The third rank of Steiner's first triad, the Spirits of Will, who sacrificed warmth-substance on Old Saturn to give humanity its physical body.
Thrones in Anthroposophy are the third rank of the first spiritual triad, called by Rudolf Steiner the Spirits of Will (in German, Geister des Willens). In the cosmological exposition of GA 110, The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, delivered at Düsseldorf in April 1909, Steiner places the Thrones immediately above the second triad of Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai, and immediately below Cherubim. Their cosmic deed sits at the origin of physical existence: on Old Saturn, the first planetary embodiment of our solar system, the Thrones poured their own warmth-substance out of themselves and offered it as sacrifice, and that offered substance became the first germinal seed of the human physical body. Anthroposophic medicine today still works with this warmth pole when treating the will organism through fever, hyperthermia, and rhythmical immersion.
Thrones (Greek Thronoi, German Throne or Geister des Willens) are the third rank of the first spiritual hierarchy in Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. They are the Spirits of Will, beings whose evolutionary deed at the threshold of cosmic time was to surrender the very substance of their own bodies as warmth, the fiery seed from which the human physical body would later be raised through Sun, Moon, and Earth conditions.
In Steiner's Own Words
Thus we see that ancient Saturn took form through the fact, that from the surrounding universe the Thrones concentrated on one point in space. They did in great measure what in a lower sphere of existence is done by the silkworms, when they spin threads of silk out of their bodies. The Thrones spun the substance of warmth out of themselves, sacrificed themselves on the altar of Saturn. We have to regard the life of the Spirits of Personality on Saturn in such a way, that these Spirits of Personality or Archai actually imparted personality, Ego-consciousness to the warmth. We now know of what those eggs of warmth, that arose on Saturn, consisted. They were spun out of the bodies which the Thrones offered up as a sacrifice.
What it Means Today
Anthroposophic medicine, founded by Ita Wegman and Rudolf Steiner at the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut in Arlesheim in 1921, still works with the Thrones-stratum through the warmth organism. Practitioners at the Filderklinik in Filderstadt and the Ita Wegman Clinic in Arlesheim treat the will pole of the human being through rhythmical embrocations, hyperthermia baths, and mistletoe preparations whose effect is measured first in warmth distribution before any chemical action. The clinical reasoning is Thrones-derived: if physical substance was originally laid down as warmth-sacrifice, then warmth remains the layer where the body can be reached at the level where it was first given. A fever, in this reading, is not only an immune response, it is a re-entry into the warmth-substance stratum the Thrones once poured out.
Biodynamic agriculture, set out at the Koberwitz lectures of June 1924, names the same stratum when Steiner asks farmers to attend to the warmth of the compost pile and the manure preparations. The cow-horn manure (BD 500) and the chamomile preparation (BD 503) work through warmth before they work through substance. Practitioners trained at the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum read these preparations as a way of re-honouring the Thrones-substance that became the ground beneath their feet. The Thrones begin the cosmic sacrifice by offering their own substance as warmth.
Where to Read More
- The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World, GA 110
- Buy from SteinerBooks
- Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works - Guide to the Father of Mystical Theology
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Divine Names, Mystical Theology, and the Angelic Hierarchies
- How to Work with Angels: Steiner, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Angelic Hierarchy