Holy Night 9 applied to September

January 1-2 – Virgo

Now come the three nights of the crown.

Release from the only intellectual, or release of the intellect from its earthly bonds and purposefulness. This is the thrice-holy night, in which the lower ego falls away and only the desire to serve, to devote oneself remains.

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for the Holy Nights given to Herbert Hahn
Translation from German by Laura Zanutto 2015 and Mark Willan 2016

9. Heilige Nacht

1./2.  – Jungfrau

Nun folgen die drei Nächte der Krone.

Loslösung vom Nur-Intellekt oder die Loslösung des Intellektes von der irdischen Gebundenheit und Zweckhaftigkeit. Es ist die dreimal heilige Nacht, in der das niedere Ich abfällt und nur der Wunsch bleibt, zu dienen, sich hinzugeben.

Ninth Contemplation by Kristina Kaine

The intellect is a prized possession today, we wear it like a crown. It is the cause of much discrimination. Those with University degrees look down on those who have not undertaken such study. There is arrogance and pride in the desire to comprehend with the intellect. In this way intellectualism creates social separation so that now people are unsocial in the depths of their soul.

When the emphasis is placed on the intellect it actually creates a void within us. We are trapped in the depths of our soul which isolates us from our spirit. These intellectual concepts are dead and lead us into the clutches of Ahriman.

Rudolf Steiner says, “Intellect is about cleverness, on its own it leads neither to wisdom nor real knowledge.” Karmic Relationships Vol 1

This comes from the realm of the created self in the physical world. Now we are called to reach out to the spiritual aspects of ideas, through our own effort, “not the assimilation of a theory but the development of something absolutely real, an impulse that will fill the otherwise empty recesses of the soul with spiritual substance.” Rudolf Steiner, “Man and Nature: Intellect in Man and Nature Bereft of the Gods.”

We now have the ability to move beyond intellect, it has served its purpose. When we connect with our Higher Self and begin to develop our spiritual faculties of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, we free our thinking processes from our body and learn to think purely, which means to be able to use pure thinking not secondhand thoughts. These thoughts are sense free, free of the material world. Many people already do this but they are not fully aware of it. We can experience it like an intuition, as if we have been given some information, but in reality it is our own information deduced from our own understanding. We could call it a knowingness but it is not psychic or clairvoyant. We reach conclusions through our spiritual faculties based on what we already know. We could say that we have joined the dots differently. Many scientists are now doing this and they find flaws in their old way of thinking.

Now more than ever before we must take these matters seriously. We are called to serve evolution. Each time we reach an inner understanding of a spiritual truth we create a spark in the Universe. As we have already considered, evolution depends on us.

Evocation by Odilon Redon

The Holy Nights contemplations written between 2011 and 2016 are available on Amazon