Karmic Relationships 4-6

Rudolf Steiner continues his extraordinary series of lectures on karma with these three theoretical offerings. The first invites us to reconceive the entire notion of causality, which differs substantially across the kingdoms of nature. In the mineral kingdom, we see a simultaneity of causes in the physical. In the plant kingdom, there is a simultaneity of causes in the physical and supra-physical. The animal kingdom reveals past supra-physical causes of present effects. And finally the human kingdom shows past physical causes of present effects in the physical. Lecture Two is devoted to the interweaving of the hierarchies in karma. The Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi are bound up with our feelings of well-being or discomfort. Our sympathies and antipathies are expressions of the Dynameis, Exousiai, and Kyriotetes. And finally the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones are responsible for the events and experiences in our lives. The third lecture traces out the complex interactions between freedom and karmic necessity. In normal consciousness, we are not at all aware of karmic necessity, but we are aware of our freedom. Initiation reveals the realm of karmic necessity, but we are simultaneously reconciled to the notion, because we see and accept that it has to be. Freedom and karmic necessity are ultimately reconciled at a higher level of consciousness.