#287 - Writing exercise: The Tenth Hierarchy

I get my best ideas when running - so I should run right? Yes. I was thinking the other day that the I would love to write a book for children aged 12 and above which have historical figures who have gone on to change the world in their own way. I think that should be one book. Another book should be Atlantis again. Yes. here we go again. After a few false starts, Atlantis again. And see where it takes me. 

The routine of the day should return to what had planned for it to be. It has been three weeks since I walked out of the classroom. I feel a bit more steady. A bit more held together.

I have recovered from the shock.

OK. Writing. 

Atlantis.

What keeps coming back to me is the moment before Atlantis goes under. The chaos which takes place as the people leave there. I want to reread what Steiner says about Atlantis. That is research I will be inspired by. The remnants of Atlantis are this place. Ireland. Those are the two things I know.

Another thread. Birth. The expulsion. The antipathy. The need to go forth.

Do the Da Dannan come from Atlantis? Are they the ones who make it here and then go on to disappear into the land after the new age of man - the Milesians - arrive? Their time is over? The natives who were here before - despite their own defenses couldn't cope? So many questions to which I'd love to write answer to.

Another thread - the evolution of the human being. Our fragile and imperfect egos borne by this mortal vessel.

Another thread - the help of angelic beings. Beings which are assisting us where possible.

Another thread - the becoming of the tenth hierarchy. This is us isn't it? This is who we are. This is the story - the Tenth Hierarchy. Becoming the Tenth Hierarchy.

Let us start there. No matter how weird and awkward and stilted and rubbish. The Tenth Hierarchy.

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I recall the first time I heard about it. It was as if everything I knew came down to these two words - the Tenth Hierarchy. It was as if everything I had been working up to now came down to this purpose. It was one of the Christmas lectures. Every year, after a Christmas mass, we would have a lecture. I don't know where Ben finds the time to prepare these things. I don't think he actually sleeps. Between gardening and bee keeping, looking after us and others, tending to the house, being grandad, etc etc, he also finds time to write these thought provoking lectures. Every year he takes out the same slides of the nativity and we admire them again. The slide projector has a breath and warmth and clicks and buzzes... and there is something quite comforting about the lightbulb and heat it generates which reminds me of my own childhood and lecture theatres in Singapore. Sometimes the slides are positioned in reverse or upside down and there is a moment of doubt and pause. It is a nice thing. 

Anyway, with the scent of burning pine and mulled spice in the air, we sit and listen to some intriguing aspect of the incarnation of Christ. Christ... that is another story. The lecture today was on the angelic hierarchy which was pedestrian enough I guess. If you could use the word pedestrian for angels. Briefly, there are nine hierarchies of angels. They start from the Seraphim and go all the way down to the Angels. The Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones are the first level - they are closest to the one true god. Apparently they spend the entire day singing and praising him. They also do things like guard the gates of Paradise. They are not pretty or have beautiful bodies. Instead they appear like a burning ball of eyes or a giant wheel. They are about as abstract as you can get. And they don't really bother with us. We are so far below the pecking order, they don't really have any sense of what it would be like as human beings. They were once us eons ago, but that was so long ago they don't bother anymore. Then there are the second level of angelic beings - the Dominions, Virtues and Powers. They - according to Steiner are the Spirits of Form and Creation. They also have nothing to do with us. They are about the structures which keep this place - and by this place I mean the entire existence - both seen and unseen going. And then there is the lowest level - the Principalities, Archangels and Angels. They have some love for us. Angels are personal to us - every person has an Angel looking after us. Archangels are the Spirits of Time. They govern the feeling of the age. Our Age is the Michaelic Age and our Archangel is Michael - who is NOT a saint. He is an angel. His mission on Earth - apart from being God's representative (his name means, Who is Like God?) and to be the incarnation of the Spirit of Christ in our time - is to bring brother and sisterhood to all. To show us we are all the same. He does this through primarily action and education. This is why he is beloved of Steiner schools everywhere. It is also a bit weird how his is the most popular boys' name of our time. Michael.

Then there is US. Man, Animal, Plant and Mineral. So far so normal... and then I heard this.

Our purpose on Earth is to become the Tenth Hierarchy. WHAT??? What do you mean? (I have to say it does sound like Scientology a bit - about these rising through the ranks.) However, instead of having to pay lots of money to do this, you kinda need to do this yourself. Only when all of us are able to realise this for ourselves, then all of us will graduate. Before that, this does not happen. So long as one human being is left behind we all have to keep going round and round the samsara of reincarnation. Oh yes, we also do reincarnation.

I found this fascinating. It was such a wonderful metaphor for the responsibility we have towards ourselves and each other. And when we graduate, as it were, when we become the Tenth Hierarchy - called Man - apparently Man is the term - we are all Man - then it is the animals turn to undergo transformation.

I would of course argue animals are there already, but as for us. To think that we have some form of divinity and are responsible to each other - this was such a beautiful metaphor, allegory, whatever it was - it inspired me for days. And all of the angelic begins want us to succeed because then they to go up one step. Although I don't know what the Seraphim become... who cares. It is still a great image - all of us helping each other to bring out the best in each other.

Being the best of who we are, despite all our flaws and failures. That was something right? That is what Christmas is about and year by year it becomes degraded and diminished. It is almost as if we are begin dragged away from the meaning of Christmas with each passing year. The consumerism, the ugliness, the throw away culture, the superficial nature of the celebration, the stress and pressure and the deep dark long shadow - the depression and suicide of those who feel left out of the celebrations.

The Tenth Hierarchy. We are our own saviours. Yes, we do have help and we have Christ who has given his life's blood. We have a truly exceptional, inexplicably exceptional human being, and we are then shown a path to the top of the mountain, through the forest, across the seas - whatever the image you choose to use.

We are the Tenth Hierarchy. We have it within us and yet we are always being distracted. Like I was now when I heard about them for the first time. You know how the entire world rushes away and you are only left with your thoughts? That was what it was like. I am the Tenth Hierarchy. We all are. If only we could help each other see this instead of tearing shreds out of each other. Where we fail and fail and fail again.

We fail daily, several times a day, but the trick I think is to never stop trying. To never stop being the best person you can be, despite being spat at, ridiculed, humiliated. Us. We. Me.

The Tenth Hierarchy.

But I think I began at the ending. This was the end of my journey. The logical conclusion to a journey which is one of pure imagination and faith. There is nothing rational about the journey and yet it made so much sense - makes so much sense. If I was to really begin at the beginning, it would have to be with - Atlantis.

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Before Atlantis there was another place - the land of Mu. Some people call to Lemuria, after, yes lemurs. That is a very long story and can always be googled, however, I think for the sake of brevity, I will just start with Atlantis.

Where is Atlantis? Was it real? What happened to it? Can we still see remnants of it today?

There is no scientific evidence that Atlantis exists. The first time it is mentioned is in Plato's Timaeus. He then says that this story he got from his grandfather who heard it when he was a boy at a dinner party whose source said he got it from the Egyptians. So there is a lot of hearsay. For hearsay there are some wonderful details. I will just quote Plato here.

For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent.

There are other details. Such as it was given to Poseidon. Gods are involved, but to cut a long story short, the place was destroyed by an earthquake. Somehow this earthquake was due to its hubris - there was a superweapon which caused the entire continent to collapse in on itself. Bearing in mind this was lost to the Egyptians - who said it was 9,000 years before their time, it is pretty much a story by the time it comes down to Plato. 

Still, there is something so compelling about the Atlantis story that for centuries after that teeny tiny nugget of a story, people may not know much about Plato, but they will have heard of this lost land. Who inhabitants were beautiful, and its cities were perfect and there are whole philosophies and new age cults based on it.

Steiner said absolutely unequivocally that Atlantis, like Lemuria, did exist. He said lots of things. This really fed into the early 20th century's mania for all things exotic. This was the time when people were entering the Heart of Darkness and discovering lost cities in the middle of jungles. I'm sure that Atlantis did not feel very far away during this time of the feverish possible. Troy had been 'discovered' by a German archaeologist. The Elgin marbles were being transported to London. The Minotaur's labyrinth had been excavated on Crete. The tomb of Tutankhamen had been unearthed and people were spellbound by the treasures there. What did it all mean? It seemed a very exciting possibility that Atlantis to could be real.

Spoiler alert, to date we have still not discovered Atlantis.

Plato gives infuriatingly specific but mysterious descriptions of its location - beyond the Pillars of Hercules. This was the end of the Mediterranean Sea. It was as good as saying - well, the end of the world. Exactly were was the end of the world? Good one, right? It could be... the Straits of Gibraltar. Or it could be closer to Crete (in fact Crete is a strong contender for Atlantis, although it is the absolutely wrong size), could it be in Spain? Perhaps in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean which does seem SOME but not a lot of geological activity. Whatever happened to the Atlantis, it was lost entirely and according to Steiner, some part of it did remain.

That part was Ireland.

He is very specific. Ireland and only Ireland - not any other part of the British Isles - but only Ireland - is what remains of Atlantis.

So there you have it. 

As a result Ireland holds a very special place in anthroposophic hearts. It is Atlantis. Which may explain why it is such a cool country and exerts an influence beyond its size and very small population of 5 - 6 million - if you count the North. That is not a lot of people, but everyone knows how amazing and wonderful the Irish are.

How amazing and wonderful and exceptional they are will have to be for another day.

We are now talking about Atlantis.

What happened when Atlantis fell then? There were some people who managed to escape - and according to Steiner they escaped in two directions. One set of people headed to India - yes, India. And another set to South America.

The ancient Indians inherited most of the knowledge which the Atlanteans took with them - the Ancient South Americans - they did too, but according to Steiner this knowledge the evolved into black magic. (Did I ever tell you that Steiner has been accused of racism? To that I will say that he was a man of this time. In fact, he was better than most of his time, but not infallible, certainly not by our standards. I'm not going to excuse nor dismiss his racism, but say that I have no interest in throwing the babies out with the bathwater.)

And the baby I am interested in looking at is the evolution of mythology from the fall of Atlantis.