. After puberty, true “free expression” can develop, and individual judgment and taste unfold. It is the well-tried way from being a pupil, to becoming an apprentice, in order to achieve mastery in artistic work.
….The first seeds can be planted by the teacher in the first painting lesson he gives to his class. And thus we can divine the responsibility of teachers of today. What we first and foremost want to achieve is to open the mind of the child for the true quality of the colors, to give him the exciting experiences of red and blue and yellow and green, and to let him partake as fully as possible in the healing truth: “Color is a manifestation of life revealed by the spirit”.
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:31:39 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Colors heal at Waldorf schools. Take a look at the magic color exercises imposed on my daughter at her Waldorf school here. Pay special attention to numbers 24, 25, 27, 28, (the yellow and blue examples). I think it would be safe to say that these talismans were made in kindergarten before my child’s change of teeth, during the time that her teacher believed that she was still reincarnating.
“Sleep: An Unobserved Element In Education”, by Audrey E. Mc Allen, p 44:
“The colours which the child uses for the expression of the harmonious connection with his body before the change of teeth are blue and yellow; out of these colours the soul weaves its connection with the hereditary body and transforms it.
If we consider the colour-combination of this last exercise we see how the soul has been led to the moment when it can free itself from too strong an attachment to forces working in the physical body (violet-black), releasing itself from intellectuality (green), and regaining the first powers with which it entered life (yellow-blue). This youthful element has become captured or is unused; and with this free the soul can make further progress.”
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:49:21 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
It’s Sharon again with more information as we begin to examine the magic color exercises that pupils in Waldorf schools experience. I’ll slowly post information that I’ve found on color and Waldorf for you to digest. The following passage is not about wet-on-wets, but it helps to explain one way that color is used in Waldorf. My child was draped in colored silk by the curative eurythmist. The purpose of this magical practice was for its “healing” power, (as well as for veiling).
Colors Heal at Waldorf Schools.
“Art Inspired by Rudolf Steiner”, by John Fletcher, p 130: “The use of after-images to modify a child’s temperament is familiar practice in Rudolf Steiner schools. Teachers know that excitable children can be calmed by surrounding or clothing them with reds and that lethargic children can be aroused by green or blue tones. What occurs in blood and nerve is not restricted to the eye. A red, for instance, will influence the nervous system as a whole and the blood system reacts as a whole with a metabolic activity corresponding to the colour green. The child is still more asleep in the nervous system than is the adult, more awake than the adult in the blood system. So while he enjoys colour, he lives strongly in the calming or vitalising effect. The adult is conditioned by modern culture to the nerve, the death process; he brings his perceptions to consciousness in the astral body and is not aware of the life therein. “
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 20:54:12 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
It’s Sharon again with some more on color and Waldorf. Here’s a quote from anthroposophist, Audrey E. Mc Allen’s book, “Sleep: An Unobserved Element in Education”. p 40-43. (Steiner’s pupil, Hilda Boos-Hamburger, who painted the small cupola of the first Goetheanum, taught Audrey Mc Allen. Hilda, in her old age asked Audrey to complete the forms for the existing color sequences which supposedly help children accept their present reincarnations in their bodies). The color sequences and forms posted below will give you an idea of how these color exercises are experienced by children in a Waldorf classroom, as they are exposed to the healing influence of color.
Audrey Mc Allen: “I have found these colour exercises of great help to the pupils to whom they have been given. They work as a stimulus to creativity, the pupils asking during and after working with them, if they could paint or draw their own picture. They often brought some which they had done at home on their own initiative. The color sequence works as a cleansing re-orientation of soul, helping the individuality to accept the present incarnation in a physical body. This is clearly shown in the pictures which pupils make. For example, one pupil made a drawing of two dragon-like creatures breathing out fire and flying in the air, uncovering below an idyllic landscape in which three houses were set by a river with a group of trees by its bank. Other pictures have revealed nuances of disturbing memories coming from the past. In one instance one was able to follow the incarnating process in a series of soul pictures until the final one which the pupil said was ‘What I see from my window when I wake up’. During such a process the pupil improves in his whole bearing and outlook. Problems of soul are solved in sleep life and the individuality takes hold of his body with his whole will.
These exercises are not suitable until the twelfth year has been reached when the child is in Class 6 and chronological history has been introduced. It is at this time that the first awareness of the skeleton wakens into consciousness.
To prepare the first colour sequence which is vermilion with a magenta star form, let the pupil first experience his body as a star, standing with his feet apart, his arms raised horizontally from his sides, head erect. He could be reminded of the verse with its movements that he learnt in Class Four”.
(Snip verse and ritual of Solomon’s Key).
“The painting can now be made. There are two methods which may be used. First exercise. Cover the paper with vermilion red using long unbroken brush strokes across the paper from left to right, commencing at the top of the page……The star form can then be taken out of this colour-mass by brush or sponge. Alternatively, the vermilion wash may be made and the star form left uncolored. This is suitable when repetition of the colour sequence is repeated. Nothing is said about the quality of the vermilion red or its effect on the soul. “
(Sharon here: I will post Steiner’s explanation of the supposed effect of vermilion red on the soul sometime soon!!!)
Audrey continued: “In this first exercise…only, I ask the pupil what color he would choose for the star, so that the vermilion red is held back from the star and kept in balance. Most children immediately say – yellow- and therein lies the problem. Yellow is the colour which should not be confined, it needs to dissolve and fly away. The soul is ‘holding on’ to something which needs to be released. The vermilion is drawing out the ‘congealed’ yellow in the soul. I have allowed the pupil to paint-in the star with yellow, as I noted that it is these two colours which Fra Angelico used in his paintings for Mary Magdalene. I then ask my pupil if he likes the effect. If the answer is yes, I make no comment. We repeat the exercise at the next lesson, asking which colour the star should be. When he gives the answer that he does not like the effect, we discuss the relationship between the two colours, for example, the yellow makes the vermilion hot. Then comes the question, how shall we cool the vermilion red? There are some children who insist on the yellow, others will suggest different colours, and then realise they are not satisfactory. We can now tell them to paint the star in the pale peach-blossom-like magenta. This always brings great satisfaction. I have learned to dwell on this first combination for several weeks and then to proceed with the sequence in their order, telling the pupil which colours to use.”
Sharon: Audrey continues with other exercises in this particular series. For example, the second exercise requires the pupil to cover the paper in an orange wash, taking out or leaving out a six pointed star, painting it in “a tender prussian blue”. On p 42, after listing other magic color exercises, Audrey writes about how she sensed that a Greek incarnation in classical times is a central one for many souls, and since Greek is no longer taught, she began to teach the Greek letters of the alphabet as a rhythmic ball throwing game. Then she selected certain Greek letters, which the children painted in sequence using specific colours. Audrey claims their was a sense of release and satisfaction from these repetitive sequences. On p 43 she says: “Yellow with Orange Circle (form by H. B-H). The circle is the perfect form of the astral body. One carries one’s self awareness in yellow, into the stream of earth existence. The evolutionary sequence commences with the sound of B. Hence the choice of the letter Beta.”
Sharon: Pay special attention to “The circle is the perfect form of the astral body”. Also, I wonder if the letters Audrey chose had magical powers, similar to the ones used in Eurythmy?! Stay tuned for more on Waldorf-wet-on-wets to be posted over the next few days! Some of the talismans that my daughter made in kindergarten through to the beginning of 4th grade can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 20:54:44 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Hello, it’s Sharon with more information on Waldorf color exercises!
In my last post I shared a passage on color and Waldorf from anthroposophist Audrey Mc Allen who said: “The circle is the perfect form of the astral body”. Today I’d like you to think about astral bodies, color and thought-forms! I will quote from the book, “Secret Symbolism In Occult Art”, by Fred Gettings, Harmony Books, New York. C. 1987.
Gettings gives a quick glimpse into Annie Bessant and CW Leadbeater’s book entitled “Thought-Forms”. I have a copy of this book, published in 1909 and I will share from it at a later date. For right now I’ll just give you some background via Gettings. I’ll also quote from Steiner who uses the words “thought-forms” demonstrating that he knew about these ideas. I’d also like to point out that Steiner knew the occultist Leadbeater and of course, he knew Annie Bessant, who headed up the Theosophical Society with the help of her mentor, Charles W.Leadbeater. (Steiner split from the Theosophical society, taking about half of the members with him to found the Anthroposophical Society).
In James Webb’s, “The Occult Underground”, C. 1974, Open Court Publishing Company 1990, Webb introduces Leadbeater and on p 95 he says: “Charles Webster Leadbeater belonged to that type of mildly homosexual clergyman who is as familiar now as he was then. He had been won over by Madame Blavatsky, but he always maintained that his first contact with Theosophy had been in the year 540 BC when he had visited Pythagoras on Samos. Since that period he had spent his time in Devachan – the heaven-world – because of his exclusive devotion to higher thought.” Webb continues with the life of Leadbeater who ended up getting in trouble because of his weakness for young boys.
Fred Gettings, p 46-48: “One of the earliest attempts to portray the Astral body of man (as seen by a clairvoyant) emphasizes the beauty of the colour, and it is this which has been the keynote of the majority of astral illustrations ever since (figure 61).Many occultists point out that the Astral body differs according to whether or not man’s lower passions are controlled or tamed. Those people with chaotically arranged colours (especially those with large areas of dull red or violent movement) betray an emotional life which lacks discipline, while those with relatively harmonized areas of colour (figure 62) are themselves disciplined and well balanced”.
Sharon: (Figure 61 depicts astral bodies in red and black swirls with lightning bolts in red-orange. In figure 62, the astral bodies, seen by Leadbeater are softer , fuzzier swirls in white and red, and instead of chaotic lightning bolts, there are lines of zig zags).
Gettings: “One important group of occultists attempted a systematic program of research into the appearance and colour of the astral plane, and their findings profoundly influenced the theory of colour in modern art. This group worked at the end of the nineteenth century and was connected with the then recently formed Theosophical Society, which had been founded in the United States at the instigation of the great occultist Madame Blavatsky. Among this group was a clairvoyant called Leadbeater, who had free access to the astral plane. He made it his practice to look into the astral, by means of clairvoyant techniques, and to dictate to artists what he saw. These artists would then attempt to interpret his visions in colour; after detailed correction by Leadbeater, they would paint finished pictures to represent what he had seen.
A very large number of these curious paintings have survived and among the most remarkable are what Leadbeater called ‘thought forms’. These thought forms were described by him as being the forms produced on the astral plane by human thinking. He claimed that every human thought, no matter how slight or unimportant, created a pattern or image in the astral, and he attempted to portray the most interesting of them by dictating detailed descriptions of them to his artists. He even published commentaries on what these thought forms represented.”
Sharon: Now let’s here from dear Mr. Steiner! “Theosophy Of The Rosicrucian”, by Rudolf Steiner. Rudolf Steiner Press, London. Lectures from 1907. Reprint 1981.
Steiner p 60-61: “Everything that a man thinks and feels has its effects in the outer world and the seer can follow with great precision the effect of a loving thought that goes out to another man, and the very different effect that is produced by a thought filled with hatred. When you send out a loving thought to someone the seer perceives a form of light shaped like a sort of flower-calyx, playing around his etheric and astral bodies, thereby contributing something to his vitality and happiness…..
There is a tremendous difference in the astral world if one voices a thought that is true or a thought that is untrue. A thought is related to a thing and is true if it coincides with that thing. Every event that happens causes an effect in the higher worlds. If someone relates this event truly, an astral form rays out from the teller, unites with the form emanating from the event itself, and both are strengthened. These strengthened forms help to make our spiritual world richer and more full of content – which is necessary if humanity is to make progress. But if the event is related untruthfully, in a way that does not coincide with the facts, then the thought-form of the teller comes up against the though-form that has proceeded from the event; the two thought-forms collide, causing mutual destruction. These destructive “explosions” caused by lies work on the body like a tumour which destroys the organism. Thus do lies kill the astral forms which have arisen and must arise, and in this way they obstruct or paralyze a part of evolution. Everyone who tells the truth actually promotes the evolution of humanity and everyone who lies, obstructs it. Therefore there is this occult law: Seen with eyes of the Spirit, a lie is murder. Not only does it kill an astral form, but it is also self-murder.”
Sharon: Well, well, well, I love that bit of moralizing from dear Mr. Steiner. Makes me feel *good* to read that I’m helping to promote the evolution of humanity by telling the truth about Waldorf education! The important bit is Steiner’s use of the word “thought-form” in the context of the astral world.
If any of you are curious as to what Leadbeater’s “thought-forms” look like, look at the site posted below, and you will see astral forms that resemble some of Leadbeater’s paintings, (look at the blobs and swirls).
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 22:09:42 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Sharon here with more on Steiner’s color ideas. If you are interested in the Waldorf wet-on-wet color exercises you shouldn’t miss this post because it is an important clue to the mystery. Steiner repetitively dictates that color must be inwardly shining, and that liquid paint should be used to create this in the right way.
In “Colour”, by Rudolf Steiner p 49, Steiner says that a painting of a wall will not be a wall, only the image of one, unless the color is made luminous inwardly. He says: “We must make the colours shine inwardly; they will then, in a certain sense, become mineralized. For this reason it would be good to give up painting from the palette, which leads merely to smearing colouring matter onto a surface and makes it impossible to evoke the inwardly shining quality in the right way. We should try to paint increasingly from pots of liquid paint with colour that is liquid and has a flowing, shining quality. Generally speaking, the introduction of the palette has brought an inartistic element into painting. The palette has brought a materialistic form of painting, a failure to understand the true nature of colour – for colour is never really absorbed by any material body but lives within it and emanates from it. Therefore, when I put my colours on to a surface I must make them shine inwardly”.
Here’s another quote from Steiner insisting that liquid paint be used. (In the quote he lets slip the fact that Waldorf color exercises are not artistic painting when he says, “That is wrong even in artistic painting.”)
“Painting with Children”, by Brunhild Muller, Floris Books, Edinburgh. Second reprint 1994.
p 26: “Rudolf Steiner gave special indications about the use of water-colours:
We should be specially careful not to let the children use paints straight out of a paintbox. That is wrong even in artistic painting. One should paint out of the dish where the paint has already been mixed with water or other fluid. You must develop an inward intimate relationship to the colour – and so must the child- and you do not have such an intimate relationship to the colour when you paint from the palette, but you develop this when you paint with the colour dissolved in the dish.”
Sharon: Now why on earth must you develop an inward relationship to the color? Why must color be mixed with water? Read on and it will start to become clearer!
In steiner’s evolution of the world, (before the fall when the spirit “fell into matter” /bodies, and Steiner’s sub race theory began), there were 4 stages. The first stage was one where Beings of the First Hierarchy existed. They were Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. To cut a long story short, let’s just say they were Beings of warmth, Fire.
Then came the Second Hierarchy and its Beings took form in light. These light Beings worked together with the fire Beings to create air.
(Read Steiner’s book, “Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation, Mystery Centres of the Middle Ages”, Rudolf Steiner Press London, second edition 1965, for details!)
Sharon: So you have Beings of fire in the beginning, then Beings of light which create air, next comes the Third Hierarchy of Archai, Archangels and Angels . This is VERY IMPORTANT for understanding Waldorf wet-on-wets.
Archai, Archangels, Angels bring…….you guessed it!!! COLOR! These color Beings create WATER (*and Beings that resemble Archai, Archangels and Angels live in water*). I will post a delightful passage from Steiner about Rainbows next time which you critics will just love! We will talk more about all of this coming up.
So remember that Archai, Archangels and Angels are BEINGS of color and make water. Also remember that Steiner dictates that only liquid paint should be used in order to make the color shine inwardly and he insists that children and adults must have an intimate relationship with color.
PS:(You don’t need to know this now, but in case you are wondering….The Fourth Hierarchy is man before he fell into matter and the EARTH stage of existence). Stay tuned for the Rainbow post and a bit about Albertus Magnus. I can’t wait!!!!
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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From: soma<soma@mwt.net>
Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 09:06:11 -0800
To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
Subject: Re: Talismans</soma@mwt.net>
Hello everyone, here’s the post I promised on “rainbows” from Steiner. Remember my last post? I pointed out Steiner’s 4 Hierarchies. Here is a quick summery straight from Steiner:
” Sun-born Man on Earth would have been in very truth the Fourth Hierarchy. If one were wanting to place Man, one would have had to say: First Hierarchy: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Second Hierarchy: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; Third Hierarchy: Angels, Archangels, Archai; Fourth Hierarchy: Man – three different stages or gradations of the human, forming together the Fourth Hierarchy.” (p 53).
Keep in mind that the Angels, Archangels and Archai are color, and that they made water when they came. If you go to the bottom of this post, you can click on a site which will show you a series of color wet-on-wet images that my daughter made at her ex Waldorf school. (Click on the first batch of Talismans, number 1-4). In this group you will see the rainbow, the sun, the star and sun and moon. Remember that “imagination” is a veiled word meaning “spiritual sight”. Enjoy.
Steiner: “In the colours everything is alive. The colours are a world in themselves, and the soul element in the world of colour simply cannot exist without movement; we ourselves, if we follow the colours with soul-experience, must follow with movement.
People gaze open-eyed at the rainbow. But if you look at the rainbow with a little imagination, you may see there elemental beings. These elemental beings are full of activity, and they demonstrate their activity in a most remarkable manner.”
Sharon: There is an illustration of a section of a rainbow, it lists the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Then there is another picture (circle) showing fear as closest to red, and courage closest to violet.
Steiner: “Here (at yellow) you see some of them streaming forth from the rainbow, continually coming out of it. They move across, and the moment they reach the lower end of the green they feel drawn to it. You see them disappear at this point (green). On the other side they come out again. To one who views it with imagination, the whole rainbow is a revelation of the spiritual – of the streaming out, and disappearing again within, of the spiritual. It is in fact like a spiritual cylinder, wonderful to behold. And you may observe too how these spiritual beings come forth from the rainbow with extreme fear, and then how they go in with an absolutely invincible courage. When you look at red-yellow, you see fear streaming out, and when you look at the blue-violet you have the feeling: there all is courage and bravery of heart.
Picture it to yourself: What I see before me is not just a rainbow! Here beings are coming out of it…there beings are disappearing into it. Here is anxiety and fear…there is courage…And now the courage disappears again. That is the way to look at the rainbow! But now, imagine it is there before you in all its colours: red, yellow, and so forth…and it receives a certain density! You can easily imagine how this will give rise to the element of water. And in this watery element spiritual beings live, beings that are actually a kind of copy of the Beings of the Third Hierarchy”. (P 13-15).
Sharon: Digest that, and I’ll continue from here next time. Steiner mentions the old occultist, Albertus Magnus who I will introduce to those of you who have never heard of him. Boy! I have so much to tell you re. the subject of Waldorf color wet-on-wets, so be prepared for many more posts on Talismans. All the quotes above come from “Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation, Mystery Centres of the Middle Ages”, Rudolf Steiner. Lectures from Jan. 1924. Rudolf Steiner Press. London
Talismans can be viewed [here].
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