From Eclipse to Apocalypse

Part Three

Dear Friends,

Here you will hopefully find more grist for the mill, so to speak.

For parts one and two, see here.

More to come soon.

Peace to you all,

Joel

III. The Past: The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 and the Great Conjunction of 2020

The Age of Eclipse began, as noted above, with a total solar eclipse visible across all of the contiguous United States, moving from the west to the east coast on August 21, 2017. This had not occurred since 1918; and the eclipse itself was 100 years since 1917. The years 1917-18 were centered on World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. In one form or another, these three calamities found themselves reborn throughout the nearly seven years of the Age of Eclipse: the nationalistic perils of World War I have found themselves renewed in the proxy war that NATO and Russia have fought in Ukraine; Bolshevism has morphed into an elitist cultural monster in the form of mass censorship, cancel culture, and woke ideology; and the Spanish Flu returned from the grave as a kind of zombie in the form of Covid-19. In terms of the latter, we can imagine this not so much in terms of the disease itself, but in terms of the incredibly irresponsible, sociopathic responses to it on the part of so-called leaders and experts.

But there were other events happening in 2017 that were of greater significance in the realm of depth, i.e. esoterically rather than exoterically. Primary amongst these was the 100-year anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima. Amongst the many Marian apparitions that have occurred over the years, perhaps those that continue to have the most relevance to contemporary humanity’s spiritual struggle are the appearances of Our Lady to three peasant children in Portugal over one hundred years ago. Towards the end of World War I, she appeared to them six times between May 13 and October 13, 1917. Notably, these apparitions took place precisely between the February and October Revolutions that led to the Bolshevik takeover of the Russian Empire, which led five years later to the formation of the USSR.

In Our Lady’s third appearance to the children of Fátima, she implored the Holy See to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. In her instructions, she indicated that if this were to be done, Russia would be converted, leading to an era of world peace.

Amongst those who have faith in the visionary experiences of Fátima, there is not a consensus as to whether or not the request of Our Lady has been properly fulfilled. From the point of view of the Holy See, when Pope John Paul II consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart on March 25, 1984, he inwardly directed this consecration to Russia specifically. Others point even earlier, to the papal bull “Sacro Vergente”, written by Pope Pius XII on July 7, 1952 to the people of Russia, in which he consecrated them specifically to Her Immaculate Heart. The evidence that these were effective consecrations is witnessed in the fall of the USSR in 1991, and the re-emergence of Russia as a Christian nation in the years since then (albeit Russian Orthodox and not Roman Catholic).

There are some (such as Fathers Malachi Martin and Nicholas Gruner, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò) who argue that the consecration was never done in the way that Our Lady specified. They argue that the consecration needs to be given specifically to the Russian nation, and that all bishops must be involved in this consecration along with the Pope. They see the work of the conversion of Russia in order to inaugurate a time of world peace as not yet fulfilled.

How can we understand this from an anthroposophical and Christian Hermetic point of view? From anthroposophy, we understand that in years to come, Russia and the Slavic nations will be the center of a truly Christian and Sophianic world culture. The seeds of this culture can and must be planted in our time, but they will take over 2,000 years to come to fruition: the Russian epoch is not destined to flourish until the year 3574, according to the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner.

Perhaps we can understand the consecration of Russia to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart not as a one-time event that must be done exactly right, leading to an immediate period of world peace. From a Goethean and Hermetic perspective, we can understand this as a process of development and growth: a gradual nurturing of Russia to take up her spiritual mission. Perhaps each time Russia is consecrated to Mary—regardless whether this consecration is done “correctly” or not—catalyzes the next stage on the path of her spiritual evolution.

For example, the years after Pope Pius XII’s consecration of the people of Russia saw the death of Stalin and the leadership of Nikita Krushchev, who “de-Stalinized” Russia and aimed to decrease Cold War tensions with John F. Kennedy. And in the years after Pope John Paul II’s consecration of the whole world (specifically Russia), the world witnessed the fall of communism in the Pope’s home country of Poland, as well as fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989.

In Valentin Tomberg’s Lazarus: The Miracle of Resurrection in World History, he presents a unique picture of the Pope’s role in the Church as the mouthpiece of Peter. Regardless as to whether the human being who has become the Pope is a “good person” or not—in other words, regardless of the relative “fitness” of the vessel (we can think for example of Pope Alexander VI)—from the Tombergian perspective there are times when the Pope can do nothing other than be the vessel through which the eternal spirit of Peter speaks on behalf of Christ “above” and the whole of Christianity “below.” Hypothetically, even if we were to have an “evil Pope” in the Holy See, he would be at times “possessed by the Good”—overwhelmed by the moral force of St. Peter, and compelled to speak the Truth.

From this perspective, we can understand that 1) Russia is in a gradual process of becoming the cultural center of Christianity; 2) the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is integral to this process; and 3) over time, the eternal spirit of Peter is able to “speak through” various Popes in order to bring these consecrations about. It is Peter, from Rome, who accomplishes the gradual union of Mary-Sophia with Russia.

And now in this Age of Eclipse, when the messages of Our Lady of Fátima are being emphasized by the stellar configurations, a third consecration has occurred. On March 25, 2022, Pope Francis consecrated both Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was requested of him by Ukrainian Catholic bishops on Ash Wednesday, just over a week after the sudden escalation of the Russo-Ukraine conflict that began eight years previously. He did so on the Feast of the Annunciation, one of the principle Marian Feasts of the Christian year. Just as Gabriel brought to Mary the holy tidings that would lead to the birth of Jesus in nine months time, we can hold in our hearts a hope and expectation that at some point soon, the world can experience a new level of peace born of this consecration, just as it did in the 1950’s and 1980’s. Beyond this, we can hold the picture that this consecration is not simply for the sake of relieving and resolving the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia; its deeper significance lies in the fact that this is one more step in the path to Russia’s spiritual destination.

As noted in the prior sections, the eclipse of August 21, 2017 occurred in alignment with the Sun’s position at Christ’s raising of Lazarus (i.e., John the Apocalyptist) from the dead. But in the Catholic tradition, August 21 is important for an additional reasion: it is the feast day of Our Lady of Knock. On August 21, 1879, the Virgin Mary, along with John the Apocalyptist, St. Joseph, and Christ in the form of the Lamb from the Book of Revelation appeared to villagers from Knock, Ireland. Some believers understand this vision to indicate the opening of the seven seals of the Book of Revelation, and the start of a time of trial for the Church and the world (see for example here).

It is noteworthy that this vision occurred in 1879; according to Rudolf Steiner’s occult research, this is both the start of the Age of Michael, as well as the end of the War in Heaven described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation, at which point Ahriman was cast down from the spiritual to the earthly realm, working within the human psyche very powerfully since then. And so the intuition of the Catholic faithful is in alignment with the results of spiritual scientific research. The years 1917 and 1879 will continue to appear as two of the strongest “memories” called up by the alignments of the Age of Eclipse. We will also see the alignments of this time repeatedly directing us back to our spiritual guides: the Virgin Mary; John the Apocalyptist; St. Michael; Zarathustra; and most of all, Christ.

One final star memory of August 21, 2017: while the children in Portugal were experiencing their fourth apparition of Our Lady of Fátima, Rudolf Steiner was delivering a series of lectures on the Karma of Materialism (CW 176), a prelude to his lectures on The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness (CW 178), a series to which we will return later in this article.

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Three years and four months after this eclipse, there occurred the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Capricorn on December 21, 2020. We have considered this Great Conjunction to some degree already in the first part of this article, emphasizing its position (along with the South American eclipse of December 14, 2020) occupying the mid-point of the Age of Eclipse (2017-2024)—the center of the vortex, the eye of the storm.

These two stellar events took place almost exactly 100 years after Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on Universal Spirituality and Human Physicality (CW 202). Over the course of these lectures, Rudolf Steiner builds a clear conceptual bridge between the physical and spiritual aspects of the world and humanity. He emphasizes that theoretical ideas destroy this connection, while it is only moral ideas that can build up both the human being and nature. These lectures culminate in Steiner’s Christmas lectures on “The New Isis and the Search for the Divine Sophia,” in which he describes the transformed role of “Kings” and “Shepherds” in our time.

The shepherds that visited the nativity of the Nathan Jesus represented a stream that had revelatory experiences of the spiritual hierarchies in a direct, childlike way—out of heart forces. In contrast, the magi who visited the Solomon Jesus had developed a clairvoyant understanding of the science of the stars in conjunction with a rigorous development of their thinking. Rudolf Steiner proposes that what is needed in our time is a transformation of each stream. The shepherd stream must develop a relationship to nature akin to the magi, but directed to the earthly rather than cosmic realms. They must cultivate a clairvoyance for elemental forces and beings, nature spirits. On the other hand, the kingly stream must look inwardly rather than outwardly, coming to a clear perception of cosmic and planetary evolution through reading the akashic record. These are the paths to the Divine Sophia in our time.

We can also keep in mind two feasts from December. The Feast of Santa Lucia takes place on December 13 every year. At the time when this feast was inaugurated in the 14th century, due to the use of the Julian calendar, December 13 was the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. Similarly, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is on December 12. The visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe took place between December 9-13 in 1531, which would be the equivalent in the Gregorian calendar to December 19-23. And so both of these festivals honoring the Divine Feminine are related to this time period during the third and fourth weeks of Advent, a time when both the eclipse and Great Conjunction occurred in 2020. They are especially related in terms of the rebirth of the light of Wisdom (Sophia) in the midst of the deepest darkness.