“In the human heart there lives a part of humanity which contains matter more spiritual than in any other organ…”
Rudolf Steiner
Dr. Douglas Gabriel: Talking from the Heart
Warmed-up Thoughts
The supersensible nature of the heart is the penultimate expression of the human soul and spirit. From ancient teachings to modern research, there is no greater sense organ that exists beyond the human heart. The modern view that the brain is the seat of the mind and consciousness is simply partial truth. Without the heart being in coherence with the brain, the brain is only a mirror of the five senses that is lacking wisdom without the participation of the heart. Brain-bound thinking leads to cold, dead, materialistic shadow-thinking that will not get beyond superficial knowledge. But heart-thinking, the source of wisdom extracted from experience, is the key to understanding the meaning of life and the reality of life after death. Warmed-up thinking, which comes from the heart, leads to living thinking that Steiner called Imagination. Imagination leads the human heart to commune with archetypal thoughts generated by hierarchical beings (angels) that resonant with the spiritual content of human understanding that transcends the material world. Then comes moral Inspiration and Intuition that arises from the same spiritual domain that illuminates the true nature of reality.1
The heart is not usually viewed as an important sense organ, but in fact it is the most highly developed organ of perception that has transcendent moral capacities that can evolve into supersensible perception of the spiritual worlds. The heart can sense the outside world with much more than the five senses provide and can know and understand much that is considered invisible, or beyond the five senses. The heart can also sense every organ inside the human body and respond to the needs of respiration, circulation, nutrition, and all of the bodily systems. The highly developed heart can assume the autonomic aspects of the cardiovascular system and control circulation, respiration and many other aspects of maintaining internal equilibrium. The pulse of the heart is the voice of the divine, both inside and outside of the human being. Heart perception is far beyond what science understands about this Holy Grail of human consciousness.
The heart creates the concepts that accompany percepts and colors the individual’s world view. Subsequently, that world view is projected onto the world and sets the boundaries for new percepts. When the heart is happy, the world looks lovely. The same sensory input can create a heaven or a hell in the mind of the perceiver, depending on the condition of the heart. Even thinking is changed by the heart as it digests thoughts, feelings and experiences and tempers them into a personal cosmology. The heart’s wisdom is this cosmology that responds to the input of the cosmos and the internal input of the “temple” of the human body. We perceive the world and our own individuality through the heart. Thus, the heart is the primal, and ultimate, sense organ that evolves into a supersensible organ able to perceive the invisible and the eternal.
Secrets of the Heart
One secret of the heart that science is researching is the nature of vortices in the heart and their relationship to the axis of the heart. This new field of study is revealing aspects of blood flow through the heart that the ancients never imagined. The heart is not only two interpenetrating vortices, but it also has numerous vortices in the heart itself. Heart vortex rings are created by the flow of blood in the different chambers of the heart. Cardiologist have found numerous vortex rings and found that each one has a specific frequency that it attunes to, creating harmonious blood flow. When heart vortices are misshapen or do not form fully, heart problems begin. Likewise, this is the case with the axis of the heart both in utero and throughout life. The angle of the axis of the heart and the health of the vortices can predict the health of the body. The optimal degree of inclination mimics the earth’s axis. The heart is based on the curve of the diaphragm, but the axis is inclined at an angle of 23 degrees, like the axis of the earth against the path of the sun.
Dr. Rudolf Steiner pointed out that there were two major vortices that work together to create the angle of the axis of the heart using forces from above and below the human body. In Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe (GA 201), Rudolf Steiner describes these whirlwinds in the following fashion:
“Imagine, if you will, a wind whirling from above downwards with a certain velocity, and another from below upwards so that they whirl into one another. Assuming that the difference in velocity of the downward streaming force is such that we can say: the relation of the velocity of the up-flowing stream to that of the downflowing stream gives us the same ration as the ration of the velocity of the motion of the stars to that of the Sun, then, if they are whirling into each other, a condensation will be produced by their whirling and will assume a particular form, the silhouette of the human heart. If we take the difference of velocity between the downward and the upward current, relating the latter to the former in such a way that a difference in velocity results bearing the same relationship as the difference in velocity between the stellar time and the solar time, then through the rotation a condensation arises which receives its own distinct form. One whirls downwards, and because the other whirls upwards driving with a greater velocity, the lesser velocity would be that driving downwards, which gives here through the collision, a condensation, a certain figure. This figure, disregarding imperfections, is a silhouette of the human heart.”
From: The Transcendental Universe, by C. G. Harrison
“Man is the axidal coincidence of the macrocosm and the microcosm. Man, as he is at present constituted, is the resultant of two vortices manifesting dynamically on the plane of illusion, and proceeding originally from two separate streams of tendency, the one representing Divine Love, and the other, the Divine Wisdom, which, meeting on the plane of human consciousness, coalesce into an objective personality. The forces on different planes of consciousness which go to make up man ultimately resolve themselves into two vortices which represent his higher and lower nature. The double vortex is a manifestation in time, or the plane of illusion, and is the result of cyclic aberration on the plane of spirit.”
“Let us consider what is called the ‘torsion of impact,’ or the effect produced when two vortices meet whose axes impinge at an angle. If their velocity be not equal, they form two conical spheroids revolving in opposite directions, corresponding to the “figure of 8.” The ascending hierarchy of the former period complete their evolution, in this cosmic manvantara, under the law of acceleration, whereas the hierarchy who manifest as the Powers of Light are on the ascending arc of their cycle and are subject to the law of retardation. Accordingly, the vortices which respectively represent their activities are of unequal velocity. One day, the spheroidal vortices will coalesce and become one, first as an elliptical spheroid and afterward as a true sphere capable of indefinite expansion.”
The Dodecahedron Universe
As has been presented above, the human heart is nested in the mediastinum which appears as a type of cube, or box surrounding and protecting the heart itself. In our current age, the shape of that box is a six-sided cube, but in the future, the shape of this protective enclosure will develop into a twelve-sided dodecahedron. The heart shape and size evolve over time. This mystery of the heart is little known and even less understood. Dr. Rudolf Steiner was very keen on this idea, and believed that the evolution of the heart was a key factor in the overall development of humanity. The significance of this heart evolution is critical to expand human awareness and consciousness of the inside and outside world of the individual. As humans expand beyond the awareness of the inner world of the human body, a larger, more universal perspective must arise in a new form.
This new perspective takes the step to become aware of the twelve directions raying in from the surrounding cosmic shape. The human being becomes more universal, or macrocosmic, through this expansion of awareness. Steiner insinuated this new perspective by teaching what he called, the “Twelve World Views.” Only when one is able to understand the world through twelve perfectly valid, but different, World Views, is the individual able to become a universal citizen of the cosmos. Broadening and expanding human consciousness to encompass the entire world of the stars that ray in from the twelve cosmic directions opens the heart to the new shape it will become as the heart develops into a greater and greater sense organ of the entire universe.
The original Foundation Stone of Rudolf Steiner’s first Goetheanum was a double pentagon-dodecahedron made of copper which was laid into the ground in Dornach, Switzerland. Ten years later, a tragic fire destroyed the nearly completed building. In 1923, at the Christmas Foundation meeting, Rudolf Steiner presented a ‘Spiritual Foundation Stone,’ the ‘Dodecahedron of Man,’ as he called it, to the members of the newly-formed General Anthroposophical Society, which was to initiate a new phase in the revelation of the Mysteries of humankind. The meditation is mantric, that is, a spiritual revelation in which sound, form and rhythm integrate with the esoteric meaning which lies in layers of evocative multiplicity.
From: The Foundation Stone Parchment, by Rudolf Steiner, September 20, 1913
“Let us here and now lay in the ground of our hearts the dodecahedral Foundation Stone of love. Our own hearts are the proper soil in which to lay this Foundation Stone – our hearts, in good will, imbued with love, working together to carry the anthroposophical will and purpose through the world.”
From: The Human Heart, Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, May 26, 1922, GA 212
“If you recall all that I have said in this lecture, you will be able to see that the region into which the breath was breathed is the intervening region that is in between the onsets from before and behind and from above and below – there, in the middle, where Jehovah created man, as it were in the form of a cube. There it was that he so filled man with His own being, with His own magic breath, that the influence of this magic breath was able to extend into the regions in the rest of man that belong to Lucifer and Ahriman. Here in the midst, bounded above and below and before and behind, is an intervening space where the breath of Jehovah enters directly into the spatial human being.”
“The heart, as far as the etheric universe is concerned, is a cosmos gathered up into a center; while at the same time, as far as the astral is concerned, you have a gathering together of all that man does in the world. This is the point where the cosmos – the cosmic process – is joined to the karma of man. This intimate correspondence of the astral body with the etheric body is to be found nowhere in the human organism except in the region of the heart.”
“And while you have an astral formation around the etheric and the physical heart, the ego takes a different path. It slides into the organs of the lung, and with the blood vessels that pass from the lung to the heart approaches nearer and nearer to the heart. More and more closely united with the blood circulation, it follows the paths of the blood. By way of the forces that run along the courses of the blood, the ego enters into that which has been formed from the union of the etheric and the astral heart, wherein an etheric from the cosmos grows together with an astral from ourselves. Here, then, you have a complete linking up of karma with the laws of the whole cosmos. All that happens in the moral life, and all that happens physically in the world, are brought together precisely in the human heart.
From: Therapeutic Insights: Earthly and Cosmic Law, Rudolf Steiner, July 2, 1921, GA 205
“You can imagine what a tremendous difference there is, between that which lives in our heart during this incarnation and the condition in which we find ourselves in a new life after having gone through a long development in the time between death and a new birth. And yet when you look into your innermost heart you can assess quite well, of course in a hidden way only, not in a fully developed imagination, what you will do in your next life. One can, you see, not only say in an abstract way, my next life is being prepared today in all karmic detail, but one can point to the ‘little box’ in which the karma rests, awaiting the future.”
The Anatomical “Box Around the Heart”
The most ancient stories of the Tibetans tell of a fiery box that fell from heaven to Earth bringing down the first treasures of their religion. Four objects were contained in this box that became the foundation of their beliefs. This box contained the begging bowl of Buddha, the cintamani stone (the jewel in the heart of the lotus), a book of wisdom, and the original design of the first stupa (temple). Until recently, few understood that this box is a reference to human anatomy that is often overlooked. Around the heart is a series of organs that enclose it like a box and indicate that the ancients were unto a profound secret of the human heart that we now call the mediastinum.
This “cube” around the heart is the current “shape” of the heart container with its six sides defined by the directions of up/down, right/left, and forward/backward. In the future, this cube will evolve into a dodecahedron which has twelve sides that align with the twelve divisions of the Zodiac. From the current shape of the cube to the future shape of the dodecahedron we find the morphological path that the heart will follow in its development. This sacred shape, inscribed by the cube, is the inviolable home of the human mind that is referred to as the “jewel in the heart of the lotus”, or the cintamani stone. It is the “rock” that human consciousness is built upon, the cornerstone of the holy of holies in the heart-of-hearts. The mediastinum lies within the thorax and is surrounded by the chest wall in front, the lungs to the sides and the spine at the back, essentially creating a “box” around the heart. It extends from the sternum in front to the vertebral column behind and contains all the organs of the thorax except the lungs.
From: The Universe as a Phi-based Dodecahedron, by Gary Meisner, May 1, 2012
“New findings in 2003 reveal that the shape of the Universe is a Dodecahedron based on Phi. In October 2001, NASA began collecting data with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) on cosmic background radiation. Like visible light from distant stars and galaxies, cosmic background radiation allows scientists to peer into the past to the time when the universe was in its infancy. Density fluctuations in this radiation can also tell scientists much about the physical nature of space.”
“NASA released the first WMAP cosmic background radiation data in February of 2003. In October 2003, a team including French cosmologists and Jeffrey Weeks, a freelance mathematician and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship used this data to develop a model for the shape of the universe. The study analyzed a variety of different models for the universe, including finite vs. infinite, flat, negatively curved (saddle-shaped), positively curved (spherical) space and a torus (cylindric). The study revealed that the math adds up if the universe is finite and shaped like a dodecahedron. The Universe as a Dodecahedron is based on Phi, the golden ratio. The connection to Phi is found in the pentagons that form the faces of the dodecahedron. A dodecahedron consists of twelve pentagons. Take a pentagon and connect all the points to form a 5-pointed star. The ratios of the lengths of the resulting line segments are all based on phi, or 1.618. The pentagon in space disperses into the number twelve and becomes the number of the transfigured spatial cube. In this way it descends into the plane becoming dodecahedron woven of triangles, squares and hexagons – the dodecahedron in the plane. Twelve is the number of opened up space, through and through transformed to the pentagon.”
From: Toward the 21st Century – Doing the Good, The Stone of Love, Bernard Lievegoed
“Rudolf Steiner describes the reality of that dodecahedral love stone. He says, ‘The foundation stone will light up before the eye of our soul. Even that foundation stone which receives from universal and human love its substance, from universal and human Imagination its living picture quality and form, and from universal and human thoughts its radiating light.’ Love is its substance; Imagination is its form; thoughts are its radiating light. It is not an earthly thing. It is an Imagination living in the hearts of society. Such words are spoken by the hierophant, the high priest of mysteries – in this case the high priest [Rudolf Steiner] of new mysteries in which human hearts are the altars, the radiating love stones on which the hierarchies may celebrate the cosmic cult of the future.”
Notes
1) All quotations are taken from: The Human Heart – A Supersensible Organ of Perception, by Douglas Gabriel. Free PDF copies are available at: https://neoanthroposophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/the-human-heart-a-supersensible-organ-of-perception-2.pdf
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