The realm of the Demiurge

[AshvinP]

As opposed to Cleric, I'm not open to share my spiritual experiences publicly, simply because the realities in the spiritual reams that I am experiencing are so far from human realities that it is impossible to describe them in the human language. One thing I know for sure is that these realities of higher realms are completely at odds with the realities of human domain, and my human nature and experience does not help me anymore with my life and progress in these domains.
...
But this quote from Steiner below and his insistence that we should remain tied to the human domain and that any intention to abandon it comes from Lucifer makes me quite suspicious. As we know according to the Gnostic tradition, Christ came to Earth exactly to help people to "abandon the path of earth evolution" and escape from the prison of the Demiurge's domain. Similar views are found in Buddhism and Hinduism where the minimum goal of the practice is to stop reincarnating in human and Brahma's realms. Anyway, I think at this point we should agree to disagree and probably stop as we discussed already all aspects of the topic, and should leave the question for the other members to answer for themselves.

Thats fine, Eugene.

It should be noted that both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic ones are filled with parables which rely on imagery from the 'human domain' on Earth to communicate supra-sensory realities to our ordinary reasoning. That's because the 'human domain' is what the superimposed supra-sensory planes 'look like' to our ordinary decohered cognition which externalizes those planes into the sensory spectrum. This continuous reality is what makes all metaphors and parables possible.

"His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”

“It won’t come by looking for it. They won’t say, ‘Look over here!’ or ‘Look over there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it.” (Gospel of Thomas)

So that is at complete odds with what you write above (not to mention he also references the 'Demiurge'). Instead, what you wrote either signifies experiences of fantastical visions which are projected onto some 'beyond' and cannot be understood, or nothing at all.

As Cleric said, the very first step to higher cognition proper is to discover the inner reality of one's own intellectual voice which speculates on the supra-sensory realities, and you simply haven't taken the time to make that first step yet.

[Stranger]

Thats fine, Eugene.

It should be noted that both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic ones are filled with parables which rely on imagery from the 'human domain' on Earth to communicate supra-sensory realities to our ordinary reasoning. That's because the 'human domain' is what the superimposed supra-sensory planes 'look like' to our ordinary decohered cognition which externalizes those planes into the sensory spectrum. This continuous reality is what makes all metaphors and parables possible.

"His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”

“It won’t come by looking for it. They won’t say, ‘Look over here!’ or ‘Look over there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it.” (Gospel of Thomas)

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. ... my kingdom is from another place.” John 18:36

This relates to what I said about the dualistic perception which makes the human perception of reality completely decoherent from what it is in the highest supra-sensory planes (which are nondual by nature). In other words, the sensory experiences do originate in the supra-sensory, but get completely misinterpreted and distorted by human dualistic decoherent perception to such extent that the actual experience of the realities of supra-sensory is completely disconnected and veiled behind the artificial level of our decoherent cognition. We look at the world and see things that only exist in our mind's imaginations while not noticing the realities that are right here before our eyes. What is needed is not a gradual expansion of our human perception into the supra-sensory (even though that helps to), but mainly a "quantum leap" into a radically different nondual perception of reality. That is what Jesus meant when saying "the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it". But this is a topic completely different form the current thread and I do not even want to start discussing it (because I know we would never agree anyway )

But the reason why Steiner described the supra-sensory and sensory perceptions as continuous with each other is, IMO, simply because Steiner was perceiving into the astral (and possibly other adjacent planes) that are still shaped by dualistic perception.

[AshvinP]

Thats fine, Eugene.

It should be noted that both the canonical Gospels and the Gnostic ones are filled with parables which rely on imagery from the 'human domain' on Earth to communicate supra-sensory realities to our ordinary reasoning. That's because the 'human domain' is what the superimposed supra-sensory planes 'look like' to our ordinary decohered cognition which externalizes those planes into the sensory spectrum. This continuous reality is what makes all metaphors and parables possible.

"His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”

“It won’t come by looking for it. They won’t say, ‘Look over here!’ or ‘Look over there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it.” (Gospel of Thomas)

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. ... my kingdom is from another place.” John 18:36

This relates to what I said about the dualistic perception which makes the human perception of reality completely decoherent from what it is in the highest supra-sensory planes (which are nondual by nature). In other words, the sensory experiences do originate in the supra-sensory, but get completely misinterpreted and distorted by human dualistic decoherent perception to such extent that the actual experience of the realities of supra-sensory is completely disconnected and veiled behind the artificial level of our decoherent cognition. We look at the world and see things that only exist in our mind's imaginations while not noticing the realities that are right here before our eyes. What is needed is not a gradual expansion of our human perception into the supra-sensory (even though that helps to), but mainly a "quantum leap" into a radically different nondual perception of reality. That is what Jesus meant when saying "the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it". But this is a topic completely different form the current thread and I do not even want to start discussing it (because I know we would never agree anyway )

So now the canonical Gospels are no longer corrupted instutitional interpretations, when they seem to support your point

You are just revealing you have never seriously looked into the conscious development of imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Even the GPT chat tells us these are structured modes of cognition-perception available to us on the Eathly plane. The dualistic perception is your current perception of the Earthly spectrum, not that of all humans for all time.

Anway, people can certainly decide for themselves whether to gamble on someone telling them to rest their fate on a "quantum leap" into something that can't even be described or reasoned out, cynically abandonding their Mother Earth and all her kingdoms which support their current existence, or alternatively to gradually investigate the inner nature of the cognitive activity that is most intimate to them and which they experience every waking moment, participating in the Christ-centered redemption and renewal of the Earth organism.

[Cleric K]

This relates to what I said about the dualistic perception which makes the human perception of reality completely decoherent from what it is in the highest supra-sensory planes (which are nondual by nature). In other words, the sensory experiences do originate in the supra-sensory, but get completely misinterpreted and distorted by human dualistic decoherent perception to such extent that the actual experience of the realities of supra-sensory is completely disconnected and veiled behind the artificial level of our decoherent cognition. We look at the world and see things that only exist in our mind's imaginations while not noticing the realities that are right here before our eyes. What is needed is not a gradual expansion of our human perception into the supra-sensory (even though that helps to), but mainly a "quantum leap" into a radically different nondual perception of reality. That is what Jesus meant when saying "the Father’s kingdom is already spread out over the earth, and people don’t see it". But this is a topic completely different form the current thread and I do not even want to start discussing it (because I know we would never agree anyway )

But the reason why Steiner described the supra-sensory and sensory perceptions as continuous with each other is, IMO, simply because Steiner was perceiving into the astral (and possibly other adjacent planes) that are still shaped by dualistic perception.

Eugene, we have often spoken here about how in dreams, great contradictions don’t make any impression on us. We’ve also said how becoming sensitive to such contradictions (reality checks) is one of the most common methods for lucid dreaming. It has always been said that all this is analogous to the relation of our intellectual cognition to higher cognition.

With what you say above, you practically cement à la Kantian position. You axiomatize the limitations of the Earthly stage as an absolute boundary of decoherence, which is impossible to penetrate while still in a body. So in a sense our essential being descends from the coherent strata of reality but when it reaches the intellectual stage of aggregation (where the Source has its Earthly self-consciousness) it at the same time becomes a self-enclosure. Now everything we can ever experience is only “things that only exist in our mind's imaginations”. In other words, we face the impenetrable wall of spiritual phenomena and reason about it with decohered intellectual concepts.

Now if we take this seriously, it follows as a first-order consequence of that axiom that anything we can ever speculate about existence beyond the boundary of decoherence, is by definition unreliable. There’s a hard discontinuity between the states so nothing from our ordinary life of reason can be used to assess the likelihood of one or another metaphysical belief.

Yet at the same time you base your philosophy on the most unreliable (if honestly judged by your own criteria) sources. For example, you say that disciplined, methodological and disinterested investigation of the deeper strata of reality is unreliable because all we ever have is imaginations in the mind that are confused for reality. At the same time, people who go through extremely traumatic events (NDEs), with zero preparation, equipped with completely materialistic concepts, are something that you base your philosophy on? Seriously, you yourself, after decades of meditation have reached the conclusion that the higher worlds are completely orthogonal to Earthly consciousness. You have given up making any sense of those experiences, even though you had years of sustained effort. At the same time, you gladly accept reports of random people who extract sensory-like conceptions of heaven – something which you have already declared to be impossible. If it was possible you would be already translating higher experiences through symbols and metaphors.

Many more examples can be given but I hope the point is clear. My question is whether you are conscious of this glaring contradiction? Do you realize that on one hand you axiomatize the human condition to be similar to a black hole which is in principle impossible to interact with the world beyond the event horizon. On the other hand, you turn all this around and freely cherry pick the words from NDE accounts and random ladies on youtube, selling magic potions and charging 300 bucks per ‘healing’ session. Words that according to your own axiom should have the information density of pure noise. I’m really interested how the scientist in you settles with all this?

[Stranger]

So now the canonical Gospels are no longer corrupted instutitional interpretations, when they seem to support your point

I do not reject the canonical Gospels, but I said that they are not a completely reliable source. The canonical Gospels are a mix of some original words of Christ with some later inclusions to support the institutional interpretation of Christ's teachings. Gnostic gospels have a lot of Christ sayings in common with canonical ones, yet completely different interpretation of them.

Now, if we even look at canonical corpus, let's read these quotes carefully:

"I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming, and he has no claim on Me" (John 14:30)

So Jesus is saying that the prince of darkness is in a full sense the ruler of this world (the Earth and humanity) that are under his control and manipulation.

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:1)

Paul is saying that these rulers are hierarchically structured authorities that reside "in the heavenly places" ( = astral realm)

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

Thats exactly the description of the "false light" masquerading "as servants of righteousness", exactly as that girl in the video described it

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God (1 John 4)

John is asking people to exercise spiritual discernment when dealing with discarnate entities, exactly as that girl in the video described it

Anway, people can certainly decide for themselves whether to gamble on someone telling them to rest their fate on a "quantum leap" into something that can't even be described or reasoned out, cynically abandonding their Mother Earth and all her kingdoms which support their current existence, or alternatively to gradually investigate the inner nature of the cognitive activity that is most intimate to them and which they experience every waking moment, participating in the Christ-centered redemption and renewal of the Earth organism.

So, according even to canonical Gospels - see above, - the Mother Earth was taken over by the hierarchies of the Demiurge. The Demiurge takes the appearance of "the angel of light" and by this false light appearance deceives human souls and reroutes them after death into the soul recycling system. Gnostics believed that the Demiurge was actually the creator of the Earth, but that may not be necessarily true, some modern views claim that he just took over the Earth and shaped the human genetics of to his needs by genetic engineering and set up the soul recycling system in the astral dimension above the Earth. Christ redemption was to free human souls from this soul recycling system of endless reincarnation into human form. This is why even the official Church refuted the idea of reincarnation (the Origen's view of transmigration of souls was declared a heresy).

The question now is: who are the "hierarchies" that "shape the curvatures" of human evolution that Steiner is referring to, and why is he so insistent on human souls staying in the Earth reincarnation system and forbidding them to leave it? Huh?

The dualistic perception is your current perception of the Earthly spectrum, not that of all humans for all time.

The dualistic perception is what all humans have genetically, including you. Unfortunately you have no clue what nondualistic perception is, so there is no point of discussing it here.

[AshvinP]

So now the canonical Gospels are no longer corrupted instutitional interpretations, when they seem to support your point

I do not reject the canonical Gospels, but I said that they are not a completely reliable source. The canonical Gospels are a mix of some original words of Christ with some later inclusions to support the institutional interpretation of Christ's teachings. Gnostic gospels have a lot of Christ sayings in common with canonical ones, yet completely different interpretation of them.

And the "original words" are what seem to support your intellectual conspiracy theory (if taken completely out of context and treated as referring to sensory-like objects), while the "later inclusions" are everything that clearly doesn't. Everyone here can see what your intellect is compelling you to do to justify its own desires and preferences, except you. It's no different than the religious fundamentalist who feels compelled to ignore everything in scripture about humans playing an active role in their own salvation, reincarnation, connections to pagan mythology, etc.

The dualistic perception is your current perception of the Earthly spectrum, not that of all humans for all time.

The dualistic perception is what all humans have genetically, including you. Unfortunately you have no clue what nondualistic perception is, so there is no point of discussing it here.

As Cleric wrote in the last post, you are cementing the Kantian dualism with "genetics", while nevertheless relying on your "genetic" dualistic perception and that of random people on the internet to intrepet the scripture, access the higher planes, and build up an entire spritual worldview. Do you have any self-awareness of that, or not?

[Stranger]

With what you say above, you practically cement à la Kantian position. You axiomatize the limitations of the Earthly stage as an absolute boundary of decoherence, which is impossible to penetrate while still in a body. So in a sense our essential being descends from the coherent strata of reality but when it reaches the intellectual stage of aggregation (where the Source has its Earthly self-consciousness) it at the same time becomes a self-enclosure. Now everything we can ever experience is only “things that only exist in our mind's imaginations”. In other words, we face the impenetrable wall of spiritual phenomena and reason about it with decohered intellectual concepts.

It absolutely has nothing to do with Kantian view. It is absolutely possible to penetrate the dualistic human perception while still in a body, this is what all nondual traditions are all about. The wall of dualistic perception is absolutely penetrable, even right now for you and me and everyone through acquiring a nondual perception of reality, but such perception is so radically different from dualistic that requires a "quantum leap" in the way of perceiving the world. Note that the raw sensory data in nondualistic perception remains the same, it's the perception of it that is radically different.

Yet at the same time you base your philosophy on the most unreliable (if honestly judged by your own criteria) sources. For example, you say that disciplined, methodological and disinterested investigation of the deeper strata of reality is unreliable because all we ever have is imaginations in the mind that are confused for reality. At the same time, people who go through extremely traumatic events (NDEs), with zero preparation, equipped with completely materialistic concepts, are something that you base your philosophy on? Seriously, you yourself, after decades of meditation have reached the conclusion that the higher worlds are completely orthogonal to Earthly consciousness. You have given up making any sense of those experiences, even though you had years of sustained effort. At the same time, you gladly accept reports of random people who extract sensory-like conceptions of heaven – something which you have already declared to be impossible. If it was possible you would be already translating higher experiences through symbols and metaphors.

I think you totally misunderstood me: I have not given up, I am perceiving this earthly world as well as some areas of the higher worlds from nondual perspective that is orthogonal to ordinary human dualistic way of perception, and this nondual perception makes a perfect sense to me. At the same time, my human nature continues perceiving the world dualistically just like every human does. So, I perceive the reality from two perspectives simultaneously, it's like looking at the world with two different kinds of eyes. It is obvious for me that the dualistic perception is totally decoherent and distorted way of perception, but I cannot stop it because it is produced in subconscious levels of my human part of mind. I can cope with living with such "double perspective" for the rest of my human life, but I see no point or benefit in continuing this after I leave, it would make no sense to me.

[Stranger]

As Cleric wrote in the last post, you are cementing the Kantian dualism with "genetics", while nevertheless relying on your "genetic" dualistic perception and that of random people on the internet to intrepet the scripture, access the higher planes, and build up an entire spritual worldview. Do you have any self-awareness of that, or not?

No Kantian dualism, see my response to Cleric.

[Stranger]

PS: so, to summarize:
- According to even canonical Gospels (leave alone the Gnostic ones), Christ's redemption mission was to free human souls from the human "fallen" form that is under control of "the prince of this world" and his hierarchy of "authorities" residing in in the astral "heavenly places" and "masquerading as an angel of light". This is also why he never mentioned reincarnation (and the official Church declared the idea of reincarnation as a heresy). At this time his Kingdom is "not of this world", but he promised to return to Earth at his second coming and free the Earth from the rule of "the prince" so that the earth can become a dwelling place for enlightened souls ("Kingdom of Heven on Earth"), but this has not happened yet. The Kingdom of Heaven is a nondual state of consciousness, a state of experiential unity with the Divine and all its creation (which obviously assumes nondual perception of reality):

"I and my Father are one" John 10:30
"I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me." John 17:21
"Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." The Gospel of Thomas

- This was exactly the Buddha's mission as well - to help humans break free from reincarnation wheel in samsara, which is the realm of dualistic perception of reality under control of the fallen deity called "Brahma" and his "ministers" (which includes the Earth realm) according to the Buddhist views. The way to break from samsara was to attain a state of enlightenment/nirvana - a nondual state of consciousness (I can give tons of quotes on that from Buddhist sources)
- The accounts from NDE reports, reincarnation memory case studies (Prof. Stevensen), regression therapy, hypnotic states, mediumship, pre-birth memories etc also support this view. At this time the amount of these accounts is so enormous that it would be silly to deny at least some reality and truth in them.

Now guys, think for yourselves - which side are you serving?

[Stranger]

PS:
- So, in all Gospels (both canonical and Gnostic) and in the whole Christian tradition it has never been mentioned that human souls are supposed to keep reincarnating back to human form. This would only be possible after the second coming of Christ where he would restore (="resurrect") the human nature (from the fallen dualistic and egoic state of consciousness), release it from the rule of "the prince of this world" and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Where would the souls go in the midtime? "In my Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:1)
- In the Buddhist and Hindu traditions reincarnation is confirmed, but only to reveal that the purpose of the spiritual path for humans is to free from the endless cycle of reincarnating back to humans (or any other samsaric beings).
- All the above traditions confirm the reality of corrupted hierarchical structure of discarnate beings ruling the humanity.

Now, Steiner comes and combines both traditions in a weird way by claiming that reincarnation is real but human souls are supposed to keep reincarnating back into humans (and into corrupted human nature with its inherited dualistic and egoic state of consciousness) and keep slowly evolving under the guidance of discarnate "hierarchies" residing in the "heavenly places" with no way to leave this cycle of reincarnation. Huh?