I was reading this:

[idlecuriosity]

>And this is the reason for the constructive criticism here. All effort should be to deepen our soul life and understand the higher strata of reality, which otherwise blindly pull our yoke and we believe that we fulfill our own desires. Unfortunately it is precisely the late soul mood of BK which forecloses any possibility for such deepening - since the soul depths are seen as inexplicable black box, into which no form of cognition can ever penetrate. This practically puts the lid on evolution and no one should be surprised when in the future people who have left behind materialism long ago, wage occult wars between each other, utilizing the forces of the one field of consciousness through the dark arts.

from cleric. No, I'm not about to ask how to blow things up with thunderbolts ^^; as funny as that'd be.

I think someone who I respected a lot years ago was heavily into occult ideation and sought to curse me for a mishap I inflicted on him and his friend, this was fifteen years ago or more. He was a very scientific person. I do think it would explain a lot of my absurd characteristics and why things never returned to 'normal' for me mentally. I shouldn't feel this constrained by these realizations, my soul should be liberated to limit itself or be good or evil as all humans have the choice to normally do, but I think there may have been a hex put on me ages ago which is making me come to some of these reductive and imprisoned conclusions and is also exacerbating mental illness in me

Is there a way to cure oneself in the event of this happening or assuming someone by chance learns how, we still don't know enough to cure it? If it CAN happen. I have things I hate but I wouldn't want to cheat with magic in my confrontation on these issues so I wouldn't rely on that, if it's something you'd be reticent to share. I am proud to a fault and simply covering bases

This might be a stupid thing to ask but I wanted to make sure of it. No shortage of dumb threads from me so by all means lock whatever necessitates it

bonus question: any alien lifeforms out there who might be using this occult shit? that'd explain some ufos

[Cleric K]

>And this is the reason for the constructive criticism here. All effort should be to deepen our soul life and understand the higher strata of reality, which otherwise blindly pull our yoke and we believe that we fulfill our own desires. Unfortunately it is precisely the late soul mood of BK which forecloses any possibility for such deepening - since the soul depths are seen as inexplicable black box, into which no form of cognition can ever penetrate. This practically puts the lid on evolution and no one should be surprised when in the future people who have left behind materialism long ago, wage occult wars between each other, utilizing the forces of the one field of consciousness through the dark arts.

from cleric. No, I'm not about to ask how to blow things up with thunderbolts ^^; as funny as that'd be.

I think someone who I respected a lot years ago was heavily into occult ideation and sought to curse me for a mishap I inflicted on him and his friend, this was fifteen years ago or more. He was a very scientific person. I do think it would explain a lot of my absurd characteristics and why things never returned to 'normal' for me mentally. I shouldn't feel this constrained by these realizations, my soul should be liberated to limit itself or be good or evil as all humans have the choice to normally do, but I think there may have been a hex put on me ages ago which is making me come to some of these reductive and imprisoned conclusions and is also exacerbating mental illness in me

Is there a way to cure oneself in the event of this happening or assuming someone by chance learns how, we still don't know enough to cure it? If it CAN happen. I have things I hate but I wouldn't want to cheat with magic in my confrontation on these issues so I wouldn't rely on that, if it's something you'd be reticent to share. I am proud to a fault and simply covering bases

This might be a stupid thing to ask but I wanted to make sure of it. No shortage of dumb threads from me so by all means lock whatever necessitates it

bonus question: any alien lifeforms out there who might be using this occult shit? that'd explain some ufos

Hi IC,

Just a quick note first about the string of chakras that you refer to. I'm glad that you have felt the mandalic depth of our inner being but it should be noted that taking the chakras as poles of the 'one and the many' can be misleading. It is surely convenient for the intellect to project this polarity over the chakra axis but it would be incorrect if we one-sidedly imagine that the root is our personality while the crown is the collective. It can certainly be seen in this way but it is only one side of the story.

These are not easy matters but we can approach them through analogies. When we delve into the sensory spectrum and go on to analyze it, we gradually reach concepts as atoms, electrons, quarks and so on. If we take a particle of our body we can say this is as far as one can go into the fragmentation from the collective. One can say it is the root - extreme separation. But there's another very interesting aspect of it. Note that the more we move towards these fragments the more similar they become. Everyone of us lives within an unique constellation of organs and processes. Yet the more we look into these organs the more commonality we find. For example, our brains are all different but still everyone has a brain. Then at the cellular level our ribosomes, enzymes and so on are almost identical. Then at the level of particles they are practically clones of each other. So there's interesting relation. Even though we're zooming into extreme differentiation, we're also approaching universal sameness. In a similar sense, as far as the chakras are concerned, it is not the root chakra that makes us the unique individuality that we are. In fact, if it was only for that chakra, we all would be completely the same, like identical electrons.

So things need to be seen from many more angles. We should postpone our desire to project everything on a convenient axis and make intellectual model of reality in this way. Rather, the living mandalic depth should be organized further. Then we find the various lotus flowers in a completely different way and not simply as abstract ticks along an imaginary axis. The human being is not a point along that axis. It's incorrect to say "that person is still at the root, while that has reached all the way to the head". Our consciousness is always a superposition of all the organs. It would be more appropriate to think of them as strings of a musical instrument that have to be attuned. This is where the popular concepts about Kundalini as some energy rising from below upwards, lighting up chakras one by one, is very detrimental for modern man. Messing in this way with the lower man usually simply unleashes certain passions - usually of the basest kinds. The spiritual constitution of modern man compared that to the ancient Hindu is very different. Trying to apply these ancient methods for the modern man is a recipe for disaster.

Now on your question. Yes, we're influencing each other in the most various ways. And one doesn't even need to consult occult books for this. For example, when we continually think spitefully about someone we may happen to hate, we're already poisoning not only them but also ourselves.

The methods of Light are different. Can we hurt the Sun? Anything thrown at it will immediately pulverize. So should the human aura also become. Of course we can't produce this Light entirely from ourselves. Instead, we are to become channels of this Divine Fire.

So there's a lot you can do about your condition and this doesn't at all imply taking revenge to anyone. But the catch is that we can't do that without us changing in the process. As long as we're in love with our situation, we'll prefer to seek the meds the alleviate it without us having to change a thing about us. Now you may say "What do you mean being in love with the situation? It causes me nothing but misery!" Well, quite funnily, isn't this quite the same with what the so called human love turns out for many? Don't millions of people fall in love with that man or woman who makes their life a living hell? (not trying to suggest that only one side is responsible for that, of course)

So if you dig deeper you'll see that there things you may be secretly loving about the condition. For example, some people may feel a little special in this way. They are slightly out of the ordinary, even slightly proud to be little crazy "But we're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy" And in as sense this is true, except we should know what kind of 'craziness' we talk about.

I wanted to mention this to Federica in relation to:

Another feeling referenced as necessary to cultivate, that I have felt, is the immersive feeling of being lost in the cosmic void without clues about our own being.

This is an amazing feeling when we begin to forebode the immensity of the spiritual Cosmos. It is true that through knowledge we begin to orient but the thing that really makes the difference is Love. Only when we begin to feel that this immensity within and without us is focused on us, the tiny speck on Earth, the terror and panic of the beyond begins to transform into the Love of the Divine. For some the Divine Fire is the fire of hell, while for others it is the Fire of Divine Love.

Our human aura becomes concentric to the The Great Aura (the ancient Persians called it Ahura Mazda) and is being fueled by it. This is not a mechanical process but one of the utmost intimacy. This kind of Love requires something more than even the strongest love between man and woman. "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes delight in my ways." The Divine doesn't need our heart. It is we who benefit from this. To drink the blood and eat the flesh of the Divine refers to something so intimate that mystics would much rather call the ego an illusion and put it into the corner, rather than see it as the tabernacle within which the holy of holies is concealed.

Once I used a metaphor in a conversation with Ashvin. When we step into the flow of the Divine Love, it is as if this flow acts as comb. It straightens our subtle channels, unties knots, purges blockages. The mandalic depth grows into our auric volume concentrically embedded in the Cosmic spheres. The pressure of Love fills our being and expands it. It's interesting to see how the wings of a butterfly are inflated by pumping fluid into them:



Metaphorically we can say that Divine Love pumps through our "I" and inflates our small solar aura to its proper potential.

So the questions is: what/who will we give our heart to? To that which can make us a living spring that never runs dry and goes in the meadows to quench the thirst of its fellow beings? Or to those that will take the little water we have and leave us on the sands for the vultures to feast.

[idlecuriosity]

>And this is the reason for the constructive criticism here. All effort should be to deepen our soul life and understand the higher strata of reality, which otherwise blindly pull our yoke and we believe that we fulfill our own desires. Unfortunately it is precisely the late soul mood of BK which forecloses any possibility for such deepening - since the soul depths are seen as inexplicable black box, into which no form of cognition can ever penetrate. This practically puts the lid on evolution and no one should be surprised when in the future people who have left behind materialism long ago, wage occult wars between each other, utilizing the forces of the one field of consciousness through the dark arts.

from cleric. No, I'm not about to ask how to blow things up with thunderbolts ^^; as funny as that'd be.

I think someone who I respected a lot years ago was heavily into occult ideation and sought to curse me for a mishap I inflicted on him and his friend, this was fifteen years ago or more. He was a very scientific person. I do think it would explain a lot of my absurd characteristics and why things never returned to 'normal' for me mentally. I shouldn't feel this constrained by these realizations, my soul should be liberated to limit itself or be good or evil as all humans have the choice to normally do, but I think there may have been a hex put on me ages ago which is making me come to some of these reductive and imprisoned conclusions and is also exacerbating mental illness in me

Is there a way to cure oneself in the event of this happening or assuming someone by chance learns how, we still don't know enough to cure it? If it CAN happen. I have things I hate but I wouldn't want to cheat with magic in my confrontation on these issues so I wouldn't rely on that, if it's something you'd be reticent to share. I am proud to a fault and simply covering bases

This might be a stupid thing to ask but I wanted to make sure of it. No shortage of dumb threads from me so by all means lock whatever necessitates it

bonus question: any alien lifeforms out there who might be using this occult shit? that'd explain some ufos

Hi IC,

Just a quick note first about the string of chakras that you refer to. I'm glad that you have felt the mandalic depth of our inner being but it should be noted that taking the chakras as poles of the 'one and the many' can be misleading. It is surely convenient for the intellect to project this polarity over the chakra axis but it would be incorrect if we one-sidedly imagine that the root is our personality while the crown is the collective. It can certainly be seen in this way but it is only one side of the story.

Both can be important and it is up to us to decide which is good for us as an individual, that is the test put upon the world. If it isn't our choice and we don't find both valuable, there is no reward in it to let us cultivate. The root is needed to develop and stay sane to ground us, that way the rule can be broken as we climb to the crown. I didn't 'feel' this, it's just demonstrable

[idlecuriosity]

Mostly just annoyed I felt my post wasn't even addressed.

[Cleric K]

Both can be important and it is up to us to decide which is good for us as an individual, that is the test put upon the world. If it isn't our choice and we don't find both valuable, there is no reward in it to let us cultivate. The root is needed to develop and stay sane to ground us, that way the rule can be broken as we climb to the crown. I didn't 'feel' this, it's just demonstrable

I fully agree about the grounding. My point was only the following. What we're here speaking of has completely practical dimension. For example, when speaking of 'grounding' we can try to describe clearly what that means in everyday terms. We can distinguish between being present and oriented in space and time, and walking in a daydream, with our head in clouds of fantasy. Now think honestly about the following. Try to forget for a moment everything you have read about Kundalini, chakras and so on. Then think about this practical dimension of being grounded. Would that ever bring to you something like "Yes, I definitely feel that while I'm sane and grounded I live in the base of my spine"? Or you would much rather feel present in your head, lucid, sane with clear concepts for every perception? This is all I wanted to point out. That today we should seek the experiential aspect of everything. Other than that, as I said, this sane grounding is a must and it happens in the fullest sense when we begin to be conscious of our thinking and its musical structure (saneness is a quality of thought after all, isn't it?).

Mostly just annoyed I felt my post wasn't even addressed.

Well, the things that I did not address were ufos and shit Other than that I tried to speak precisely about what you asked - about the way to cure oneself. You said that you don't want to cheat with magic so I spoke precisely about that. Today we accept disease (in the most general sense), as a normal aspect of existence. Yet the Spirit can not be sick. Disease manifests only when the convoluted layers of being begin to get out of phase. So I spoke about getting in sync with Cosmic happenings - the flow of Divine Love. 'Coincidentally' this is also the path of evolution. So it's in the plan of evolution that disease should become a thing of the past. Cheating with magic is like cheating with meds - we only treat the symptoms. To address the causes we must enter deeper into the living being of the Cosmos to address also the archetypal disbalances that fractally project in all aspects of our Earthly existence.

[Federica]

...
I wanted to mention this to Federica in relation to:

Another feeling referenced as necessary to cultivate, that I have felt, is the immersive feeling of being lost in the cosmic void without clues about our own being.

This is an amazing feeling when we begin to forebode the immensity of the spiritual Cosmos. It is true that through knowledge we begin to orient but the thing that really makes the difference is Love. Only when we begin to feel that this immensity within and without us is focused on us, the tiny speck on Earth, the terror and panic of the beyond begins to transform into the Love of the Divine. For some the Divine Fire is the fire of hell, while for others it is the Fire of Divine Love.

Our human aura becomes concentric to the The Great Aura (the ancient Persians called it Ahura Mazda) and is being fueled by it. This is not a mechanical process but one of the utmost intimacy. This kind of Love requires something more than even the strongest love between man and woman. "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes delight in my ways." The Divine doesn't need our heart. It is we who benefit from this. To drink the blood and eat the flesh of the Divine refers to something so intimate that mystics would much rather call the ego an illusion and put it into the corner, rather than see it as the tabernacle within which the holy of holies is concealed.

Once I used a metaphor in a conversation with Ashvin. When we step into the flow of the Divine Love, it is as if this flow acts as comb. It straightens our subtle channels, unties knots, purges blockages. The mandalic depth grows into our auric volume concentrically embedded in the Cosmic spheres. The pressure of Love fills our being and expands it. It's interesting to see how the wings of a butterfly are inflated by pumping fluid into them:



Metaphorically we can say that Divine Love pumps through our "I" and inflates our small solar aura to its proper potential.

So the questions is: what/who will we give our heart to? To that which can make us a living spring that never runs dry and goes in the meadows to quench the thirst of its fellow beings? Or to those that will take the little water we have and leave us on the sands for the vultures to feast.

Cleric,

I’m not sure, I believe your message could be directed to elicit some healthy ‘terror and panic’? If it’s so, it’s well-timed. I understand that it’s necessary to feel in that spectrum, as a normal, human, healthy reaction to some understanding of the stakes. And it is true that I don’t really feel that way for now. I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m being hesitant and cautious about really going all-in on the inner experience, or if there are some more serious reasons. Facing the immensity of the cosmic void, the importance of the stakes - or rather imagining that I’m facing it only - my feeling in the ‘panic and terror area’ is more of the type ‘what do I have to lose’, 'nothing to lose'. Maybe a less evolved version of the due awe, tiny speck sense, and panic, that needs transformation. But I do read a share of cautionary tone in this post, if that was the idea. The vultures' feast on the hearts of the unwise is scary. Although the question is finally of scarce relevance, I can't help but try to discern if the tone is really there, or if I’m just projecting it.
Nevertheless, I am not missing the Love focus of your message and I thank you for reviving, further clarifying (in literal sense) and enriching the feeling of Love and the understanding of the Christ impulse that I am, somewhat shyly, familiarizing myself with, since Ashvin pointed to the Mystery of the Golgotha.

[AshvinP]

Cleric,

I’m not sure, I believe your message could be directed to elicit some healthy ‘terror and panic’? If it’s so, it’s well-timed. I understand that it’s necessary to feel in that spectrum, as a normal, human, healthy reaction to some understanding of the stakes. And it is true that I don’t really feel that way for now. I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m being hesitant and cautious about really going all-in on the inner experience, or if there are some more serious reasons. Facing the immensity of the cosmic void, the importance of the stakes - or rather imagining that I’m facing it only - my feeling in the ‘panic and terror area’ is more of the type ‘what do I have to lose’, 'nothing to lose'. Maybe a less evolved version of the due awe, tiny speck sense, and panic, that needs transformation. But I do read a share of cautionary tone in this post, if that was the idea. The vultures' feast on the hearts of the unwise is scary. Although the question is finally of scarce relevance, I can't help but try to discern if the tone is really there, or if I’m just projecting it.
Nevertheless, I am not missing the Love focus of your message and I thank you for reviving, further clarifying (in literal sense) and enriching the feeling of Love and the understanding of the Christ impulse that I am, somewhat shyly, familiarizing myself with, since Ashvin pointed to the Mystery of the Golgotha.

Federica,

As we await Cleric's response, let me present a crude analogy to consider. Let's say we are entering a wild forest at night. We are all entering - it doesn't matter if we are seeking out the higher worlds, meditating, developing higher cognition and the soul chakras, or even conscious of the fact we have entered the forest (the physical plane coalescing with the spiritual). We're all stumbling around in the dark, looking for a path forwards or, for far too many these days, somewhere to rest comfortably. This forest is teeming with 'monsters' of all sorts. Uneven ground, tree branches growing every which way, dense plant growth, wild animals. We start with a pack containing some food, water, a small knife, mosquito repellent, and a battery powered flashlight. Soon the latter dies out though. That's basically where modern intellectual man is now - in the thick of the forest with a quickly fading light and increasingly dull blade (the intellect).

Everyone has to keep moving through the forest or they die. The only difference is the initiate on the spiritual path learns to work with the Divine Fire to light up torches as needed. These shed light along the path, burn away the dense growth, ward off the wild animals. The initiates even learn to use the uneven ground and plant growth to their advantage. They seek out higher elevations to survey the paths forward, figure out what plants can be eaten for food. The wild animals are much harder to tame and put into service of the high ideal - the promised land of 'milk and honey' which awaits beyond the forest, where many fellow travelers are already awaiting our arrival - but even this can be done.

What is different for the uninitiated and the initiates? They are journeying through the same forest with the same ground, plants, and animals. Only the latter has become more self-conscious of this journey by making his inner being resonate with the inner Sun, the source of the Divine Fire. The same exact landscape goes from a terrifying death trap to a rich path towards spiritual treasures and freedom in communion with the Beings underlying all the life forms of the forest, even the ground itself. (the dark artist could be a guy with a high beam flashlight who spends the battery life roaming around the forest accumulating forest possessions to stuff into his pack... eventually it will die out, he won't be able to rekindle a light from the Sun, he will lose everything he accumulated, and will be stranded in the middle of the forest).

I think you are having glimmers of this inner courage from the Divine Fire. And the extent to which you continue cultivating it is also the extent to which you embrace the journey forwards into the currently shadowy, unknown yet promising and new Light-bearing future. But it's also not a linear development straight upwards. There will be times of fear, doubt, uncertainty. There will be times when it may feel like you are stumbling forwards in the dark again or even backwards a bit. You will become more sensitive to the darker spirits working within the mechanistic environment of modern culture and technology (the indigenous cannibals of the forest, no offense to them ), and to the immensity of the tasks before humanity, tasks which it is dreadfully failing to meet at the moment. But nothing will be too much to overcome the Light and Warmth, the Wisdom and Love, of the Fire within.

[Federica]

Cleric,

I’m not sure, I believe your message could be directed to elicit some healthy ‘terror and panic’? If it’s so, it’s well-timed. I understand that it’s necessary to feel in that spectrum, as a normal, human, healthy reaction to some understanding of the stakes. And it is true that I don’t really feel that way for now. I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m being hesitant and cautious about really going all-in on the inner experience, or if there are some more serious reasons. Facing the immensity of the cosmic void, the importance of the stakes - or rather imagining that I’m facing it only - my feeling in the ‘panic and terror area’ is more of the type ‘what do I have to lose’, 'nothing to lose'. Maybe a less evolved version of the due awe, tiny speck sense, and panic, that needs transformation. But I do read a share of cautionary tone in this post, if that was the idea. The vultures' feast on the hearts of the unwise is scary. Although the question is finally of scarce relevance, I can't help but try to discern if the tone is really there, or if I’m just projecting it.
Nevertheless, I am not missing the Love focus of your message and I thank you for reviving, further clarifying (in literal sense) and enriching the feeling of Love and the understanding of the Christ impulse that I am, somewhat shyly, familiarizing myself with, since Ashvin pointed to the Mystery of the Golgotha.

Federica,

As we await Cleric's response, let me present a crude analogy to consider. Let's say we are entering a wild forest at night. We are all entering - it doesn't matter if we are seeking out the higher worlds, meditating, developing higher cognition and the soul chakras, or even conscious of the fact we have entered the forest (the physical plane coalescing with the spiritual). We're all stumbling around in the dark, looking for a path forwards or, for far too many these days, somewhere to rest comfortably. This forest is teeming with 'monsters' of all sorts. Uneven ground, tree branches growing every which way, dense plant growth, wild animals. We start with a pack containing some food, water, a small knife, mosquito repellent, and a battery powered flashlight. Soon the latter dies out though. That's basically where modern intellectual man is now - in the thick of the forest with a quickly fading light and increasingly dull blade (the intellect).

Everyone has to keep moving through the forest or they die. The only difference is the initiate on the spiritual path learns to work with the Divine Fire to light up torches as needed. These shed light along the path, burn away the dense growth, ward off the wild animals. The initiates even learn to use the uneven ground and plant growth to their advantage. They seek out higher elevations to survey the paths forward, figure out what plants can be eaten for food. The wild animals are much harder to tame and put into service of the high ideal - the promised land of 'milk and honey' which awaits beyond the forest, where many fellow travelers are already awaiting our arrival - but even this can be done.

What is different for the uninitiated and the initiates? They are journeying through the same forest with the same ground, plants, and animals. Only the latter has become more self-conscious of this journey by making his inner being resonate with the inner Sun, the source of the Divine Fire. The same exact landscape goes from a terrifying death trap to a rich path towards spiritual treasures and freedom in communion with the Beings underlying all the life forms of the forest, even the ground itself. (the dark artist could be a guy with a high beam flashlight who spends the battery life roaming around the forest accumulating forest possessions to stuff into his pack... eventually it will die out, he won't be able to rekindle a light from the Sun, he will lose everything he accumulated, and will be stranded in the middle of the forest).

I think you are having glimmers of this inner courage from the Divine Fire. And the extent to which you continue cultivating it is also the extent to which you embrace the journey forwards into the currently shadowy, unknown yet promising and new Light-bearing future. But it's also not a linear development straight upwards. There will be times of fear, doubt, uncertainty. There will be times when it may feel like you are stumbling forwards in the dark again or even backwards a bit. You will become more sensitive to the darker spirits working within the mechanistic environment of modern culture and technology (the indigenous cannibals of the forest, no offense to them ), and to the immensity of the tasks before humanity, tasks which it is dreadfully failing to meet at the moment. But nothing will be too much to overcome the Light and Warmth, the Wisdom and Love, of the Fire within.

Thank you Ashvin, your analogy maps out the situation as an almost comfortable (yes, comfortable) prospect. It’s a great reminder. I don’t know what the exact nature of what I am receiving is, if it’s glimmers of courage, but something is happening, and I have a truly positive attitude towards that, for now. : ) I know that bumps are inevitable. I already experienced some, as you might have noticed. If you think it makes sense I would be interested in those indigenous cannibals. Is there any example you can give?

[AshvinP]

Cleric,

I’m not sure, I believe your message could be directed to elicit some healthy ‘terror and panic’? If it’s so, it’s well-timed. I understand that it’s necessary to feel in that spectrum, as a normal, human, healthy reaction to some understanding of the stakes. And it is true that I don’t really feel that way for now. I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m being hesitant and cautious about really going all-in on the inner experience, or if there are some more serious reasons. Facing the immensity of the cosmic void, the importance of the stakes - or rather imagining that I’m facing it only - my feeling in the ‘panic and terror area’ is more of the type ‘what do I have to lose’, 'nothing to lose'. Maybe a less evolved version of the due awe, tiny speck sense, and panic, that needs transformation. But I do read a share of cautionary tone in this post, if that was the idea. The vultures' feast on the hearts of the unwise is scary. Although the question is finally of scarce relevance, I can't help but try to discern if the tone is really there, or if I’m just projecting it.
Nevertheless, I am not missing the Love focus of your message and I thank you for reviving, further clarifying (in literal sense) and enriching the feeling of Love and the understanding of the Christ impulse that I am, somewhat shyly, familiarizing myself with, since Ashvin pointed to the Mystery of the Golgotha.

Federica,

As we await Cleric's response, let me present a crude analogy to consider. Let's say we are entering a wild forest at night. We are all entering - it doesn't matter if we are seeking out the higher worlds, meditating, developing higher cognition and the soul chakras, or even conscious of the fact we have entered the forest (the physical plane coalescing with the spiritual). We're all stumbling around in the dark, looking for a path forwards or, for far too many these days, somewhere to rest comfortably. This forest is teeming with 'monsters' of all sorts. Uneven ground, tree branches growing every which way, dense plant growth, wild animals. We start with a pack containing some food, water, a small knife, mosquito repellent, and a battery powered flashlight. Soon the latter dies out though. That's basically where modern intellectual man is now - in the thick of the forest with a quickly fading light and increasingly dull blade (the intellect).

Everyone has to keep moving through the forest or they die. The only difference is the initiate on the spiritual path learns to work with the Divine Fire to light up torches as needed. These shed light along the path, burn away the dense growth, ward off the wild animals. The initiates even learn to use the uneven ground and plant growth to their advantage. They seek out higher elevations to survey the paths forward, figure out what plants can be eaten for food. The wild animals are much harder to tame and put into service of the high ideal - the promised land of 'milk and honey' which awaits beyond the forest, where many fellow travelers are already awaiting our arrival - but even this can be done.

What is different for the uninitiated and the initiates? They are journeying through the same forest with the same ground, plants, and animals. Only the latter has become more self-conscious of this journey by making his inner being resonate with the inner Sun, the source of the Divine Fire. The same exact landscape goes from a terrifying death trap to a rich path towards spiritual treasures and freedom in communion with the Beings underlying all the life forms of the forest, even the ground itself. (the dark artist could be a guy with a high beam flashlight who spends the battery life roaming around the forest accumulating forest possessions to stuff into his pack... eventually it will die out, he won't be able to rekindle a light from the Sun, he will lose everything he accumulated, and will be stranded in the middle of the forest).

I think you are having glimmers of this inner courage from the Divine Fire. And the extent to which you continue cultivating it is also the extent to which you embrace the journey forwards into the currently shadowy, unknown yet promising and new Light-bearing future. But it's also not a linear development straight upwards. There will be times of fear, doubt, uncertainty. There will be times when it may feel like you are stumbling forwards in the dark again or even backwards a bit. You will become more sensitive to the darker spirits working within the mechanistic environment of modern culture and technology (the indigenous cannibals of the forest, no offense to them ), and to the immensity of the tasks before humanity, tasks which it is dreadfully failing to meet at the moment. But nothing will be too much to overcome the Light and Warmth, the Wisdom and Love, of the Fire within.

Thank you Ashvin, your analogy maps out the situation as an almost comfortable (yes, comfortable) prospect. It’s a great reminder. I don’t know what the exact nature of what I am receiving is, if it’s glimmers of courage, but something is happening, and I have a truly positive attitude towards that, for now. : ) I know that bumps are inevitable. I already experienced some, as you might have noticed. If you think it makes sense I would be interested in those indigenous cannibals. Is there any example you can give?

It's a pretty vast topic. In short, the current human being is to a large part woven from two polar streams of influence, which we have referred to in various places here. We could call them the over-spiritualizing and over-materializing forces, which are responsible for the wildly oscillating hysteresis process. These forces are absolutely necessary for human evolution, but recently they have become one-sided and intertwined in the most unhealthy ways. The over-spiritualizing force is often referred to as the 'Luciferic' in esoteric tradition. Actually, this Luciferic force is what makes philosophy, art, and even higher cognition possible. We must work with the Luciferic spirits today to reach out beyond our current stage of evolution, but it can easily become one-sided as we see in modern mysticism, for ex. Then it becomes an egoic desire to accumulate spiritual knowledge for oneself and escape the Earthly plane altogether. It can also unite with the over-materializing force in the form of sensuous pleasures and intellectualization of the higher worlds.

The more immediately threatening force for humanity today is the latter one. Cleric mentioned the ancient Persian name for the great Sun-being, Ahura Mazda. They also spoke of his adversary, Ahriman (or the Asuras). Goethe also reflected this adversary in his Faust, in the character of Mephistopheles (who he also gave some Lucifer qualities, because I don't think he held to a clear distinction between them). These are, of course, real spiritual beings and their 'offspring' we are dealing with here. They entered into human evolution quite some time ago and we are nested within their consciousness. We can't really function intellectually or imaginatively without their involvement in our being. But Ahriman has also become the source of our errors and lies re: higher worlds, and is sometimes called 'the lying spirit'. The age of materialism is due to his influences. His spirits are bound up with all modern mechanistic thinking and technology. So these influences I analogize to the 'indigenous cannibals' of the inner forest.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world." (1 Peter 5)

We really become sensitive to the mechanistic Ahrimanic influences pervading modern culture when developing imaginative cognition. It will confront us directly in meditation, in the form of our own intellectual chatter and distractions, but also in the outer world. I personally became pretty sensitive to it in pop songs or mechanized songs of all sort, but also most things involving machinery outside like construction work and what not. Steiner gives an example which may be a bit outdated for us:

When a man who has reached, shall we say, the first stages of initiation is in a position to allow the effects of modern civilisation to work upon himself, he has experiences which inform him more deeply about what this modern life signifies for the human being than external observation can ever do. For example, anyone who has taken even the first steps of the initiate-life lives differently through the experience arising from a night spent in a railway train or in a steamer — especially if the night has been slept through. The difference between one who has reached the first steps leading to initiation and one who has no connection whatever with it is that in the former case the experiences become conscious; the person realises what actually happens to him when he spends a night in a steamer or a railway train — especially if he has been asleep...

while we are asleep in a railway carriage we are right inside all the hubbub, the turbulent creakings and rumblings of the wheels and machinery of the train. It is the same in a steamer. We are within all this turmoil; we are caught up in these anything but musical experiences of our environment...

The effects of all the discordant hubbub, the jerking and the dragging, are brought into the physical and etheric bodies... He really brings with him a frightful pandemonium and tumult — a rattling, jangling tumult — and the effect upon the etheric body is the same as if the physical body were being crushed to pieces in a machine. This is of course a crude simile, but you will not misunderstand it.

Yet he also cautions against the natural Luciferic over-compensation to such experiences. These influences are everywhere in modern life and there is no healthy way of avoiding them.

All desire to withdraw, to protect oneself from the influences of unavoidable world-karma, emanates from weakness... Any kind of advice to withdraw from modern life, or to engage in a sort of hothouse cultivation of the spiritual life, should never find favour in the sphere of our movement. In a true culture of the spirit there can never be any question of such procedure. Although it is understandable that weaker natures would like to withdraw from modern life into communities where they will be untouched by it, it must nevertheless be emphasised that such an attitude is not the outcome of strength, but of weakness of the soul. Our real task is to strengthen the soul by permeating it with the impulses that come from Spiritual Science and spiritual research, so that it is armed against the influences of modern life, can hold its own in spite of all the surrounding hubbub, and be able to find its way through the tumult and din of the Ahrimanic beings into the spiritual-divine world.

[Federica]

Thanks for this overview. Clear!