Gardening, "Death",
and Resurrection Part 1

By L. A. Rotheraine
"All traditions...permit the conclusion that not only were animal passions released in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah, but that an actual physical interbreeding of human beings with animals, and the cultivation of an animal-human race occurred. A cosmic enchantment of man was to be attained."

--Emil Bock, Genesis

When I see genetically engineered seeds and animals (cloning) or chemically polluted farms and gardens I think back to the start of it all, when gardening was in the hands of the Gods; as in the Garden of Eden. Agricultural science, now in the hands of large chemical conglomerates such as Monsanto and their genetically alters seeds designed for their chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The producers of these fertilizers and pesticides have become enchanted by economic profit; not caring or understanding that their products are poisoning the soil and water and turning earth into a moonscape. They have become enchanted in the matter of economic profit, and the power derived from it is also the motive for genetically altered animals. This could result in a repetition of the Babylonian epoch, when Sodom misused the cosmic life forces on earth. In biodynamic agriculture life forces are called spiritual etheric forces and biodynamic science was created to enhance these life forces. They can also be called supersensible forces, or spiritual cosmic forces. In actuality, these cosmic forces are spiritual beings called "gods" by ancient civilizations and "angels" by humans today. There are both good angels and evil (demonic) angels.

The Adam and Eve story in the Bible is about the retrograde angel, Lucifer, tempting humans from God, thus ending a spiritual existence in which we were given all the necessities of life without working for them ourselves. The history of gardening-agricultural science (cultivating plants) is linked with the history of "death." Death was necessary to gain knowledge. After eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever.

So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground, and placed, on the east side of the Garden of Eden, a cherubim with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life." -Genesis Chap.3:22,23,24
Biodynamic science was created to enhance these life forces When Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden of Eden humans lose their immortality. I say "humans" because, at the beginning of Genesis, names designated whole groups of people and tribes; not just individuals.
Therefore Adam, Cain, Abel, and Seth are groups of people and individuals at the same time. And human cultivation of plants is at the beginning of earthly knowledge. "... Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the - Genesis 4:2

Then Cain kills Abel and a crisis in agriculture ensues, as "death" is created for humans: "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand: When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." - Genesis 4:11,12

A dense physical body that ages and dies is necessary for our souls, so that we might gain knowledge on earth to take with us into the spiritual worlds.

Our diet, which came from the deities of angels (gods), changes. Our physical bodies, the whole earth, and everything on it begins to harden -a preamble to old age - which didn't exist before this time, when "death" was unknown. There was a continuity of consciousness. We merely left the physical husk (material body), knowing our existence was eternal. Our husks dissolved into the environment.

Now the spiritual world, the world of the stars, reacts to the blood of Abel, mixed with earthly soil, because of that first murder. A denser veil separates heaven from earth, making the cultivation of plants even more difficult. The agriculture of the angels is ending - humans must learn horticulture.

In Thunderform Gods the transition is explained:

In the time before our fall,
Humanity followed cosmic rule,
Earth for us a Deity School.
Then came the serpent's scheming-
Eating forbidden fruit in the midst of Eden,
A diet too dense for our spiritual well-being.
Yet it opened our souls to terrestrial perceiving.
Evil now could inhabit the human form -
Our souls were digesting heavy earthly food,
Forced into earth bodies that weakened the soul:
"Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil..." *
Humans lost their heavenly berths,
Experiencing now the substance of earth,
Aware of a new earthly world
through physical birth.
* Genesis 3:22

Bibliography

Agriculture - Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY

Atlantis and Lemuria - Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY

Burning Bush - Edward Reaugh Smith

Genesis - Emil Bock

Thunderform Gods - L.A. Rotheraine, LILIPOH Publishing

Wrong and Right Use of Esoteric Knowledge - Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY

L.A. Rotheraine is a writer, lecturer and award-winning biodynamic gardener in Bradford, PA.

 

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Copyright  2004 L.A. Rotheraine
First printed in Lilipoh