Understanding the Christ-being and His Significance for the Future of Humanity

[AshvinP]

I would like to ask everyone who is familiar with this lecture: do you think humanity has passed the fork Steiner speaks of?

I think it's clear that those 'baleful doings' he references are spreading in modern culture. I can only imagine what Steiner would lecture today in the era of internet pornography which is celebrated as 'freedom' and 'broad-mindedness' and accessed by any young kid with a phone. Likewise there are plenty of injurious happenings in the sphere of modern 'sickcare'. And modern technology has progressed to the point of bots which allow people to remain completely asleep as they do our work for us. I am always coming across emails about how to use GPT for legal websites, blogs, and what not. So the momentum seems like it will take us quite a bit further into the mechanistic, aberrational, amoral depths before there is a counter-swing upwards.

Well, I think that's the case with the professional and ruling classes (which control the mass media) of the US, and to some extent of Europe and the other English-speaking countries, However, I also think there is a lot of pushback within those countries, and a lot more in other countries. So perhaps the counter-swing is under way.

I would call that more of a horizontal oscillation. There is certainly a 'conservative' or 'populist' reaction taking place, but still far short of embracing higher cognitive development. The problem is the people doing the reacting still envision themselves at the apex perspective, understanding the deeper dynamics of the World with only their concepts, even if those concepts are rooted in religion or even Christianity. Very few people want to confess that their own inner transformation is needed before there can be a genuine vertical move for humanity, and some religious types consider that practically equivalent to blasphemy. We see that pretty clearly even amongst the idealist-mystical leaning people.

At the same time, I do think that there are deeper cultural impulses which have been seeded and are growing beneath the surface of our normal public awareness of world events. Some of that may be dimly expressed in the pushback you mention. Eventually these currents will animate a new cultural 'spiral' which is rooted in genuine spiritual consciousness. Steiner does speak of how the Marxist tendencies of the East and Russia, even at his time when they were in full force, and despite the surface appearances, could be seen as insipient indications of our further evolution in the consciousness or spiritual soul as we approach the 6th epoch.

Spiritual Science, after all, is alone able to penetrate these things clearly, in the true direction of the age of the spiritual soul. Yet they emerge — as I have already indicated — they make their appearance here and there in a more or less tumultuous form, not only in the thoughts and opinions but in the events in which the men of the present day are living. It is characteristic, for example, to see what comes to expression in a recent speech by Trotsky. If you consider what I have just said about the desire to place Man in the very center of our World-conception, such words as Trotsky uses here will make an overwhelming, shattering impression upon you. He says: — “The communist or socialist doctrine has set itself, as one of its most important tasks, to attain at length on our old sinful Earth a state of affairs when men will cease to shoot at one another. Thus it is one of the tasks of Socialism or Communism to create a social order where for the first time man will be worthy of the name. We are wont to say with Gorki that the word Man strikes a proud and lofty note, yet in reality, looking over these three and three-quarter years of bloody murder, we would fain cry out: The sound of the word ‘Man’ is shameful and contemptible.”

At all events, you here see the question: — How can man become conscious of his human being, his human worth and human strength? — placed in a tumultuous way in the very center of attention at the beginning of a political speech. And, if you observe more closely, you will meet the same phenomenon in many people. What Spiritual Science realizes in a clearer way leads a shadowy existence in many human heads.

[Federica]

Ashvin,
Thank you for going back to my initial question. I actually don't know anything about the Rosicrucian path (apart from the occasional references you have done here and there) and I didn't intend to ask about it. My question was about possible connections between the modes of cognition of Steiner's SS and Steiner's seven stages of initiation. I should definitely read more about these stages, I see there's a series of lectures called From Jesus to Christ. But maybe this topic can be paused, I have more pressing questions right now (in a separate post).

The Rosicrucian path is Anthroposophy/SS, basically.

The 7 stages are the Christian mystical path, which Steiner also references and discusses to some extent. I have not come across any lectures which explicitly relate them to the steps outlined in Knowledge of Higher Worlds for ex., that I remember, but perhaps it is in the archive somewhere.

What I understand by reading here and there in the Steiner archive (not conclusive, there is so much to cover) is that these two paths are the same.

Ever since the Mystery of Golgotha up to our own times, a person who desired to come to a super-sensible experience of the Christ-Event had to go through the stages which you will find described in earlier lecture-cycles as the seven stages of our Christian Initiation: The Washing of the Feet; The Scourging; The Crowning with Thorns; The Mystic Death; The Burial; the Resurrection; the Ascension.

I notice that in von Halle this is stated as unequivocal:

The occult law shows, though, that it is not up to the lower human will whether the initiation pupil does or does not wish to concern himself with a particular theme on the path of initiation. Whoever desires to become an esoteric pupil in the anthroposophical, Rosicrucian sense, will only be able to pursue a single path: that of the Representative of Humanity. And he will therefore encounter everything that the Representative of Humanity encountered and still encounters.

[von Halle, J. (2011). Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Temple Lodge Publishing]

[Federica]

Federica,

Once again, thanks - it took me a few readings, but now it's kind of coming together. Another small detail: I thought that temperament, likes and dislikes were residing in the astral body, more than in the etheric?

The etheric body is where the principle of repetition holds. When we look at the growing plant, it produces leaf after leaf in orderly succession. Then it drops the seed and produces copies of itself with the same form. So any WFT ways of being which become habitual in us get woven into our etheric memory, mostly before birth or a little bit during life. When they are only in the astral body during life, we can call them likes and dislikes which are more pliable (we should also remember, though, that we normally only know of the soul-life in so far as it is reflected by the physical-etheric bodies, the latter acting as mirrors). It is easier for us to apply torque to these likes or dislikes and adjust them. But if they become habitual in the etheric body, we are dealing with sympathies and antipathies which are much less pliable and require more torque. I would make a similar distinction between character (more pliable) and temperament (less pliable), the former being our constellation of opinions, beliefs, emotions, qualities, virtues, etc. and the latter being our inner disposition towards the World (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic).

To be clear, this doesn't mean the etheric body causes all of these habitual tendencies and dispositions. The ego-astral complex is what allows for us to lucidly experience the World and react to it. It impresses the habitual tendencies we develop into the etheric body, which also impresses it into the physical body to some extent. The physical-etheric serves as a sort of contextual limit on what capacities we can bring to expression during an incarnation unless we are able to also work on them through higher cognitive development. At death, the memories/experiences impressed into the etheric body are imprinted back into the astral body and then back to the ego, where it all continues in seed-form. Then, on our return to incarnation, the ego fashions the new lower vehicles in correspondence with that imprint. A similar cycle occurs each night with sleep, but to a lesser extent. All of this occurs with feedback from the higher hierarchies on what needs to be further perfected to become proper citizens of the Cosmos.

Ashvin,

This is insightful, but there seems to be a contradiction also: if we only know our likes and dislikes insofar as they are imprinted in the etheric and/or physical bodies, how can we more easily apply torque to those likes and dislikes that are only in the astral body? To apply torque to aspects of our soul life, we must be aware of them first?


Otherwise, I understand the principle of repetition in terms of life/reproduction primarily. This is common to plants, animals, and humans. Then with the help of the idea of different lengths of time waves, I understand how this repetition principle inherent to the etheric layer extends to habit, to behavioral repetition (WFT). So the shape of our individual life principle pushes us along the lines of certain habits, and we are called to “work against nature” and streamline our habits, before we can “think bigger” and attempt to change the shape of our repetitive cycles-at-large, so to say, all the way up to, ideally, continuity of spiritual consciousness during sleep and during earthly life. But repetition goes beyond life. It is ingrained in the whole spectrum of natural and spiritual phenomena. The Cosmos is repetitive, and the Earth is repetitive. So, logically, that repetitive quality of the etheric/life layer should extend from the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, to the Earth and beyond. I have found a matching illustration of this in Steiner, that highlights the fundamental interconnectedness of us humans with the Earth, physical, and spiritual. By virtue of that connection, sleeping humans act as the brain cells through which the Earth “thinks”:

When a man is awake, the soul-spiritual part is of course contained in the physical-corporeal part; but let us now imagine a sleeping human being. On the bed lie his physical body and his etheric body; they do not contain his astral body and his ego, as is the case when he is awake. We might say, however: The activity that our astral body and ego carry on within our physical body while we are awake, does not cease completely while we are asleep. To begin with, and seen purely from outside, the sleeping human being lying there on the bed has a lifeless aspect, but to a clairvoyant consciousness the physical and etheric body of the man lying there asleep on the bed do not present a lifeless aspect. The seer must give an entirely different description of a sleeping human being, of this physical and etheric human being, lying there asleep on his bed. A clairvoyant seer must say: The whole day long the sun shone over that region of the earth, where the human beings are now sleeping. Now it is night. (I am speaking of normal conditions; when people are asleep during the night and awake during the day, I am not speaking of the conditions of life in great cities, of metropolitan habits). Darkness envelops that region on which the sun shone the whole day long. And now it is strange to notice the following: The earth, as a living Being, begins to think, and the organs through which the earth thinks are the sleeping human bodies.
The human beings think through their brain, and in the same way the earth thinks through these sleeping human bodies. The earth always perceives by day; it perceives through the fact that the sun shines upon it out of the cosmic spaces. That is the earth's perception. And during the night, the earth works out in thoughts all its perceptions. “The earth thinks”, says the clairvoyant seer; the earth thinks because it makes use of the sleeping human beings. Every sleeping human being becomes, as it were, a brain-molecule of the earth. Our physical body is organized in such a way that it can be used by the earth for its thinking activity, when we do not use it ourselves.
Just as the earth thinks through the physical body, so it “imagines” (you know what imaginative knowledge is) — it imagines all that is not earthly upon the earth itself, all that belongs to the earth from out the cosmos. The earth imagines this through the etheric body.

[Federica]

I think it's clear that those 'baleful doings' he references are spreading in modern culture. I can only imagine what Steiner would lecture today in the era of internet pornography which is celebrated as 'freedom' and 'broad-mindedness' and accessed by any young kid with a phone. Likewise there are plenty of injurious happenings in the sphere of modern 'sickcare'. And modern technology has progressed to the point of bots which allow people to remain completely asleep as they do our work for us. I am always coming across emails about how to use GPT for legal websites, blogs, and what not. So the momentum seems like it will take us quite a bit further into the mechanistic, aberrational, amoral depths before there is a counter-swing upwards.

Regardless, all we can do is aim towards the high ideals and give maximum effort towards the perfection of our inner capacities and virtues. Ultimately the wise and loving intents of the Cosmos will be fulfilled through us, even if we don't know exactly how.

Yes. But I feel, beyond the "regardless", there must be something else to be grasped and endeavored, given the dangerous turn things have taken since that warning was given. What is it that should be further understood in that angelic work?
I understand from the lecture that the angelic beings resorted/resort to working on man's etheric and physical bodies, instead of on the astral, not because this is necessarily the ideal way to help humanity wake up to brotherhood, religious freedom and spiritual sight, but because they have themselves an 'agenda' in which we are involved. They pursue it, or have pursued it, whatever it takes, and because we had to be 'numbed' in order to receive the images of "the repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of the etheric Christ", then that's what happened.

But, I believe the work was/is done at individual level, otherwise how to explain that - when certain implanted knowledge of the mystery of birth and conception turns instinctive and baleful - then "certain Angels would themselves undergo a change — a change of which I cannot speak"? What does it mean that such differentiation, in both the human and angelic hierarchies, has happened/is happening? There is something more to understand here, but I don't know what it is...

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,
Thank you for going back to my initial question. I actually don't know anything about the Rosicrucian path (apart from the occasional references you have done here and there) and I didn't intend to ask about it. My question was about possible connections between the modes of cognition of Steiner's SS and Steiner's seven stages of initiation. I should definitely read more about these stages, I see there's a series of lectures called From Jesus to Christ. But maybe this topic can be paused, I have more pressing questions right now (in a separate post).

The Rosicrucian path is Anthroposophy/SS, basically.

The 7 stages are the Christian mystical path, which Steiner also references and discusses to some extent. I have not come across any lectures which explicitly relate them to the steps outlined in Knowledge of Higher Worlds for ex., that I remember, but perhaps it is in the archive somewhere.

What I understand by reading here and there in the Steiner archive (not conclusive, there is so much to cover) is that these two paths are the same.

Ever since the Mystery of Golgotha up to our own times, a person who desired to come to a super-sensible experience of the Christ-Event had to go through the stages which you will find described in earlier lecture-cycles as the seven stages of our Christian Initiation: The Washing of the Feet; The Scourging; The Crowning with Thorns; The Mystic Death; The Burial; the Resurrection; the Ascension.

I notice that in von Halle this is stated as unequivocal:

The occult law shows, though, that it is not up to the lower human will whether the initiation pupil does or does not wish to concern himself with a particular theme on the path of initiation. Whoever desires to become an esoteric pupil in the anthroposophical, Rosicrucian sense, will only be able to pursue a single path: that of the Representative of Humanity. And he will therefore encounter everything that the Representative of Humanity encountered and still encounters.

[von Halle, J. (2011). Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Temple Lodge Publishing]

Lecture 2 of 'From Jesus to Christ', which you referenced earlier and quoted above, seems to speak directly to the issue. I was mistaken to equate the Rosicrucian path with Anthroposophy/SS. Steiner speaks of the former as more directly related to the Christian mystical path, with each having 7 stages of initiation, while the latter is an even further development which takes heed of the higher cognitive impulses which began inflowing at the end of the 19th century through the new descent of Christ into the etheric plane (within the minds-hearts of all individuals who become receptive to them).

From explanations given previously in various forms, we know that the Rosicrucian Initiation is essentially a development of the Christian Initiation, so that we can speak of it as a Christian-Rosicrucian Initiation. In earlier lecture-courses the purely Christian Initiation; with its seven degrees, and the Rosicrucian Initiation, also with seven degrees, have been compared. But now we must note that with regard to Initiation the principle of the progress of the human soul must be strictly maintained.

We know that the Rosicrucian Initiation had its proper beginning somewhere about the thirteenth century. At that time it was recognised by those individualities who have to guide the deeper destinies of human evolution as the right Initiation for the more advanced human souls. This shows that the Initiation of the Rose-Cross takes full account of the continuous progress of the human soul and must therefore pay particular attention to the fact that since the thirteenth century the human soul has developed further. Souls which are to be led to Initiation in our day can no longer adopt the standpoint of the thirteenth century. I want especially to point this out because in our time there is such a strong desire to label everything with some mark or other, with some catchword. From this bad habit, and not for any justified reason, our anthroposophical movement has been given a label which could lead gradually to something like a calamity.

It is true that within our movement the principle of Rosicrucianism can be found in all completeness, so that we can penetrate into the sources of Rosicrucianism. So it is that persons who by means of our anthroposophical training penetrate into these sources can properly call themselves Rosicrucians. But it must be emphasised just as strongly that outsiders have no right to designate as Rosicrucian the anthroposophical stream we represent, simply because our movement has been given — consciously or unconsciously — an entirely false label. We are no longer standing where the Rosicrucians stood in the thirteenth century and on through the following centuries, for we take into account the progress of the human soul. Hence the way indicated in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, as the way best adapted for gaining access to the Higher Worlds must not without further explanation be equated with what may be called the Rosicrucian way. Through our movement we can penetrate into true Rosicrucianism, but our movement extends over a far wider domain, for it embraces the whole of Theosophy; hence it should not be labeled Rosicrucian. Our movement must be described simply as the spiritual science of today, the anthroposophical spiritual science of the twentieth century. Outsiders, particularly, will fall — more or less unconsciously — into some kind of misunderstanding if they describe our movement simply as Rosicrucian. But an outstanding achievement of Rosicrucianism since the dawn of modern spiritual life in the thirteenth century has been to establish a rule which must also be ours: the rule that all modern Initiation in the deepest sense of the word must recognise and treasure the independence of the most holy element in man's inner life, his Will-centre, as indicated yesterday. The occult methods there described are designed to overcome and enslave the human will and to set it on a predetermined course; hence a true occultism will rigorously avoid them.

Before characterising Rosicrucianism and present-day Initiation, we must mention a decisively relevant point: the Rosicrucianism of the thirteenth, fourteenth and even of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has again had to be modified for our time. The Rosicrucianism of those earlier centuries could not reckon with a spiritual element which has since entered into human evolution. Without this element today we can no longer understand rightly the fundamentals of all those spiritual streams which arise from the ground of occultism, including therefore any theosophical stream. For reasons we shall see more exactly in the course of these lectures, the teaching of reincarnation and karma, of repeated earth-lives, was excluded for many centuries from the external, exoteric teachings of Christianity. In the thirteenth century the teaching of reincarnation and karma had not yet entered, in the highest sense, into the first stages of Rosicrucian initiation. One could go far, up to the fourth or fifth degree; one could go through what was called the Rosicrucian studium — the acquiring of Imagination, the reading of the occult script, the finding of the philosopher's stone — and one could experience something of what is called the mystical death. One could reach this stage and acquire exceptionally high occult knowledge, but without needing to achieve full clarity concerning the illuminating teachings of reincarnation and karma.

We must be clear that human thinking progresses and now embraces forms of thought which, if only we follow them out logically — and this can easily be done on the external, exoteric level — lead unconditionally to a recognition of repeated earth-lives and so to the idea of karma. The words spoken through the lips of Strader in my second Rosicrucian drama, The Soul's Probation, are absolutely true: namely that a logical thinker today, if he is not to break with everything that the thought-forms of the last century have brought in, must come finally to a recognition of karma and reincarnation.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

Once again, thanks - it took me a few readings, but now it's kind of coming together. Another small detail: I thought that temperament, likes and dislikes were residing in the astral body, more than in the etheric?

The etheric body is where the principle of repetition holds. When we look at the growing plant, it produces leaf after leaf in orderly succession. Then it drops the seed and produces copies of itself with the same form. So any WFT ways of being which become habitual in us get woven into our etheric memory, mostly before birth or a little bit during life. When they are only in the astral body during life, we can call them likes and dislikes which are more pliable (we should also remember, though, that we normally only know of the soul-life in so far as it is reflected by the physical-etheric bodies, the latter acting as mirrors). It is easier for us to apply torque to these likes or dislikes and adjust them. But if they become habitual in the etheric body, we are dealing with sympathies and antipathies which are much less pliable and require more torque. I would make a similar distinction between character (more pliable) and temperament (less pliable), the former being our constellation of opinions, beliefs, emotions, qualities, virtues, etc. and the latter being our inner disposition towards the World (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic).

To be clear, this doesn't mean the etheric body causes all of these habitual tendencies and dispositions. The ego-astral complex is what allows for us to lucidly experience the World and react to it. It impresses the habitual tendencies we develop into the etheric body, which also impresses it into the physical body to some extent. The physical-etheric serves as a sort of contextual limit on what capacities we can bring to expression during an incarnation unless we are able to also work on them through higher cognitive development. At death, the memories/experiences impressed into the etheric body are imprinted back into the astral body and then back to the ego, where it all continues in seed-form. Then, on our return to incarnation, the ego fashions the new lower vehicles in correspondence with that imprint. A similar cycle occurs each night with sleep, but to a lesser extent. All of this occurs with feedback from the higher hierarchies on what needs to be further perfected to become proper citizens of the Cosmos.

Ashvin,

This is insightful, but there seems to be a contradiction also: if we only know our likes and dislikes insofar as they are imprinted in the etheric and/or physical bodies, how can we more easily apply torque to those likes and dislikes that are only in the astral body? To apply torque to aspects of our soul life, we must be aware of them first?

Federica,

We are aware of the likes and dislikes through the lens of our normal concepts mediated by the physical senses. Consider a like or dislike - 'I like vanilla flavor and dislike strawberry flavor'. We are only aware of this relation to the extent we can formulate it in concepts tied to our physical senses, in this case taste. So we are still viewing whatever that relation signifies from the outside-in, or in esoteric terms, we are completely within the consciousness soul which uses the physical sensory organism as its instrument. Even without higher cognitive development, we can apply some torque here with help of that conceptual activity. Maybe we formulate a strategy to expose ourselves to more varied flavors than we are accustomed to and gradually build up a tolerance for them. That is pretty tedious work which will progress relatively slowly (if it works at all), but it's at least something which can be done. Or in the case of our purely conceptual likes and dislikes - opinions, beliefs, etc. - there is even more leeway for torque to be applied. Actually we can understand much of post-Christian exoteric history in terms of doing this dimly conscious, tedious work. It is a gradual purification of the astral (desire) body and the soul-life, which unfortunately has come to a standstill more recently or is perhaps even going in reverse in certain domains.

We also have to recognize that there are aspects of our soul-life which are less accessible to our conceptual torque. That first-person distinction is really the basis of speaking of parts of the soul-life residing in the 'etheric body' instead of 'astral body'. It really helps to understand all these categories - whether they are realms, planes, bodies, modes of cognition, etc. - as convenient ways of grouping these differentiations in the experience of our first-person stream of becoming. They work so well because that involving-evolving stream does, in fact, differentiate itself according to qualitative archetypal structure. In other words, it's not that we can apply less torque to personality traits of the etheric body, but there is an 'etheric body' by virtue of experiential areas where we can apply less torque in our current stage. In our stream of becoming, we can also distinguish more instinctual likes or dislikes - perhaps we like to be around certain types of people and not around others, without any clear sense of why or how those preferences are related to our lucid perceptions-concepts. These would be our sympathies-antipathies residing more in the intellectual soul, which uses the etheric body as its instrument. Whereas our likes-dislikes may arise from our childhood or some period during this incarnation, the sympathies-antipathies are tied to deeper-seated memories and tendencies extending even into previous incarnations. Likewise we can differentiate an ever deeper layer of pleasure-pain which is more nebulous to our lucid conceptual activity. That is associated more with the sentient soul which uses the sentient body as its instrument.

So all of these originate in our soul-life but are either reflected back to our I-consciousness by the physical and etheric bodies, or dimly experienced by it in the astral body. Our conceptual activity permeates the entire spectrum to some extent, which is why we can even speak of these differentiations. But we can also notice how that activity becomes more nebulous or tenuous in its understanding of what's really at work. The same applies if it moves in the upward direction towards the archetypal spiritual strata of cultural aesthetics, morals, ideals, etc.

What men observe are the single passions, the single instincts, the single desires, momentary likes and dislikes, deeds carried out or not carried out because of momentary sympathy or antipathy. In making such observations, however, we behave like someone who has a sentence before him and says: “Here I see g,o,d,r,u,l,e,s,t,h,e,w,o,r,l,d.” All he can do is to spell the single letters. Then another person comes and says: “The letters spelled by you mean God rules the world.” Just as spelling differs from reading, so does ordinary science differ from spiritual science.

Ordinary psychology is able to spell. By looking at a human life, it finds certain instincts and urges in the child. The scientist, who only knows how to spell, registers these things, and thus it continues during the human being's entire existence on earth.

Those understanding spiritual science are able to read. Looking beyond the fire's surface, they see what is below: man's destiny-determined life-path.

Between ordinary psychology, such as it is still practiced today, and genuine knowledge of human soul-life there is a difference akin to that between spelling and reading.

Through higher cognitive development, we can begin awakening to the inner side of those concepts and experience the higher cognitive currents underlying the likes, dislikes, sympathies, antipathies, etc. The intellect relies solely on experiences mediated by the physical senses. Imaginations are the I-astral experiences reflected directly by the etheric body without meditation of physical senses. Through Inspiration we can experience directly within the astral body without physical-etheric mediation. With Intuition the 'I' awakens to its own true nature, which is physically perceived as external nature. At each stage the opportunities to apply torque and the effectiveness of that application greatly increase. We start to discern completely unsuspected connections between external nature, our physical organism, and our soul-life, and to find unsuspected ways of steering our spiritual activity through those domains to optimize and harmonize their relations, not only for our own benefit but for Humanity-Earth as a whole.

Otherwise, I understand the principle of repetition in terms of life/reproduction primarily. This is common to plants, animals, and humans. Then with the help of the idea of different lengths of time waves, I understand how this repetition principle inherent to the etheric layer extends to habit, to behavioral repetition (WFT). So the shape of our individual life principle pushes us along the lines of certain habits, and we are called to “work against nature” and streamline our habits, before we can “think bigger” and attempt to change the shape of our repetitive cycles-at-large, so to say, all the way up to, ideally, continuity of spiritual consciousness during sleep and during earthly life. But repetition goes beyond life. It is ingrained in the whole spectrum of natural and spiritual phenomena. The Cosmos is repetitive, and the Earth is repetitive. So, logically, that repetitive quality of the etheric/life layer should extend from the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, to the Earth and beyond. I have found a matching illustration of this in Steiner, that highlights the fundamental interconnectedness of us humans with the Earth, physical, and spiritual. By virtue of that connection, sleeping humans act as the brain cells through which the Earth “thinks”:

When a man is awake, the soul-spiritual part is of course contained in the physical-corporeal part; but let us now imagine a sleeping human being. On the bed lie his physical body and his etheric body; they do not contain his astral body and his ego, as is the case when he is awake. We might say, however: The activity that our astral body and ego carry on within our physical body while we are awake, does not cease completely while we are asleep. To begin with, and seen purely from outside, the sleeping human being lying there on the bed has a lifeless aspect, but to a clairvoyant consciousness the physical and etheric body of the man lying there asleep on the bed do not present a lifeless aspect. The seer must give an entirely different description of a sleeping human being, of this physical and etheric human being, lying there asleep on his bed. A clairvoyant seer must say: The whole day long the sun shone over that region of the earth, where the human beings are now sleeping. Now it is night. (I am speaking of normal conditions; when people are asleep during the night and awake during the day, I am not speaking of the conditions of life in great cities, of metropolitan habits). Darkness envelops that region on which the sun shone the whole day long. And now it is strange to notice the following: The earth, as a living Being, begins to think, and the organs through which the earth thinks are the sleeping human bodies.
The human beings think through their brain, and in the same way the earth thinks through these sleeping human bodies. The earth always perceives by day; it perceives through the fact that the sun shines upon it out of the cosmic spaces. That is the earth's perception. And during the night, the earth works out in thoughts all its perceptions. “The earth thinks”, says the clairvoyant seer; the earth thinks because it makes use of the sleeping human beings. Every sleeping human being becomes, as it were, a brain-molecule of the earth. Our physical body is organized in such a way that it can be used by the earth for its thinking activity, when we do not use it ourselves.
Just as the earth thinks through the physical body, so it “imagines” (you know what imaginative knowledge is) — it imagines all that is not earthly upon the earth itself, all that belongs to the earth from out the cosmos. The earth imagines this through the etheric body.

I think we should distinguish here between repetition as a mechanical or automated process, i.e. when it is unconscious or dimly conscious, and spiritual habits which are cultivated in full consciousness. The latter are certainly structured, but they are only repetitive in so far as certain activity-reactions are most optimal in response to outer circumstances. Each case is judged fully consciously on its own merits (which you will remember from PoF as well). The more we transmute the former to the latter, through Self-knowledge, the more we develop the principle of Manas from the astral body, the principle of Buddhi from the etheric body, and the principle of Atma from the physical body. When the repetitive habits of the etheric body are made conscious and the latter is ennobled through practices like devotional prayer or spiritual art, they are transmuted and begin flowing as fully conscious inspirations. That is how we gradually harmonize what flows from our bodily nature with what flows from our spiritual nature. But you are correct that, at a more metaphysical level, we could also call it the process of awakening to how they are one and the same. After all, the lower habits were implanted in our physical-life organism by the higher heirarchies for definite spiritual purposes.

[Federica]

Federica,

We are aware of the likes and dislikes through the lens of our normal concepts mediated by the physical senses. Consider a like or dislike - 'I like vanilla flavor and dislike strawberry flavor'. We are only aware of this relation to the extent we can formulate it in concepts tied to our physical senses, in this case taste. So we are still viewing whatever that relation signifies from the outside-in, or in esoteric terms, we are completely within the consciousness soul which uses the physical sensory organism as its instrument. Even without higher cognitive development, we can apply some torque here with help of that conceptual activity. Maybe we formulate a strategy to expose ourselves to more varied flavors than we are accustomed to and gradually build up a tolerance for them. That is pretty tedious work which will progress relatively slowly (if it works at all), but it's at least something which can be done. Or in the case of our purely conceptual likes and dislikes - opinions, beliefs, etc. - there is even more leeway for torque to be applied. Actually we can understand much of post-Christian exoteric history in terms of doing this dimly conscious, tedious work. It is a gradual purification of the astral (desire) body and the soul-life, which unfortunately has come to a standstill more recently or is perhaps even going in reverse in certain domains.

We also have to recognize that there are aspects of our soul-life which are less accessible to our conceptual torque. That first-person distinction is really the basis of speaking of parts of the soul-life residing in the 'etheric body' instead of 'astral body'. It really helps to understand all these categories - whether they are realms, planes, bodies, modes of cognition, etc. - as convenient ways of grouping these differentiations in the experience of our first-person stream of becoming. They work so well because that involving-evolving stream does, in fact, differentiate itself according to qualitative archetypal structure. In other words, it's not that we can apply less torque to personality traits of the etheric body, but there is an 'etheric body' by virtue of experiential areas where we can apply less torque in our current stage. In our stream of becoming, we can also distinguish more instinctual likes or dislikes - perhaps we like to be around certain types of people and not around others, without any clear sense of why or how those preferences are related to our lucid perceptions-concepts. These would be our sympathies-antipathies residing more in the intellectual soul, which uses the etheric body as its instrument. Whereas our likes-dislikes may arise from our childhood or some period during this incarnation, the sympathies-antipathies are tied to deeper-seated memories and tendencies extending even into previous incarnations. Likewise we can differentiate an ever deeper layer of pleasure-pain which is more nebulous to our lucid conceptual activity. That is associated more with the sentient soul which uses the sentient body as its instrument.

So all of these originate in our soul-life but are either reflected back to our I-consciousness by the physical and etheric bodies, or dimly experienced by it in the astral body. Our conceptual activity permeates the entire spectrum to some extent, which is why we can even speak of these differentiations. But we can also notice how that activity becomes more nebulous or tenuous in its understanding of what's really at work. The same applies if it moves in the upward direction towards the archetypal spiritual strata of cultural aesthetics, morals, ideals, etc.

What men observe are the single passions, the single instincts, the single desires, momentary likes and dislikes, deeds carried out or not carried out because of momentary sympathy or antipathy. In making such observations, however, we behave like someone who has a sentence before him and says: “Here I see g,o,d,r,u,l,e,s,t,h,e,w,o,r,l,d.” All he can do is to spell the single letters. Then another person comes and says: “The letters spelled by you mean God rules the world.” Just as spelling differs from reading, so does ordinary science differ from spiritual science.

Ordinary psychology is able to spell. By looking at a human life, it finds certain instincts and urges in the child. The scientist, who only knows how to spell, registers these things, and thus it continues during the human being's entire existence on earth.

Those understanding spiritual science are able to read. Looking beyond the fire's surface, they see what is below: man's destiny-determined life-path.

Between ordinary psychology, such as it is still practiced today, and genuine knowledge of human soul-life there is a difference akin to that between spelling and reading.

Through higher cognitive development, we can begin awakening to the inner side of those concepts and experience the higher cognitive currents underlying the likes, dislikes, sympathies, antipathies, etc. The intellect relies solely on experiences mediated by the physical senses. Imaginations are the I-astral experiences reflected directly by the etheric body without meditation of physical senses. Through Inspiration we can experience directly within the astral body without physical-etheric mediation. With Intuition the 'I' awakens to its own true nature, which is physically perceived as external nature. At each stage the opportunities to apply torque and the effectiveness of that application greatly increase. We start to discern completely unsuspected connections between external nature, our physical organism, and our soul-life, and to find unsuspected ways of steering our spiritual activity through those domains to optimize and harmonize their relations, not only for our own benefit but for Humanity-Earth as a whole.

Otherwise, I understand the principle of repetition in terms of life/reproduction primarily. This is common to plants, animals, and humans. Then with the help of the idea of different lengths of time waves, I understand how this repetition principle inherent to the etheric layer extends to habit, to behavioral repetition (WFT). So the shape of our individual life principle pushes us along the lines of certain habits, and we are called to “work against nature” and streamline our habits, before we can “think bigger” and attempt to change the shape of our repetitive cycles-at-large, so to say, all the way up to, ideally, continuity of spiritual consciousness during sleep and during earthly life. But repetition goes beyond life. It is ingrained in the whole spectrum of natural and spiritual phenomena. The Cosmos is repetitive, and the Earth is repetitive. So, logically, that repetitive quality of the etheric/life layer should extend from the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, to the Earth and beyond. I have found a matching illustration of this in Steiner, that highlights the fundamental interconnectedness of us humans with the Earth, physical, and spiritual. By virtue of that connection, sleeping humans act as the brain cells through which the Earth “thinks”:

I think we should distinguish here between repetition as a mechanical or automated process, i.e. when it is unconscious or dimly conscious, and spiritual habits which are cultivated in full consciousness. The latter are certainly structured, but they are only repetitive in so far as certain activity-reactions are most optimal in response to outer circumstances. Each case is judged fully consciously on its own merits (which you will remember from PoF as well). The more we transmute the former to the latter, through Self-knowledge, the more we develop the principle of Manas from the astral body, the principle of Buddhi from the etheric body, and the principle of Atma from the physical body. When the repetitive habits of the etheric body are made conscious and the latter is ennobled through practices like devotional prayer or spiritual art, they are transmuted and begin flowing as fully conscious inspirations. That is how we gradually harmonize what flows from our bodily nature with what flows from our spiritual nature. But you are correct that, at a more metaphysical level, we could also call it the process of awakening to how they are one and the same. After all, the lower habits were implanted in our physical-life organism by the higher heirarchies for definite spiritual purposes.

Thanks for this thorough elaboration! The whole question had arisen in relation to the likes and dislikes that “are only in the astral body during life” in the initial post. Now the relations are much more clear. I should mention, I have not moved forward reading Theosophy, which might be one reason I still struggle with these ideas.
Anyway, I understand the idea of opening, through higher cognition, to the inner side of our experienced likes and dislikes. Probably you say that “the intellect relies solely on experiences mediated by the physical senses” with strict reference to the example of the likes/dislikes. But if we look at the intellect as a faculty that relies on experiences mediated by the whole spectrum of perception, more overlap can possibly be found among the various ways of "applying torque". My experience is that this quality of the intellect (access to the whole of perception) makes it, rather than an enclosed faculty, an open-ended, pliable mode of cognition that can be informed from 'without'. Of course I don’t have the complete picture, nevertheless I am sure that my intellectual understanding of reality is changing in nature, not only in scope.
I would imagine that in the future the modes of cognition would tend to overlap, be transmuted, and merge into each other, rather than there being a migration of activity through the subsequent stations of four modes.

I think we should distinguish here between repetition as a mechanical or automated process, i.e. when it is unconscious or dimly conscious, and spiritual habits which are cultivated in full consciousness. The latter are certainly structured, but they are only repetitive in so far as certain activity-reactions are most optimal in response to outer circumstances.

Here the whole purpose of my elaboration was to make sense of your statement that linked the etheric principle of repetition in plant nature to behavioral repetition! “The etheric body is where the principle of repetition holds. When we look at the growing plant, it produces leaf after leaf in orderly succession. Then it drops the seed and produces copies of itself with the same form. So any WFT ways of being which become habitual in us get woven into our etheric memory”. Indeed, I started writing that I didn't fully understand the parallel you were making. Then I found a way to consider repetition from the larger perspective you were hinting to. For sure I wasn't trying to expound a metaphysics of repetition


PS. I've now received Powell's Hermetic Astrology. First look is telling me I've probably been a tiny bit too ambitious

[AshvinP]

Federica,

We are aware of the likes and dislikes through the lens of our normal concepts mediated by the physical senses. Consider a like or dislike - 'I like vanilla flavor and dislike strawberry flavor'. We are only aware of this relation to the extent we can formulate it in concepts tied to our physical senses, in this case taste. So we are still viewing whatever that relation signifies from the outside-in, or in esoteric terms, we are completely within the consciousness soul which uses the physical sensory organism as its instrument. Even without higher cognitive development, we can apply some torque here with help of that conceptual activity. Maybe we formulate a strategy to expose ourselves to more varied flavors than we are accustomed to and gradually build up a tolerance for them. That is pretty tedious work which will progress relatively slowly (if it works at all), but it's at least something which can be done. Or in the case of our purely conceptual likes and dislikes - opinions, beliefs, etc. - there is even more leeway for torque to be applied. Actually we can understand much of post-Christian exoteric history in terms of doing this dimly conscious, tedious work. It is a gradual purification of the astral (desire) body and the soul-life, which unfortunately has come to a standstill more recently or is perhaps even going in reverse in certain domains.

We also have to recognize that there are aspects of our soul-life which are less accessible to our conceptual torque. That first-person distinction is really the basis of speaking of parts of the soul-life residing in the 'etheric body' instead of 'astral body'. It really helps to understand all these categories - whether they are realms, planes, bodies, modes of cognition, etc. - as convenient ways of grouping these differentiations in the experience of our first-person stream of becoming. They work so well because that involving-evolving stream does, in fact, differentiate itself according to qualitative archetypal structure. In other words, it's not that we can apply less torque to personality traits of the etheric body, but there is an 'etheric body' by virtue of experiential areas where we can apply less torque in our current stage. In our stream of becoming, we can also distinguish more instinctual likes or dislikes - perhaps we like to be around certain types of people and not around others, without any clear sense of why or how those preferences are related to our lucid perceptions-concepts. These would be our sympathies-antipathies residing more in the intellectual soul, which uses the etheric body as its instrument. Whereas our likes-dislikes may arise from our childhood or some period during this incarnation, the sympathies-antipathies are tied to deeper-seated memories and tendencies extending even into previous incarnations. Likewise we can differentiate an ever deeper layer of pleasure-pain which is more nebulous to our lucid conceptual activity. That is associated more with the sentient soul which uses the sentient body as its instrument.

So all of these originate in our soul-life but are either reflected back to our I-consciousness by the physical and etheric bodies, or dimly experienced by it in the astral body. Our conceptual activity permeates the entire spectrum to some extent, which is why we can even speak of these differentiations. But we can also notice how that activity becomes more nebulous or tenuous in its understanding of what's really at work. The same applies if it moves in the upward direction towards the archetypal spiritual strata of cultural aesthetics, morals, ideals, etc.

What men observe are the single passions, the single instincts, the single desires, momentary likes and dislikes, deeds carried out or not carried out because of momentary sympathy or antipathy. In making such observations, however, we behave like someone who has a sentence before him and says: “Here I see g,o,d,r,u,l,e,s,t,h,e,w,o,r,l,d.” All he can do is to spell the single letters. Then another person comes and says: “The letters spelled by you mean God rules the world.” Just as spelling differs from reading, so does ordinary science differ from spiritual science.

Ordinary psychology is able to spell. By looking at a human life, it finds certain instincts and urges in the child. The scientist, who only knows how to spell, registers these things, and thus it continues during the human being's entire existence on earth.

Those understanding spiritual science are able to read. Looking beyond the fire's surface, they see what is below: man's destiny-determined life-path.

Between ordinary psychology, such as it is still practiced today, and genuine knowledge of human soul-life there is a difference akin to that between spelling and reading.

Through higher cognitive development, we can begin awakening to the inner side of those concepts and experience the higher cognitive currents underlying the likes, dislikes, sympathies, antipathies, etc. The intellect relies solely on experiences mediated by the physical senses. Imaginations are the I-astral experiences reflected directly by the etheric body without meditation of physical senses. Through Inspiration we can experience directly within the astral body without physical-etheric mediation. With Intuition the 'I' awakens to its own true nature, which is physically perceived as external nature. At each stage the opportunities to apply torque and the effectiveness of that application greatly increase. We start to discern completely unsuspected connections between external nature, our physical organism, and our soul-life, and to find unsuspected ways of steering our spiritual activity through those domains to optimize and harmonize their relations, not only for our own benefit but for Humanity-Earth as a whole.

Otherwise, I understand the principle of repetition in terms of life/reproduction primarily. This is common to plants, animals, and humans. Then with the help of the idea of different lengths of time waves, I understand how this repetition principle inherent to the etheric layer extends to habit, to behavioral repetition (WFT). So the shape of our individual life principle pushes us along the lines of certain habits, and we are called to “work against nature” and streamline our habits, before we can “think bigger” and attempt to change the shape of our repetitive cycles-at-large, so to say, all the way up to, ideally, continuity of spiritual consciousness during sleep and during earthly life. But repetition goes beyond life. It is ingrained in the whole spectrum of natural and spiritual phenomena. The Cosmos is repetitive, and the Earth is repetitive. So, logically, that repetitive quality of the etheric/life layer should extend from the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, to the Earth and beyond. I have found a matching illustration of this in Steiner, that highlights the fundamental interconnectedness of us humans with the Earth, physical, and spiritual. By virtue of that connection, sleeping humans act as the brain cells through which the Earth “thinks”:

I think we should distinguish here between repetition as a mechanical or automated process, i.e. when it is unconscious or dimly conscious, and spiritual habits which are cultivated in full consciousness. The latter are certainly structured, but they are only repetitive in so far as certain activity-reactions are most optimal in response to outer circumstances. Each case is judged fully consciously on its own merits (which you will remember from PoF as well). The more we transmute the former to the latter, through Self-knowledge, the more we develop the principle of Manas from the astral body, the principle of Buddhi from the etheric body, and the principle of Atma from the physical body. When the repetitive habits of the etheric body are made conscious and the latter is ennobled through practices like devotional prayer or spiritual art, they are transmuted and begin flowing as fully conscious inspirations. That is how we gradually harmonize what flows from our bodily nature with what flows from our spiritual nature. But you are correct that, at a more metaphysical level, we could also call it the process of awakening to how they are one and the same. After all, the lower habits were implanted in our physical-life organism by the higher heirarchies for definite spiritual purposes.

Thanks for this thorough elaboration! The whole question had arisen in relation to the likes and dislikes that “are only in the astral body during life” in the initial post. Now the relations are much more clear. I should mention, I have not moved forward reading Theosophy, which might be one reason I still struggle with these ideas.
Anyway, I understand the idea of opening, through higher cognition, to the inner side of our experienced likes and dislikes. Probably you say that “the intellect relies solely on experiences mediated by the physical senses” with strict reference to the example of the likes/dislikes. But if we look at the intellect as a faculty that relies on experiences mediated by the whole spectrum of perception, more overlap can possibly be found among the various ways of "applying torque". My experience is that this quality of the intellect (access to the whole of perception) makes it, rather than an enclosed faculty, an open-ended, pliable mode of cognition that can be informed from 'without'. Of course I don’t have the complete picture, nevertheless I am sure that my intellectual understanding of reality is changing in nature, not only in scope.
I would imagine that in the future the modes of cognition would tend to overlap, be transmuted, and merge into each other, rather than there being a migration of activity through the subsequent stations of four modes.

I think you are correct, the modes of cognition should be understood as overlapping even now, as in Cleric's sock folding illustration. We could say the intellect (4th fold) is animated by the cognitive currents of the three higher folds - imagination (3), inspiration (2), intuition (1). So that is why we can spread our intellectual concepts through the full spectrum. Nevertheless, those concepts can only resonate with experiences which are formatted according to the structure of the 4th fold, i.e. objective spatial consciousness. Even if its understanding expands in scope to encompass the reality of the four-folding structure, the latter is still experienced as spatio-temporal in the normal sense. When the intellect changes in nature, then I would call that growing into 'living thinking' or imaginative cognition. Then the 4th fold of conceptual life begins to be unfolded and experienced more from the inside-out, perhaps through imaginations impressed by the astral into the ether substance. Technically the imaginative cognition is still viewing the 3rd fold of soul strata, i.e. the activity of spiritual beings responsible for that strata, from the outside-in, only in a much more living way than the intellect.

I think we should distinguish here between repetition as a mechanical or automated process, i.e. when it is unconscious or dimly conscious, and spiritual habits which are cultivated in full consciousness. The latter are certainly structured, but they are only repetitive in so far as certain activity-reactions are most optimal in response to outer circumstances.

Here the whole purpose of my elaboration was to make sense of your statement that linked the etheric principle of repetition in plant nature to behavioral repetition! “The etheric body is where the principle of repetition holds. When we look at the growing plant, it produces leaf after leaf in orderly succession. Then it drops the seed and produces copies of itself with the same form. So any WFT ways of being which become habitual in us get woven into our etheric memory”. Indeed, I started writing that I didn't fully understand the parallel you were making. Then I found a way to consider repetition from the larger perspective you were hinting to. For sure I wasn't trying to expound a metaphysics of repetition

Right, I was just suggesting that it is probably confusing to speak of the higher spiritual structure as 'repetitive', since that implies something mechanical and automatic, basically unfree. And it certainly appears that way to the intellect, based on its own experience of 'freedom' (to be in error, and therefore from creative responsibility), but as we know the reality is much different.

PS. I've now received Powell's Hermetic Astrology. First look is telling me I've probably been a tiny bit too ambitious

Really? Personally, I didn't put much effort into deciphering the astrological charts. I found those really perplexing. So I put all effort into simply following the reasoning of why there is a macro-micro correspondence and how the influences relate to reincarnation-karma. I figure the charts will light up in my consciousness of their own accord once I accustom my thinking to the inner significance of the zodiacal and planetary influences.

[Federica]

Right, I was just suggesting that it is probably confusing to speak of the higher spiritual structure as 'repetitive', since that implies something mechanical and automatic, basically unfree. And it certainly appears that way to the intellect, based on its own experience of 'freedom' (to be in error, and therefore from creative responsibility), but as we know the reality is much different.

Ashvin,

Reading this now in the context of the most recent discussion on freedom, I am trying to understand what you put within brackets. I am not sure I understand what it means, or maybe there is a typo?

[AshvinP]

Right, I was just suggesting that it is probably confusing to speak of the higher spiritual structure as 'repetitive', since that implies something mechanical and automatic, basically unfree. And it certainly appears that way to the intellect, based on its own experience of 'freedom' (to be in error, and therefore from creative responsibility), but as we know the reality is much different.

Ashvin,

Reading this now in the context of the most recent discussion on freedom, I am trying to understand what you put within brackets. I am not sure I understand what it means, or maybe there is a typo?

Here, I was referring to the clockwork conception of the Universe. For ex. how the planets revolve around the Sun according to Kepler's 'fixed' laws. It isn't imagined that a being's intentional activity could be so harmonized with the Good of the whole organic system, that it appears as something 'mechanical' to us, because its activity never deviates from those ideals (at least within a certain aperture of Time-experience we can observe). The intellect perceives anything so freely harmonized as basically mindless or dumb, because a 'clever' being who is free would surely go about wandering where it pleases and they would all strive to become their own Suns.