On Attaining Spiritual Sight (Part I)

[Federica]

There are still things we may talk about, for example how the two aspects will revolve together (also I'm not sure what you imply about the Dirac meditation being past-based) but I'm again with limited access and will be able to write more in a few days.

I was expecting that I only mean that a phenomenal snapshot is taken, which includes all layers, and once it is taken it’s already past. It’s like a small scientific experiment, through the depth of experience. And that experiment is the basis of the meditation, since it starts from there. That’s all I mean.

The "too healthy" indeed drew my attention, because health is a synonym of harmony, resonance, etc. As such it is a feature of the high ideal. We agree that if it is taken in a one-sided way (as in pursuit of purely physical well-being) it can be seen as swinging the pendulum sideways. But Health in a higher sense is the musical expression of body, soul, and spirit in resonance with the Cosmos. As such, it is the High Ideal and there's no need to worry we may become too Healthy.

So putting aside the one-sided pursuit of health, what is the practical sign of getting 'too healthy'? At what point you become concerned and say "I'm getting dangerously healthy. I should take countermeasures." What would these countermeasures be like?

Ok, I see that I have not been able to make myself understood. “Too healthy” refers to a more zoomed-in, ‘technical’ level compared to the level of high ideals from which you speak of Health with a capital H. It has to do with zooming into the processes that comprise the human organization, in relation to the formative forces and the ethers. Then the sense perceptible physical body can be seen (even meditatively) as the manifest side of circular supersensible processes, going from potential to manifestation and again into potential - from solution to salification, to use a chemical metaphor.

I attempted to exemplify this before, but I'll try with new examples. Whithin this organized circular flow carried within the etheric body - but imprinted through the influences of all other bodies - every movement or process, is a vector for essential life functions - healthy functions. However, each slightest excess in the playing out of each health-generating movement inevitably trespasses to the side of illness, and vice versa. Illness can therefore be seen as simply the continuation of processes of health, when these latter are too strongly experienced, for some reason. Hence each excess of health-bringing activity immediately coalesces into a compensating movement that may be experienced as illness (not always, not immediately). We don't need to worry about these alternating oscillations as long as they remain within limits. It's the normal way in which we become, in our human organziation.

Steiner gives countless examples of this dynamic. For instance, in the health-building, anabolic process of nutrition - where food-forces are overcome and recombined through the working of the life and chemical ether in metabolism - the nutrients ray up towards the head, to bring healthy nourishment. But, if this health process becomes excessive for some reason - if we become “too healthy” - too much life/health is distributed throughout the body, and a pathological dissolving tendency arises; even the head becomes softened, numbed, which is not really in its nature to be. Conversely, if the warmth and light ether - which healthily support the head function of thought precipitation - begin to stream too strongly through the head, trespassing into the rest of the body, all starts to become head-like, dry, rigid, physical. What was a healthy process in the head becomes damaging when it touches metabolism, impeding the intake of nourishment in the entire body.

Every process pushes towards health and toward illness, in an oscillatory movement. Imbalances come from processes overshooting their mark, on either side of the movement. Because all that brings health from one perspective, brings illness from another. Not everything is symptomatic, unless certain limits are trespassed. And trespassing can happen in healing too. If healing is excessive, it leads right into another phase of illness (different from the one initially addressed).

Even trivial situations somewhat reflect these supersensible dynamics. If I cut myself using a tool, the pain will regulate the activity, and I will be guided to healthier behaviors, thanks to the pain signal. Or if I am too lightminded, car-free, driven by the bare rhythms of my etheric body, I may become insensitive, including indifferent to others. My intensity of consciousness is reduced, I loose empathy, while the soul can’t really impress as it should in my etheric body. Then I may perhaps begin to sleep too much, wake up late, be sleepy all morning, so that what was originally a healthy etheric thriving may transform into a source of imbalances, and possibly illness. Things like that!

I hope this shows there’s no contradiction with the state of Health you speak of. It's a different level of granularity.

[Cleric]

Ok, I see that I have not been able to make myself understood. “Too healthy” refers to a more zoomed-in, ‘technical’ level compared to the level of high ideals from which you speak of Health with a capital H. It has to do with zooming into the processes that comprise the human organization, in relation to the formative forces and the ethers. Then the sense perceptible physical body can be seen (even meditatively) as the manifest side of circular supersensible processes, going from potential to manifestation and again into potential - from solution to salification, to use a chemical metaphor.

I attempted to exemplify this before, but I'll try with new examples. Whithin this organized circular flow carried within the etheric body - but imprinted through the influences of all other bodies - every movement or process, is a vector for essential life functions - healthy functions. However, each slightest excess in the playing out of each health-generating movement inevitably trespasses to the side of illness, and vice versa. Illness can therefore be seen as simply the continuation of processes of health, when these latter are too strongly experienced, for some reason. Hence each excess of health-bringing activity immediately coalesces into a compensating movement that may be experienced as illness (not always, not immediately). We don't need to worry about these alternating oscillations as long as they remain within limits. It's the normal way in which we become, in our human organziation.

Steiner gives countless examples of this dynamic. For instance, in the health-building, anabolic process of nutrition - where food-forces are overcome and recombined through the working of the life and chemical ether in metabolism - the nutrients ray up towards the head, to bring healthy nourishment. But, if this health process becomes excessive for some reason - if we become “too healthy” - too much life/health is distributed throughout the body, and a pathological dissolving tendency arises; even the head becomes softened, numbed, which is not really in its nature to be. Conversely, if the warmth and light ether - which healthily support the head function of thought precipitation - begin to stream too strongly through the head, trespassing into the rest of the body, all starts to become head-like, dry, rigid, physical. What was a healthy process in the head becomes damaging when it touches metabolism, impeding the intake of nourishment in the entire body.

Every process pushes towards health and toward illness, in an oscillatory movement. Imbalances come from processes overshooting their mark, on either side of the movement. Because all that brings health from one perspective, brings illness from another. Not everything is symptomatic, unless certain limits are trespassed. And trespassing can happen in healing too. If healing is excessive, it leads right into another phase of illness (different from the one initially addressed).

Even trivial situations somewhat reflect these supersensible dynamics. If I cut myself using a tool, the pain will regulate the activity, and I will be guided to healthier behaviors, thanks to the pain signal. Or if I am too lightminded, car-free, driven by the bare rhythms of my etheric body, I may become insensitive, including indifferent to others. My intensity of consciousness is reduced, I loose empathy, while the soul can’t really impress as it should in my etheric body. Then I may perhaps begin to sleep too much, wake up late, be sleepy all morning, so that what was originally a healthy etheric thriving may transform into a source of imbalances, and possibly illness. Things like that!

I hope this shows there’s no contradiction with the state of Health you speak of. It's a different level of granularity.

Got it. In that case, I think more fitting terms for this polarity could be something like 'forces of growth and breakdown'. It feels clear why unchecked growth cannot be good, the obvious example being the tumor. On the other hand, it sounds strange to say that the tumor is 'health gone too far'.

[Federica]

Got it. In that case, I think more fitting terms for this polarity could be something like 'forces of growth and breakdown'. It feels clear why unchecked growth cannot be good, the obvious example being the tumor. On the other hand, it sounds strange to say that the tumor is 'health gone too far'.

Yet, that's exactly how Steiner presents it.

The point is that the processes producing illness are only further stages of those that must be present in the healthy human being. If we could not become ill, we could neither think nor feel. Everything that lives in the soul in feeling and thinking is organically a system of forces that produces illness when it exceeds its proper measure.

And for example a tumor is exactly a health process gone too far, as he explains it. I gave the example of tumor above.
As Klocek adds, this is evident in the health process of inflammation too. Inflammation is meant to liberate the body from an external attack. Inflammation gone too far gives rise to a hardening, or tumor, that is sclerosis.
I don't think it's strange. Tumor is the process of depositing. In itself it's a health process. Our bones for example are an effect of depositing and hardening processes. The association we normally make between tumor and illness refers to hardening processes gone too far. But "tumor" in itself - depositing and hardening - is healthy, that is, necessary to life.

I know this is not your favorite topic and there's no need to reply, but I have to point this out. Because of this viewpoint on the nature of illness and health, the other day I had to take in paragraphs and paragraphs of "you are not getting a thing about the spiritual path" : )

[Kaje977]

Sorry for interjecting here randomly, but I'm not entirely sure why, but the statement "too healthy" doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Or there is a semantic word game going on here which causes the confusion? From what I have read, Steiner seems to talk about "health" in a different context.

So, I do share Cleric's suspicion with Federica's "too healthy" statement.

I mean, how exactly could Health (as Cleric described it), as in: the musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos, (if I understood correctly, this would be "Spiritual Consciousness"), be "too much", Federica? That just doesn't make any sense. Or do you understand health differently? I'm not sure. I think that warrants some clarification.

@Cleric

There are still things we may talk about, for example how the two aspects will revolve together (also I'm not sure what you imply about the Dirac meditation being past-based) but I'm again with limited access and will be able to write more in a few days.

The "too healthy" indeed drew my attention, because health is a synonym of harmony, resonance, etc. As such it is a feature of the high ideal. We agree that if it is taken in a one-sided way (as in pursuit of purely physical well-being) it can be seen as swinging the pendulum sideways. But Health in a higher sense is the musical expression of body, soul, and spirit in resonance with the Cosmos. As such, it is the High Ideal and there's no need to worry we may become too Healthy.

So putting aside the one-sided pursuit of health, what is the practical sign of getting 'too healthy'? At what point you become concerned and say "I'm getting dangerously healthy. I should take countermeasures." What would these countermeasures be like?

Could you explain the significance of Health in Spiritual Science? You're more experienced here than us, so I'd appreciate a deeper description if you don't mind : -) I assume Health is probably not the way health is commonly understood in daily life, or at least, just a minor aspect of something deeper. Your statement "Health is the musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos" seems to hint to something much more deeper, more profound and seems to make more sense.

[Federica]

Sorry for interjecting here randomly, but I'm not entirely sure why, but the statement "too healthy" doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Or there is a semantic word game going on here which causes the confusion? From what I have read, Steiner seems to talk about "health" in a different context.

So, I do share Cleric's suspicion with Federica's "too healthy" statement.

I mean, how exactly could Health (as Cleric described it), as in: the musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos, (if I understood correctly, this would be "Spiritual Consciousness"), be "too much", Federica? That just doesn't make any sense. Or do you understand health differently? I'm not sure. I think that warrants some clarification.

Thanks, Kaje. That’s how I would render it, with apologies to all for the intellectual content.
Beyond the ideal hinted to in “Health as musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos“, we have to admit that, in our current incarnated life, such a state doesn’t exist. Just because we have an astral body, or a soul-self - meaning a consciousness - we have a constant source of illness in us. We can only entertain spiritual activities such as thinking and feeling by articulating our bodies in relation to each other in such a way that illness is constantly within the immediate sphere of potential. In other words, our consciousness makes us ill (said in a neutral way, it’s just what being human entails in our epoch). As Steiner says, astral body equals illness. Before someone says that spiritual science is not about stating equations, I just mean that Steiner expresses this concept by putting this sign = in between the words astral body and illness.

By ‘operating’ our consciousness (astral body) we inevitably ‘move’, we fuel a dynamic in our complex, chiefly supersensible organization. In terms of health and illness, these TFW movements create continual oscillations around an ideal null-point of perfect health. But practically, this ideal is impossible to maintain/stabilize. Instead, our human organization is constantly counterbalancing the physiological imbalances we constantly introduce by thinking, feeling and doing. These counterbalancing processes are often seamless and within limits, but easily transpass into ‘illness’, sometimes painful illness, as soon as a movement a little more pronounced than average is induced by the impulses of the soul-self (astral body and I-organization). A movement of the soul-self usually involves gripping on, or releasing, the etheric body, with the consequent sense-perceptible effects on the physical body and its elements (not to think of the physical body as only made of solid stuff. It has all four elements in it, though we often picture it as only solid). Here Steiner posits another relevant equation: ether body = health. So: astral body = illness, and ether body = health.

Now, the key to understand what health means in this context, and what illness means, is to think about these two not as states. Health is not a state. It’s not a static condition. Similarly, illness is not a condition. Both are processes. Processes means we are talking about continually-moving and readjusting articulations of the relations between our bodies. As experiences, they can’t be fixed but are always in flux. As concepts, they are also fluid and impossible to nail down, just like the concept of triangle is one, but comprises equilateral, isoscel, and scalene triangles and can’t be statically pictured in one fixed image.

Equally important, the ongoing ever-present dance between soul-self (illness as a process) and ether body (health as a process) generates movements that are simultaneously illness-generating and healing. Every such movement is potentially healing towards some part of the human organization and potentially illness-generating towards another one. This is just how the human organization is built up and organized. There are noll-points everywhere, and restoring one inevitably tends to drive something else off-balance. So, when I say “too healthy” - perhaps let’s say “too healing” to better convey the fact that we are talking about processes, not states - I mean that, when healing movements are taken in one direction, it’s easy to overdo it, to overshoot the mark. Then, the same movement meant to heal some imbalance ends up causing problems elsewhere, since all organs, functions, elements, bodies are interconnected. In this sense, it’s extremely easy to become “too healthy”, or too healing: by introducing too vigorous healing measures, we would rebalance one aspect but bring imbalance to another aspect, and so the art of healing consists in countering processes along a certain direction avoiding any excess that would become too healing in the opposite direction. That’s also the key principle on which Anthroposophical medicine is grounded. As Steiner said:


“The state of illness is only a continuation beyond the appropriate degree of processes that we need, that we must certainly have in us. In the state of health, the processes leading to illness and the healing processes are properly balanced. We are endangered not only when the processes tending to illness assert themselves, but also when the healing processes overstep the mark. Hence, in initiating a healing process, we must be careful not to proceed too intensely or we may overshoot the mark. We may drive out the illness, but it may, on reaching its null-point, swing over in the other direction.”

[AshvinP]

Beyond the ideal hinted to in “Health as musical expression of Body, Soul and Spirit in resonance with the Cosmos“, we have to admit that, in our current incarnated life, such a state doesn’t exist.
...
As Steiner says, astral body equals illness. Before someone says that spiritual science is not about stating equations, I just mean that Steiner expresses this concept by putting this sign = in between the words astral body and illness.

By ‘operating’ our consciousness (astral body) we inevitably ‘move’, we fuel a dynamic in our complex, chiefly supersensible organization. In terms of health and illness, these TFW movements create continual oscillations around an ideal null-point of perfect health. But practically, this ideal is impossible to maintain/stabilize. Instead, our human organization is constantly counterbalancing the physiological imbalances we constantly introduce by thinking, feeling and doing. These counterbalancing processes are often seamless and within limits, but easily transpass into ‘illness’, sometimes painful illness, as soon as a movement a little more pronounced than average is induced by the impulses of the soul-self (astral body and I-organization). A movement of the soul-self usually involves gripping on, or releasing, the etheric body, with the consequent sense-perceptible effects on the physical body and its elements (not to think of the physical body as only made of solid stuff. It has all four elements in it, though we often picture it as only solid). Here Steiner posits another relevant equation: ether body = health. So: astral body = illness, and ether body = health.

I'm not responding to debate anything here, but since we are speaking of what Steiner 'posits' or does not posit, I just want to share a quote such as below for those who are interested to meditate on it. We have also quite thoroughly discussed why "highly evolved human being" should not be taken to mean some remote state of clairvoyance that is inaccessible to anyone except the initiates, so I won't add further comments on that. As Steiner says below, by meditatively working with the contents of spiritual science, we are already overcoming the rigid astral body = illness equation (during waking life) and realigning the waking astral functions such that they cooperate harmoniously with the ether body, expanding resonance of body-soul-spirit with the Cosmos and thus steering to the ideal of Health in a very concrete way, here and now.


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/En ... 14p01.html

Human beings have a natural ability to turn the merely known into vivid images. Hypnotism relies on this fact. The hypnotist excludes the astral body and introduces a pictorial content directly into the ether body, but this is an abnormal process. The pictures we ourselves produce are imprinted on the ether body. If they are derived from the spiritual world they have the power to eradicate unhealthy conditions, which means that harmony is brought about with universal spiritual currents. This brings about healing because unhealthy conditions always originate from egoism, and we are now lifted above our ordinary mental life, which is dimmed. This process must occur every so often, for example during sleep; then the astral body, together with the “I,” separates from the physical and etheric bodies and unites with the spirit of the earth. From this spiritual region the astral body imprints health-giving pictures into the ether body. This process is unconscious except in highly evolved human beings.

It was Plato who said that eternal ideas are behind everything. The clairvoyant sees the spiritual in every plant whose very form is built up from such spiritual images. These eternal ideas, these spiritual images, human beings are able to absorb and thus become creative. Their health-giving effect acts throughout nature. Strictly speaking, it is only a human being that becomes ill; only people take the spirit into their inner being and must bring it to life once more. Imaginative wisdom will bring a person health. When knowledge is transformed into wisdom, the spirit creates the imagination. Spiritual science is such wisdom, and has the ability more than anything else to be a healing force, especially in the sense of preventing illness. This, admittedly, is not easy to prove. However, through spiritual science, life-giving forces flow into human beings keeping them youthful and strong.

Wisdom makes a person open and receptive because it is a foundation from which love for all things grows. To preach love is useless. (The Therapeutae and Essenes were wise; they were also most compassionate and loving.) When wisdom warms the soul, love streams forth; thus we can understand that there are people who can heal through the laying on of hands. Wisdom pours forces of love through their limbs. Christ was the wisest and therefore also the greatest healer.

[Federica]

I'm not responding to debate anything here, but since we are speaking of what Steiner 'posits' or does not posit, I just want to share a quote such as below for those who are interested to meditate on it. We have also quite thoroughly discussed why "highly evolved human being" should not be taken to mean some remote state of clairvoyance that is inaccessible to anyone except the initiates, so I won't add further comments on that. As Steiner says below, by meditatively working with the contents of spiritual science, we are already overcoming the rigid astral body = illness equation (during waking life) and realigning the waking astral functions such that they cooperate harmoniously with the ether body, expanding resonance of body-soul-spirit with the Cosmos and thus steering to the ideal of Health in a very concrete way, here and now.

The question I was asked is what I mean by "too healthy", and that's what my post is about. Your point is about something else, but at least you are spreading a true Steiner statement this time. I don't deny that higher cognition changes the way the bodies interrelate, which in turn affects the processes of healing and illness. However, to the extent that the soul-self comes back to sense life - and even if the spiritual activity is more independently organized - I don't think the illness-healing processes can be eradicated, also because the vectors of illness and healing do not depend only on the individual. Accordingly, as far as I know, initiates seem to suffer from illnesses as the average man does.

[AshvinP]

However, to the extent that the soul-self comes back to sense life - and even if the spiritual activity is more independently organized - I don't think the illness-healing processes can be eradicated, also because the vectors of illness and healing do not depend only on the individual. Accordingly, as far as I know, initiates seem to suffer from illnesses as the average man does.

Yes. no one has ever suggested such processes can be immediately eradicated or that initiates never suffer illness (although certainly not 'as the average man does').

The important thing is that we have established Steiner does not posit any static equations of astral body = illness and ether body = health, because that would defy both our living experience on the inner path and his own statements throughout the lectures. We have established that such equations are unhelpful to orient toward the the dynamic process that is actually at play, where the transformation of the astral body progressively harmonizes its waking activity with health-restoring functions. And that astral transformation is exactly what modern initiation is. We have established that a process of restoring Health, as the harmonic resonance of body-soul-spirit with the Cosmos, does exist for the average soul today and can be implemented right now. And there is no risk of striving 'too much' toward this Health, because our default state is one of extreme disharmony and corresponding soul-body sickness, so even when we plunge with all our might into imaginative and concentrated development, we will mostly feel like we are moving a few 'inches' at a time and often backwards.

[Federica]

However, to the extent that the soul-self comes back to sense life - and even if the spiritual activity is more independently organized - I don't think the illness-healing processes can be eradicated, also because the vectors of illness and healing do not depend only on the individual. Accordingly, as far as I know, initiates seem to suffer from illnesses as the average man does.

Yes. no one has ever suggested such processes can be immediately eradicated or that initiates never suffer illness (although certainly not 'as the average man does').

The important thing is that we have established Steiner does not posit any static equations of astral body = illness and ether body = health, because that would defy both our living experience on the inner path and his own statements throughout the lectures. We have established that such equations are unhelpful to orient toward the the dynamic process that is actually at play, where the transformation of the astral body progressively harmonizes its waking activity with health-restoring functions. And that astral transformation is exactly what modern initiation is. We have established that a process of restoring Health, as the harmonic resonance of body-soul-spirit with the Cosmos, does exist for the average soul today and can be implemented right now. And there is no risk of striving 'too much' toward this Health, because our default state is one of extreme disharmony and corresponding soul-body sickness, so even when we plunge with all our might into imaginative and concentrated development, we will mostly feel like we are moving a few 'inches' at a time and often backwards.

Before you posted your meditation suggestion, it was already established that Steiner posits those equations as processes, not as static equations. However, these dynamic equations are helpful to orient towards an understanding of the dynamic processes at play. The dynamic processes at play in the context we were discussing before your posts pertain to the meaning of illness, healing and therapy in our time. The harmonization through higher cognition you speak about leads to an evolutionary ideal of Health that stands, as I already said, at a different level of granularity and doesn't exclude what we were discussing in terms of practical occult physiology (I repeat, I agree it can be pursued today).

Moreover, I did not express an opinion on whether or not there is any risk of striving too much towards Health with a capital H, although, for example, Rodriel repeatedly did - but for some reason it didn't seem to trouble you much - and there are indeed reasons to think that the path of higher cognition is far from devoid of risks. In any case, all this is well beyond the topic we were discussing, and your attempt to oppose my reports on Steiner's occult physiology doesn't make much sense.

Astral body = Illness

What has to do with the processes of illness is located in the astral body. What the astral body commits is impressed into the etheric body, and hence illness appears in its imprint in the etheric body, though it is not the etheric body that has to do directly with illness. I have just described to you the imprint of the irregular inter penetration and interworking of the two kinds of ethers. Nevertheless, such irregular action is itself merely an effect of the astral body stamping itself into the etheric body. When the etheric body is perceived more closely, one is led to the astral body. Let us carry this further.

Next we have that which works against disease as its polar opposite—namely, health.

Etheric body = Health

We will not stop to define health now, but you can even see by analogy that health is related to the etheric body as illness is to the astral body and death to the ego. This becomes ever clearer and clearer on spiritual investigation. To heal, to restore health, means to be able to create in the etheric body counterreactions to the processes that produce illness and that proceed from the astral body. One must work from the etheric body in order to paralyze the forces of the astral body, which are the processes producing illness.


From Anthroposophical Spiritual Science and Medical Therapy - Lecture II
as retrieved form the Rudolf Steiner Archive

[Federica]

Moreover, I did not express an opinion on whether or not there is any risk of striving too much towards Health with a capital H, although, for example, Rodriel repeatedly did - but for some reason it didn't seem to trouble you much - and there are indeed reasons to think that the path of higher cognition is far from devoid of risks.

To add something I didn’t mention yet: that we may become “too healthy” is actually not my own idea. I didn’t say it, because I don’t want to hide behind the words of initiates, but it goes to show how I have become the object of critique, above and beyond the expressed thoughts. Would this same idea have received lightly ironic comments and warnings about the risks of doing evil in order to balance out the pursuit of the good, had "too healthy" not come from Federica, but from a trustworthy name? Unfortunately, this is emblematic of a common recent pattern. These things have been topping up through the years. I’ve been told it was not so important to develop true spiritual perception, and that it would come with the next life; I’ve been routinely lectured, psychologized, and presented with the report of all the wrong thoughts and feelings I supposedly nurture inside; I've been held responsible for other members having become inactive; and today, whatever the deeper reasons, I’m more and more criticized for who I am, through the pretext of what I express. Not that I’m above critique of course, and I will always be thankful to Cleric and Ashvin for bringing Anthroposophy and your related insights to my knowledge, but the discussions have become too constrained and negative at this point, and we might agree on this at least, that a break would be good. While I will surely miss the forum habit and the (hope for) unprejudiced discussion, I need to do the work in calmer psychic conditions, and hopefully you’ll enjoy smoother conversations now.