Neptune in 2025
Part Three
(For Part One of this article, see here; for Part Two, see here)
Neptune in 2025
Part Three
Neptune has made one complete circuit around the zodiac since the day of Rudolf Steiner’s birth on 25/Feb/1861. As Neptune now commemorates that day, it simultaneously brings to consciousness the fact that 100 years have passed since his death in 1925. (The century is an important rhythm, because within it pass three periods of 33.3 years—the rhythm of the Etheric Christ.)
Having observed various threads woven by the historic pattern of the Saturn-Neptune alliance that will be recurring in 2025, we turn now to Neptune’s conjunction with the North Node of the Moon. The path of the Moon’s orbit is oblique to the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth. Their paths cross paths in two places: the North and South Nodes. The North Node defines the zodiacal degree at which the Moon rises above the ecliptic, while the South Node—always zodiacally opposite the North—designates the point at which it moves below the ecliptic. Although New Moons and Full Moons can occur anywhere in the zodiac, eclipses happen only when they align with the Nodes. This fact alone hints at their importance.
(Linked by what is referred to as the ‘nodal axis’, both Nodes move backward through the zodiac, spending 18+ days in each zodiacal degree, and 18+ months in each sign. The nodal axis circles the zodiac in 18+ years.)
To summarize my personal stance on the Nodes, I believe that the South Node corresponds to Moon karma (originating in the past), the North Node to Sun karma (deeds on behalf of the future). The South Node can hold us back, whereas the North Node endeavors to draw us forward. Inextricably linked, the Nodes create a narrow doorway through which the thread between past and future karma can be known.
This reasoning also applies to the collective. The North Node acts as a spirit guide to humanity. It constitutes one translucent layer in the ‘veil painting’ of the cosmos—the layer closest to the Earth. The color and intensity of this veil is determined by its zodiacal sign and the mood of any planets with which it is aligned. Wreathed in mist, Neptune’s effect upon this veil is a spiritualizing one. (A debased expression of this impulse is an attachment to delusions as a means of escaping earthly concerns, with or without oblivion-enhancing substances.)
Allowing for a 5° orb (tolerated distance between the planets), the Neptune-Node conjunction will end in early May, and will not to return in Pisces until 2192. We can add to this sense of urgency by recalling that Saturn and the vernal point are also right there. I don’t know when, if ever, this triple conjunction (at the vernal point) will repeat itself in Pisces, the sign of Christ. Certainly not before the year 25,000!
Ergo—we have in this astonishing cosmic assembly an open door to the spiritual realm (North Node) through which the combined might of the Piscean-Christian impulse (vernal point), the World Mother (Neptune), and Mary-Sophia (Saturn) might stream.
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What can be said about the Age of Pisces? Steiner aligned it with the development of the consciousness soul in human beings—for this is the aspect of soul that must bring to consciousness the hidden forces of the will. In doing so, we, like Adam and Eve, come to distinguish good from evil. Implicit in this awareness at the present time, however, is the necessity to take a stand on one side or the other. Are we with Christ, or against him? Perhaps it really is as simple as that.
In “The Hanged Man,” the letter-Arcanum of Pisces within Meditations on the Tarot, we find a curious image of a man suspended by one foot, arms behind his back. He appears relaxed. Tomberg wrote:
The other characteristic trait of the spiritual man is that he is upside down. This means to say, firstly, that the ‘solid ground’ under his feet is found above, whilst the ground below is only the concern and perception of the head. Secondly, it means to say that his will is connected with heaven and found in immediate contact (not by the intermediary of thought and feeling) with the spiritual world. This is in such a way that his will ‘knows’ things that the head—his thinking—still does not know, and so that it is the future, the celestial designs for the future, which work in and through his will rather than experience and memory of the past. He is therefore literally the ‘man of the future’. [MOT, p. 316]
One such man was the desert father, Abraham, who:
left his country of birth and went—in crossing the desert—into a strange country where, centuries later, a people descended from him were to find its native land and where, several centuries later on, the work of mankind’s salvation was to take place. Did he know all this? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that he acted as if he knew . . . [and no], in the sense that he did not have in his thoughts and imagination a plan or clear program concerning how, when, and through what stages, precisely, these things would be realized. [Ibid., p. 317]
The ’spiritual man’ is one whose will-forces take their ‘marching orders’ from the spiritual world. He doesn’t weigh these orders against personal concerns such as comfort, convenience, recognition, etc. He does what he must on behalf of the “celestial designs for the future.”
Humanity is now on the bridge between two worlds that we find in the Pisces sigil: between heaven and Earth, walking from the intellectually oriented past (Aries) to the uncharted future (Aquarius). Above us, heaven; below, the ever-increasing gravitational pull of materialism.
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Earlier, we learned that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction last occurred in Pisces in 1703. Remarkably—despite the relative frequency of the Node’s conjunctions to Neptune in comparison to Saturn’s—the last Node-Neptune conjunction before the stars of the Fishes occurred in 1540! Reaching even further back in time, we encounter (since the Mystery of Golgotha) seven other Node-Neptune conjunctions in Pisces. (These occurred in 1373, 1206, 1039, 872, 387, 220, and 53 AD.) The last of these (or, I might say, the first) also marks the last triple conjunction of Node-Saturn-Neptune in Pisces.
I believe that the tale told by these conjunctions is one of Christianity, as many of these dates coincide with events or individuals who have changed the course of the Christian faith. In this light, the celestial configuration of 2025 augurs a further stage in the development of Christianity.
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When I embarked on my astrological research for this essay, I had the requisite open mind—but absolutely no inkling of the astonishing sequence of events that were connected by these conjunctions. My hope is that these events, in the depiction that follows, will be received in the same spirit in which I became aware of them.
We’ll begin by imagining ourselves in the Holy Land, just twenty years after the death of Jesus Christ. . . .
53 AD: Early Apostleship
Although the persecution of Jesus Christ by Romans and Jews alike ended at the crucifixion, the persecution found a new field of activity in the followers of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, took up this cause with enthusiasm, even seeking out Christians beyond Jerusalem. Tomberg offers a theological explanation for Saul’s ardor:
[Saul] denied the reality of the concrete incarnation into a human being of the Cosmic Christ. The hatred that filled him when he was persecuting the sect of Nazarenes sprang from the feeling: The Spirit-Light of the World radiates into the souls of all people throughout the history of the world. . . . Directing attention toward a human idol, a false idol, is a deflection from the right human striving after knowledge of the Cosmic Sun Spirit—deceit and poison are the only significance of this sect for humankind. [Russian Spirituality, p. 135]
The effect of Saul’s direct experience of Christ at the gates of Damascus—which might have happened as early as 33 AD, or as late as 40 AD—is described by Tomberg in this way:
Such views were active in the soul of Saul as he travelled to Damascus ‘breathing hatred and brooding murder’. . . . There he saw the Light of the World (whose greatness was such as to make him blind and dumb for three days) in the concrete figure of the Resurrected One. Then he could recognize: The Light of the World has become human. Now human beings can unite themselves with God, since God was able to unite Himself with a human being. Thus he became Paul, the proclaimer of the fact that this is so. [Ibid.]
Christ appeared to Saul clothed in an etheric garment. Steiner wrote:
A second coming of Christ in a physical body would have meant that no progress had been made since His first coming, that this had failed to bring about the development of higher powers in man. For, the result of the Christ-Event is the development in man of these higher powers—and with these new powers, Christ can be seen in the spiritual world whence His powers come. [CW123]
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul immediately set about spreading the gospel to Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean. It's certain that Paul’s early letters preceded the gospels—and possible that his final epistles did so as well. When his letters were written, Paul knew nothing of the gospels. His understanding of Jesus derived from two sources: his mystical experiences and from the Apostles who had known Jesus.
In many of Paul’s letters (e.g., Galatians), Paul addresses the question of Gentiles’ adherence to Mosaic law (e.g., circumcision). For example, he advanced the idea of faith over law in the realm of religious devotion. And although some of these details in Galatians might now seem somewhat archaic, Paul’s moral stance on this matter allowed Christianity to expand beyond Palestine—to the far reaches of the ancient world. (Antioch, capital of Roman Syria and one of Paul’s missionary destinations, became the first Christian city.)
Many believe that the gospel writers relied upon Paul’s letters. At the very least, we can take to heart the knowledge that Paul prepared the way for the gospels.
220: The Prophet Mani
Raised in Babylon by a family with Judeo-Christian roots, Mani was born in 216. At the age of 12, he had a visionary experience that recurred 12 years later. (In an earlier incarnation, as the youth of Nain, he was raised from the dead by Jesus when he was 12.) What he beheld in these visions was a ‘heavenly twin’ that asked that he leave the religion of his youth in order to preach the message of Jesus in a new way.
He envisioned for Christianity a much broader reach, so that it could serve all of humanity. Mani studied Hinduism and Buddhism in India, and ultimately preached a blend of Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism that spread as far as China and the Roman Empire. Known as Manichaeism, this religion describes the transformation of evil through compassion and love. Its adherents were widely persecuted, and Mani’s execution in Gondishapur was experienced by his followers as a crucifixion akin to that of Jesus Christ.
387: St. Augustine
Is there a miserable sinner among us who has not found comfort in the path of St. Augustine? A brilliant student of rhetoric and philosophy, young Augustine simultaneously embraced a hedonistic lifestyle. “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet,” quoth this self-described hedonist—thus revealing simultaneously his awareness of wrongdoing and his lack of self-mastery. Augustine’s conversion and baptism occurred in 386, when he was 31 years of age. His Confessions appeared in 397.
Not all saints are held in such reverence by Protestants. Augustine’s emphasis on salvation and grace were seminal themes in the Reformation.
Augustine’s repentance is all the more poignant in light of his earlier incarnation as Judas Iscariot. From the perspective of world evolution, we know that it was the destiny of Judas to bestow upon Jesus the kiss that initiated the Mystery of Golgotha. In The City of God, Augustine described those (like himself) who turned away from sensual pleasures, in favor of devotion to God. The City of God proclaimed the Christian faith as the path to eternal Truth.
1039: East-West Schism of the Church
After a number of theological disputes, the Eastern Orthodox Church split from Rome in 1054. The most controversial of these was the addition, in the West, to the Nicene Creed—which indicated that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. (The original Creed of 325 designated the Father alone as the source of the Holy Spirit.) Another such disagreement involved the West’s assertion of the supremacy and infallibility of the pope. We find yet another in the antimony between reason and faith, in that reason figured more prominently in the spiritual life of the Roman Catholic Church than it did in the Orthodox. Many centuries later, Pope John Paul II described reason and faith as “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”
1206: St. Francis returns to Assisi to ‘repair’ the Church
Beloved St. Francis was born into a family of wealth. Before his birth, his mother was told by a pilgrim that her child must be born in a stable on a bed of straw. And so he was! Franics grew into an exuberant lad who, stirred by the feuds between towns that characterized Italy in the Middle Ages, sought out a knightly path. But something else was living in the soul of Francis. He began to receive spiritual messages that led him to question his warlike path. In 1205, as Francis kneeled before the cross at San Damiano, the abandoned church near Assisi, Christ spoke to him: "Francis, Francis, go and repair My Church which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Steiner remarked:
The young knight who in his boldest dreams had only longed to become a hero in battle, was reforged, as it were, into a man who was now utterly dedicated to spreading the moral impulses of mercy, compassion, and love. [The Spiritual Foundations of Morality, pp. 18–19]
Francis then realized—as had St. Hildegard, who had died a few years before Francis’s birth—that the external institution of the church was an unfit receptacle for the real Christianity.
When Francis took Poverty as his bride, he renewed a primary Christian ideal that stood in deep contrast to the upper echelons of the Catholic Church.
1373: The Western Schism (1378 – 1417)
Between 1309 and 1377, under pressure from the king of France, the papacy resided in Avignon. For Rome, this was a trying time that has been referred to as their ‘Babylonian captivity’. In 1377, Gregory XI—the last pope of Avignon—returned to Rome. Not long after his arrival, however, he reversed his decision and prepared to retake his seat in France. But fate intervened when his untimely death in the Vatican left the papacy where it was. Rome was determined to keep it there. (I know what you’re thinking.)
Perhaps it’s not farfetched to suppose that the motives of the warring factions were the same: power and wealth. After the death of Gregory XI, there were two popes (one in Rome and one in Avignon) who were even joined by a third (a Pisan) for a time. The untenability of the situation was evident.
In 1414, with the support of Rome, John XIII (the Pisan pope) convened the Council of Constance, which gave itself authority to remove the surplus popes. One resigned, two were excommunicated, and Martin V was subsequently elected as the legitimate pope of Catholic Europe. Power was thus consolidated at the Vatican.
1540: The Reformation
Before the publication of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517—the historical beginning of the Reformation—the movement existed as a ‘mood’ that had begun to settle over most of Western Europe. (It must be noted that this pre-Reformation mood was also permeated by the Renaissance, the humanist movement that drew Europe out of the Middle Ages. Although only two centuries separated the work of Giotto and, say, Raphael, their work seems to have come from different worlds. The great works of the Renaissance are so moving because, for the first time, the subjects were given truly human features.)
The supremacy of the Church before the Reformation lay partly in their exclusive access to the gospels. Few outside the Church knew Latin, and copies of the gospels were scarce; thus the gospels were, in a sense, ‘captive’ within the Church. Perhaps the laity’s relationship to the Church in pre-Reformation Europe was similar to that of the ancient Jews to the priests who guarded the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. There can be little doubt that the ancient and less ancient priests stood in reverent awe of what they were protecting; however, the effect in both cases was to maintain a ‘veil’ between the priesthood and the people.
Initially, the Catholic Church embraced the movable-type printing press created by Gutenberg in 1450. (His innovation to earlier prototypes was the use of metal printing blocks, for which he devised a special ink.) The Church was thus able to mass produce decrees and other approved texts. It must have been a heady time for them. Indeed, God himself might have sent the Catholic Church the printing press! But the horse was about the leave the barn. . . .
Luther, a theology professor, printed his Ninety-five Theses in 1517, in which he advanced several objections to the Roman Catholic Church. He preached salvation through divine grace, and favored inner repentance over sacramental confession. He valued faith in Jesus Christ over ‘good works’ done in the absence of this faith. He challenged obedience to the papacy as a precondition for salvation. Underestimating the far-reaching consequences of the printing press, Luther was excommunicated in 1521.
The following year, as Luther published a German translation of the New Testament—one that ordinary people could read—the temple veil was torn anew. (The Old Testament followed in 1534.) The Reformation—fueled by the printing press—swept most of Western Europe. (Two examples: Calvin broke from the Catholic Church in 1530, King Henry VIII in 1534.) In a sense, the movement returned Christ to the people.
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2025:
For nearly 2000 years, the stars have been preparing us for a rebirth of our relationship to Christ. Against the background of the stars of Pisces, seven rare conjunctions between the North Node and Neptune have occurred, proclaiming seven distinct moments in the evolution of Christianity.
From 53 AD (the year of the last Node-Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Pisces): Paul proclaims that in our time, direct experience of the Etheric Christ can be had by all.
From 220 AD: Mani proclaims that love will always conquer evil.
From 387 AD: Augustine proclaims that our loving and merciful God forgives the repentant.
From 1206: Francis proclaims the blessedness of union with Christ.
From 1039 and 1373: the Schisms celebrate the efforts of the human spirit to draw closer to God.
And from 1540 (the year of the last Node-Neptune conjunction in Pisces): the Reformation proclaims that our faith in Jesus Christ might find rejuvenation outside of its institutional confines.
Returning to the question posed in Part One: How can we breathe new life into Steiner’s teachings? I believe the answer lies in placing the presence of the Etheric Christ, around and within the Earth, into the foreground of our efforts. Like the Reformation before it, the Etheric Christ offers a ‘new translation’ of the gospels—one that bears within it the memories of the entire life of Jesus.
It fell to Steiner to proclaim the appearance of Christ in the etheric realm—a presence that would begin in the early 20th century, and will disappear by the end of the Aquarian Age.
When Christ indwelled a human body for three and a half years, his work transpired within a small geographic area. A relative few were able to know him and to receive his blessings. Now—and for a few millennia hence—communion with the Etheric Christ has become a possibility for the whole of humanity. Everyone can know him.
In The Christ Mystery, Powell gave examples of four ‘levels’ of communion with Christ. These levels correspond to the four aspects of the human being: physical, etheric, astral, and ‘I’ (or Self). Amazingly, our timeline hits on all four.
Communion with Christ’s Self is exemplified by St. Paul:
This is summarized in the words of St. Paul, “Not I, but Christ in me.” This mode of communion is characterized by the fire of Christ’s Love burning in the human being as a heightened power of spirit and an intensified awareness of the self and the world. [p. 23]
Communion with Christ’s astral body is exemplified by St. Francis of Assisi:
When, through the activity of the Christianized human self upon the astral body, the latter becomes purified and transformed, the ennobled astral body becomes capable of entering into communion with Christ’s astral body. . . . This communion is characterized by mildness, gentleness, purity, and loving-kindness. [pp. 24 – 25]
Communion with the etheric body of Christ is exemplified by St. Augustine:
On the path of spiritual development, it is possible not only for the astral body but also for the etheric body to become purified and transformed. This transformed etheric body then becomes capable of entering into communion with Christ’s etheric body. . . . This level of communion is characterized by a wonderfully harmonious and flowing quality of life, and by inner strength and creativity. [p. 24]
Communion with the physical body of Christ is exemplified by the apostles:
At a further stage of spiritual development, the physical body itself undergoes a transformation, and here the possibility is opened up for the human being to enter into communion with Christ’s (resurrection) physical body. It was this level of communion that the apostles experienced periodically during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, which filled them to the depths of their being and bestowed upon them new spiritual powers. [Ibid.]
It is my hope that all churches of great beauty will forever remain testaments to the depth of humanity’s faith in God. And yet, is it not time, now, to construct altars within our own souls—altars that can withstand fires, earthquakes, failure, divorce, incompetence, cruelty, and institutional corruption?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
~ Julie H.