Spiritual Insights from Valentin Tomberg

[Federica]

On the fourfold nature of memory

Modern humans are caught halfway between the mostly animalistic stage of automatic memory and the fully human stage of moral/vertical memory. We can sense pretty clearly these days how the intellect is always threatened to be dragged out of the logical memory sphere into the sphere of automatism, if it simply rests comfortably in the former and fails to strive towards higher ideals. That is especially the case since our modern technological environment is practically structured at every turn to play to our automatic memory through hedonistic desires and other selfish interests. Our consciousness then becomes mired in its past evolutionary stages, enslaved to maladaptive habits, blinded to the flow of new ideal impulses that reopen the archetypal spirit worlds for the realization of its higher potential. As Tomberg shows below, we can explore the nature of memory through a purely phenomenological analysis, rather than imposing metaphysical postulates that invariably favor mystical or material reductionist theories. Cleric also did a phenomenological investigation of memory here, as spiritual gestures we perform through ever-increasing degrees of freedom. It is helpful to also keep that in mind when contemplating what follows.

***

Tomberg's idea of phenomenology as meditation is so restful and beneficial, in its aim to center the focus of attention on what we can know by and through ourselves, leaving aside any acquired and acquirable knowledge. Upon reading it, it feels such an obvious idea, yet I had never looked at meditation in these terms. It sets it as a sort of primal and primary means to establishing and cultivating integral connection with reality.

Regarding memory, what connects Cleric’s and Tomberg’s characterization of memory is its co-incidence with thinking. As faculty, it's ultimately experienced as the ability to perform thinking gestures, be they horizontal or vertical in their aim. The realization to be gathered from these quotes also has a restful quality, I believe, similar to when one discovers ways to generalize mathematical properties of various sets, ways to express them in terms of one common core element. Once again, thanks for sharing, Ashvin.

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[AshvinP]

When I started reading what follows, I immediately thought of what Cleric wrote in a post recently.

If the world hadn't killed the Christ it wouldn't have anything to share with him. Our Earth would slowly fade away undisturbed, much like scientists today predict the heat death. But things happened in such a way that he was killed and thus the World inflicted upon itself Karma. Now the World will suffer the consequences - it will be melted and transfigured by Love and Light. This is what you get when you mess with the Divine.

That is the topic of what follows. It is fascinating, moving, and inspiring to say the least. In a certain sense, the deed of Christ took the momentum of human involution into the physical spectrum, which had cultivated the inner soul life potentially capable of extending love on a purely soul-spiritual basis, but also the extremes of hate, anger, jealousy, envy, resentment, etc., and used it to propel our evolutionary redemption. By sacrificially exposing himself to those negative extremes of humanity, he endured the passion and the crucifixion and inserted himself into the general stream of human Karma. In his own words, "I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them." That is, the Law of the Father which is none other than the Law of Karma, previously communicated as righteous judgment through the Prophets. 

What karmic compensation can be made for the torture and murder of God himself? What punishment can balance out that injustice? Only the 'punishment' of giving humanity the capacity to raise itself up to the level of loving Divinity. But how can this be accomplished while maintaining the most essential attribute of God, i.e. freedom? Only through the lucid life of concepts, ideas, ideals, and conscience. Anything that bypasses that and works only through the subconscious life of impulses - experienced as "duties" - would subvert freedom and therefore fail to truly reflect back Divine love, but rather only blind obedience out of ignorance and fear. What we can freely do is only demonstrate our faithful commitment, in mind and heart, to progressively realize the Divine ideals that have always been the aim of the Father's karmic guidance, to fulfill the overarching Divine plan. 

Christ has prepared us for this fulfillment through his sacrifices during the whole course of our Earthly evolution, from epoch to epoch, first harmonizing the physical senses, then lifting the soul forces out of the life processes, then cultivating the power of thinking-speech, and finally, through the MoG, providing the fully incarnate "I"-consciousness by which we can begin actively steering our own stream of becoming. Now he continues to sacrificially descend so as to inspire our innermost being to use that "I"-consciousness in ever-more loving and creative ways for the spiritual advancement of humanity and the Earthly kingdoms. We are now in the midst of such a descent into the etheric plane of Earth, where Christ will 'punish' us for our crimes against him with Light and Love. 

***

Now we may ask: What could the karmic consequences of the Mystery of Golgotha have been for the being of Christ himself? Christ became a man, lived in a human body, went through a human death, and thus entered the field of human karma. He set in motion a human karmic stream that will work itself out in the future. During the time that Jesus Christ was a man on earth, he established a certain relationship with humanity. He had a circle of students—indeed, three circles of students. He had a secret circle, with whom he could converse “spiritually”; the circle of twelve, who traveled with him “physically”; and the circle of seventy mentioned of in the gospels.9 This was one relationship that humanity had with the Christ being. The other relationship was the one expressed in his trial and condemnation. Humanity judged the Christ being; humanity condemned him and found him worthy of punishment by death. Their behavior toward him was such that, through his death, they eliminated him from their world.

...If we discuss the historical event of Christ’s passion, it is because we want to understand the karmic consequences of the life that belonged to the specific person who was Jesus Christ; it is not a matter of ignoring what is happening now. Nineteen centuries ago, when he was a man, the Christ was scourged, crowned with thorns, laden with the cross, and nailed to the cross to die. In terms of karma, that has certain specific consequences. There is no thing or event in the world that does not have consequences. Now let us try to understand those consequences.

Nineteen centuries ago, the Christ came in a certain way; he descended from the heavenly spheres and into the interior of the Earth. We know that the earthly life of the Christ began with the baptism in Jordan, following which he descended further into his bodily organization. And he went even deeper—into the sub-bodily, or sub-physical, and on into the Earth’s interior spheres. In a spiritual and moral sense, he went from above downward in order to ascend with the resurrection. His path was thus vertical.

Christ’s sacrifice, however, is related to a cross. The horizontal line, which is missing from the line of descent and ascent, was not his path; he did not create it himself and did not go in that direction, but took only the path of descent and ascent. The horizontal line, in contrast to the line of descent, was created by Christ’s relationship to humankind. When humanity pronounced judgment upon him and then abused him with scorn and death on the cross, the horizontal line was created; it is linked to the path of descent, thus forming a cross. This was the relationship between humanity and the Christ; the cross was thus formed (see figure). That relationship was expressed in the behavior of humanity toward the Christ as the stages of judgment, scourging, crowning with thorns, cross bearing, and crucifixion; human striving cut across his path. As a consequence, this fact can bear karmic compensation; a correction can occur in the world toward the man Jesus Christ.

...Let us briefly consider the steps that the Christ will take in the space available to him because of the karma of the Mystery of Golgotha for humanity—the karmic result of humanity’s past behavior toward him. Humanity judged Christ; now he has the possibility of judging humanity. Judgment by Christ does not mean retribution, however, since the Christ must end the principle of retribution in the world. Christ’s judgment means that he will awaken the conscience; he will be able to work spatially and take steps that awaken the conscience of human beings. The first inkling of the Christ’s return in the etheric will be a wave of elemental feelings of conscience. Feelings of shame will seize people with elemental power. A consuming power of shame will arise, and people will not know its source. Thus we can say that Christ’s appearance in the etheric will be heralded by a red glow of human shame. People will experience an overwhelming force of disappointment in the values they have treasured as “truth” and “beauty.” In a sense, people will have to reassess all the values in their souls. In the state of Kama Loka, one has to experience a reversal of life’s values, owing to rays of the cosmic conscience; now people will have to experience a reversal of all their values, because they will experience those values through the effect of Christ, who will function in horizontal space. 

Because Christ was scourged and crowned with thorns in the past, another step in space is now at his disposal karmically. Christ will not only awaken the human conscience, but also move people. Just as he received the blows of scourging, he will likewise be able to reach, touch, and move people. He will touch those who are in despair and instill comfort and courage in them. This moving touch is a consequence of the scourging, and it will cause courage to flow for a new effort of creativity. Some will say: We’ll begin afresh, because everything we have created thus far will not stand up to his light. To a certain extent, the first day of creation must begin within the human kingdom. People will not gain courage out of themselves; rather, they will gain it from the emotional disturbance that comes from the Christ as karmic consequence of the scourging he experienced. And because Christ was crowned with thorns in the past, he will give tasks to individuals and groups of people and show them how to serve his work. He will crown people with duties of love. We know that there are certain concepts of “duty” that do exist in the world. Nevertheless, “duty” will eventually lead humankind to catastrophe, because everything evil that enters the world will, in fact, be pursued by people out of a sense of duty. When he returns in the etheric, however, Christ will assign tasks of love to people and groups, whereas the notion of “duty”—a giant with feet of clay—will fall and be shattered into a thousand fragments. Instead of duty, there will be a love for one’s task. In the past, Christ had to carry the cross on which he would be crucified; now Christ will heal people’s infirmities when he reappears in the etheric; there will be a healing of destinies. Those who carry their crosses will have the strength to carry them through the healing of soul and body. 

At the Mystery of Golgotha, when Christ was crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). These words contain what he wishes to accomplish in the space, and what was granted to him as karmic consequence of the crucifixion—that people might become conscious of what they do. The karmic result of the crucifixion will not be to bind human beings as though they were crucified, but to open their eyes. A new clairvoyance will be stirred through Christ, so that all human beings will be able to see and know what they do. This is karmic clairvoyance—seeing karma. When people act today, they do not know the karmic consequences of that act. In the future, however, people will know what they are doing. Karmic clairvoyance is Christ’s answer to the crucifixion, because people did not know what they were doing. These are the karmic steps of Christ in space; their cause goes back to when he was a man and had to walk the path of suffering to which human beings had condemned him. Thus Christ changes the negative into the positive. The return of Christ in the etheric is his response to the way he was treated when he lived among humankind as a man.
 
Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (pp. 390-391). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition. 

[AshvinP]

On the occult dangers of transhumanism or 'crystallisation' of the soul-spirit

Although there are very conscious attempts to corporealize the soul and spirit, it is also what we are always doing in the name of materialistic reductionist science. We seek to understand what is organic in terms of what is inorganic, what is living in terms of what is dead, what is conscious in terms of what is merely organic, what thinks in terms of what instinctually desires (like Freudian psychology). And whatever transcends thinking itself, i.e. the archetypal world of supra-sensory moral Ideals, is either dismissed as non-existent or reduced to conceptions of things we already sense and know with the corporeal intellect. So the pursuit of 'transhumanism' is simply reductionist thinking taken to its logical extreme. There are plenty of "spiritualists" who also think in reductionist terms, and thereby practically default to materialism in the domain of science. Since Tomberg wrote the passage below, clearly the trend toward 'transhumanism' has only strengthened as people fail to develop living spiritual activity. For ex., I came across the following article recently:


https://interestingengineering.com/inno ... -year-musk

Launched in 2016, Neuralink is yet another moonshot project from Musk, where he wants to link the human brain to a computer. Musk's ideal application for the technology is to enable a paraplegic person to walk again. So far has only demonstrated the technology in monkeys who have been able to play video games.

One cannot help but set that ideal in contrast to the Ideal revealed in scripture:

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”... So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home.

That is the Ideal of faithful striving through spiritual activity so we are graced with the power to have our sins blotted out, i.e. to karmically compensate for our past deeds that have crippled our psycho-physical organization. It is a striving to spiritualize (or moralize) the soul and body, rather than to corporealize (or naturalize) the soul and spirit. 

***

Lastly, physical obstacles exist for Force, i.e. for the radiation of life, only in so far as they are due to morbid processes of crystallisation in living organisms. If we give them a common comprehensive name, it is “sclerosis”; this constitutes the obstacle in general. Sclerosis is the process of gradual alienation of the body from the soul and spirit. A corpse is the limit and end of this, because the corpse is a body completely alienated with regard to the soul and spirit. This is what Dr. Étienne May says in making an assessment from the standpoint of modern day medicine:

"With regard to arterio-sclerosis, it is to a certain extent a natural modification of the arteries with age. And thus, pushing this to an absurd extreme, one could almost say that, all other illnesses being suppressed, sclerosis of the arteries—in the long run obligatory—would alone prevent us from becoming immortal." (Dr. Étienne May, La médecine, son passé, son présent, son avenir, Paris, 1957, p. 341)

...
Without doubt you know, dear Unknown Friend, that there are schools—occult or other—which teach and practise crystallisation and that there are other schools which teach and practise radiation, i.e. the complete de-crystallisation of the human being and his transformation into a “sun”, into a centre of radiation. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew xiii, 43)—this is the practical aim of “schools of radiation”, to which that of Christian Hermeticism belongs. The “schools of crystallisation” are quite numerous and widespread. There are those which are entirely secret, with very serious intentions; there are also those which are known in the guise of almost popular movements for “health, rejuvenation and longevity”.

I have in mind the school of G. I. Gurdjieff, and I am going to cite the work In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky. Now, the following is the teaching of Gurdjieff, such as it has been understood and formulated by Ouspensky, concerning the practical task of survival:

On one occasion, at one of these meetings, someone asked about the possibility of reincarnation, and whether it was possible to believe in cases of communication with the dead. “Many things are possible,” said G. (Gurdjieff). “But it is necessary to understand that man’s being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The ‘man-machine’ with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallisation, a certain fusion of man’s inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body…But even if something survives, its future can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallisation, what people call ‘reincarnation’ may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call ‘existence on the other side’. In both cases it is the continuation of life in the ‘astral body’, or with the help of the ‘astral body’. You know what the expression ‘astral body’ means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an ‘astral body’. This is quite wrong. What may be called the ‘astral body’ is obtained by means of fusion, that, is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an ‘astral body’. If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body…Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of ‘friction’, by the struggle between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in man. If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to ‘crystallise’…Crystallisation is possible on any foundations. Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, and flies are biting him; but he stands still. Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallisation is achieved…Such people can become immortal.
(P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, London, 1969, pp. 31-32)

...
The essence of the method of “construction of the tower of Babel” is inverse crystallisation. Normal crystallisation—the “stone”—is the final state of the process of transition from the gaseous to the liquid state and from the liquid to the solid state. Thus vapour becomes water (liquid) and water becomes ice. Ice is crystallised vapour. Similarly, a general but warm intention becomes a current of discursive thought which, in its turn, results in a well-defined formula. Or in still other terms: the spiritual becomes psychic and the psychic becomes corporeal. The process of normal crystallisation is therefore one of concretisation from above below: The process of crystallisation designated as the “construction of the tower of Babel”, takes place, in contrast, from below above: With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual. And it is thus that one can conquer death and realise immortality…corporeal immortality. For if the spiritual and the psychic, in becoming corporeal, become mortal, would it not be possible that the corporeal, in rising to the psychic and spiritual, becomes immortal?
...
Is this scheme realisable or is it simply an illusion, pure and simple? Although this question belongs to the framework of problems of the sixteenth Major Arcanum of the Tarot, and although it will be treated in the sixteenth Letter, let us nonetheless consider some facts with a view to coming to an answer. The facts that I have in mind are those of corporeal survival, i.e. physical manifestations that one attributes—rightly or wrongly—to dead people or to “ghosts”. Ghosts exist. This is not a question of belief; it is a matter of fact. There is an immense literature, without speaking of facts that one can find in the sphere of personal experience, which bears witness to the existence of ghosts. Now it is no longer a matter of believing or denying; now it is a matter only of understanding and explaining. Ghosts exist therefore...

What, then, is a ghost? It is exactly what Gurdjieff teaches concerning the product of psychic crystallisation effected from within the physical body, and which can resist the death of the latter. This is the “astral body” of which Gurdjieff said that, “if it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body…if it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body” (Ouspensky, op. cit, p. 32). Of course, the “astral body” spoken of by Gurdjieff has nothing to do with the “astral body” of Hermeticism, which latter is, truth to tell, simply the totality of the soul’s psychic memories. A ghost is always constituted as a consequence of crystallisation, i.e. crystallisation of a desire, a passion, or a purpose of great intensity, which produces a complex of energy in the human being. Thus, a “genuine brigand” who stands “with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring” or “a monk…(who) is afraid of the devil (and) all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays” (Ouspensky, op. cit., p. 32) in fact crystallise within them a complex of energy, a psycho-electrical double, which would be able, as a dense complex, to resist death.
...
It is therefore not purely and simply a matter of an illusion in the case of the ideal and method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”. Rather, it is a matter of another kind of immortality, notably that which the serpent of Genesis had in mind when he said, “You will not die if you eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. For the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil produces the inner friction in man of the struggle between “yes” and “no”, and this friction in its turn produces the electrical fire which effects the crystallisation whose product will resist death. This is the meaning of the promise—or rather the programme—of the serpent. This programme underlies the millennial-old method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”, and it constitutes the esoteric kernel or the hidden secret of materialistic science in general.
...
We have chosen Gurdjieff (and Ouspensky) to exemplify the ideal and the method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”, but Gurdjieff—being openly materialistic in the true sense of this word, and being deprived of all mystical sense—only spoke on behalf of the multitude. All he did was to give forth clearly what animates and impels—in an unconscious or semi-conscious way—millions and millions of scientists devoted to the cause of longevity, i.e. to the victory over death through human science, without God and without mysticism: the universal cause of the construction of the tower of Babel.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 355-356). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

Thanks for sharing. I think the text in bold should be turned around. "The process of crystallization designated as the “construction of the tower of Babel”, takes place, in contrast, from below above: With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual." The inverse crystallization is a matter of transformation of the body into psychic/spiritual, as an attempt to make the body immortal, not the other way round.

Shouldn't it be reversed in your comment as well? "Although there are very conscious attempts to corporealize the soul and spirit, it is also what we are always doing in the name of materialistic reductionist science." I would replace the bold by 'attempts to ensoul the body', in the logic of inverse crystallization presented by Tomberg.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Thanks for sharing. I think the text in bold should be turned around. "The process of crystallization designated as the “construction of the tower of Babel”, takes place, in contrast, from below above: With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual." The inverse crystallization is a matter of transformation of the body into psychic/spiritual, as an attempt to make the body immortal, not the other way round.

Shouldn't it be reversed in your comment as well? "Although there are very conscious attempts to corporealize the soul and spirit, it is also what we are always doing in the name of materialistic reductionist science." I would replace the bold by 'attempts to ensoul the body', in the logic of inverse crystallization presented by Tomberg.

Federica,

I don't think so. The spiritualization (or etherization) of the body is what we seek to do in our progressive efforts, to put on the new Resurrection body as prefigured in Christ Jesus. The inverse process seeks the opposite - to make the soul-spirit imitate the physical body more in its functioning. At the level of standard philosophy, theology, science, etc., we could say that inverse process manifests as the attempts to understand everything of a soul-spiritual nature in coarse physical terms, i.e. what is already familiar and suspected through sense-experience. In that way, the mere corporeal context is projected into the soul-spiritual experience. Another manifestation is the 'phantom layer' of concepts that has been discussed here, which goes to the other extreme but practically ends up in the same place, i.e. a physicalizing or naturalizing of the soul-spirit experience. For ex. the analytic idealist who begins conceiving of God/MAL as some-thing akin to an instinctive, predictable animal.

At the occult level, Tomberg gives the example of what Gurdjieff described. I may have snipped out a helpful passage in that context, so here it is:

Let us now take account of the essential points in the quoted text. Firstly, it is the physical body which gives birth to what is called in the quotation the “astral body” which will be the bearer of survival. Then, according to the text, immortality is neither a birthright of the human soul nor a gift of divine grace—it is made by means of the crystallisation of a new body within the physical body which can resist death and survive the destruction of the physical body. That is to say, the soul created by God does not exist; it must be created by the human being from within the human physical body. Thus it is a quantity of energy crystallised within the human physical body and engendered through this latter, produced by friction or the struggle between “yes” and “no” in man. For both the robber and the monk, and also the occultist, can become immortal through the energy that they produce by their efforts.

Then he goes on to describe how this is not mere fantasy on the part of Gurdjieff and others, but gives the example of ghosts as a concrete manifestation of the inverse crystallisation of a 'new body within the physical body' that can survive death (which is not the astral/desire body as occult science understands it). The normal process is that our physical-etheric experience becomes a spiritual imprint that is received by the astral body and carried into the Spheres after death, i.e. into the living judgment of the higher hierarchies, which is necessary for the purification and perfection of the soul. The inverse process practically seeks an "astral body" that can remain in the Earthly context and avoid that judgment. To some extent, this is always happening when humans develop one-sided and obsessive passions, drives, etc. that become 'autonomous psychic complexes' (Jung). Certain occult schools seek to take conscious control of that process so as to attain the 'immortality' normally only present for the soul-spirit that radiates out into the Cosmos, for something like a body made of psycho-physical electrical energy that can crystallize itself within the Earthly context.

Tomberg's research into the ghost phenomenon, which I also clipped out, may be helpful for more context as well.

An analysis of the manifestations of ghosts has enabled me to extract from them the following characteristic traits:

1. a ghost is an entity made up of psycho-physiological electrical energy, with an inferior consciousness in comparison with that of a normal human person;

2. the consciousness which is revealed by the actions of a ghost, and by its way of acting in general, is very limited and extremely specialised—one is tempted to characterise it as “maniacal”, since it manifests itself as the crystallisation of a single passion, a single habit, or a single fixed idea;

3. the energy of which the ghost is constituted becomes weakened with time—provided that it is not nourished by an affirmative and favourable attitude from its human entourage; it fades away. One can make it disappear through the Church ritual of exorcism, or by individual prayer, or lastly by a special action which demands courage and which consists in clasping and breathing in the ghost, in such a way as to receive it into oneself and of oneself to make the electrical energy of the ghost dissipate. I dare not recommend this latter method because it entails the experience of an electric shock—which can be excessive—at the moment when the energy of the ghost passes into your organism. I may add, however, that it is this experience of an electric shock which gives absolute certainty with respect to the electrical nature of the “body” of the ghost. At the same time it can also supply proof—in the inner forum of consciousness, it goes without saying—that the ghost is not the soul of the departed one, and that it is a burden to him, being bound to the soul of the departed by a heavy link of responsibility. In the case that I have mentioned, soon after the dissipation of the ghost’s electrical energy through its reception into oneself, the departed one hastens to make acknowledgement of his gratitude, by means of a very vivid and clear dream, for his deliverance from this heavy burden.
...
And the same thing that happens with human beings who are possessed by strong desires, passions and intentions can be achieved methodically by making use of the scientific method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”. Then one could not only animate the double crystallised from a desire, a passion or a dominant intention, but also equip it with an intellectual apparatus of very developed functioning and a mechanical memory in which all the facts of experience on the physical plane are accumulated. The “self” of such an occultist would then be allied to this double, who is the bearer of his memory and intellect, and could incarnate himself anew—avoiding purgatory and the whole path of purification, illumination and union which is the lot of the human soul after death.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 358-359). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

Thanks for sharing. I think the text in bold should be turned around. "The process of crystallization designated as the “construction of the tower of Babel”, takes place, in contrast, from below above: With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual." The inverse crystallization is a matter of transformation of the body into psychic/spiritual, as an attempt to make the body immortal, not the other way round.

Shouldn't it be reversed in your comment as well? "Although there are very conscious attempts to corporealize the soul and spirit, it is also what we are always doing in the name of materialistic reductionist science." I would replace the bold by 'attempts to ensoul the body', in the logic of inverse crystallization presented by Tomberg.

Federica,

I don't think so. The spiritualization (or etherization) of the body is what we seek to do in our progressive efforts, to put on the new Resurrection body as prefigured in Christ Jesus. The inverse process seeks the opposite - to make the soul-spirit imitate the physical body more in its functioning. At the level of standard philosophy, theology, science, etc., we could say that inverse process manifests as the attempts to understand everything of a soul-spiritual nature in coarse physical terms, i.e. what is already familiar and suspected through sense-experience. In that way, the mere corporeal context is projected into the soul-spiritual experience. Another manifestation is the 'phantom layer' of concepts that has been discussed here, which goes to the other extreme but practically ends up in the same place, i.e. a physicalizing or naturalizing of the soul-spirit experience. For ex. the analytic idealist who begins conceiving of God/MAL as some-thing akin to an instinctive, predictable animal.

At the occult level, Tomberg gives the example of what Gurdjieff described. I may have snipped out a helpful passage in that context, so here it is:

Let us now take account of the essential points in the quoted text. Firstly, it is the physical body which gives birth to what is called in the quotation the “astral body” which will be the bearer of survival. Then, according to the text, immortality is neither a birthright of the human soul nor a gift of divine grace—it is made by means of the crystallisation of a new body within the physical body which can resist death and survive the destruction of the physical body. That is to say, the soul created by God does not exist; it must be created by the human being from within the human physical body. Thus it is a quantity of energy crystallised within the human physical body and engendered through this latter, produced by friction or the struggle between “yes” and “no” in man. For both the robber and the monk, and also the occultist, can become immortal through the energy that they produce by their efforts.

Then he goes on to describe how this is not mere fantasy on the part of Gurdjieff and others, but gives the example of ghosts as a concrete manifestation of the inverse crystallisation of a 'new body within the physical body' that can survive death (which is not the astral/desire body as occult science understands it). The normal process is that our physical-etheric experience becomes a spiritual imprint that is received by the astral body and carried into the Spheres after death, i.e. into the living judgment of the higher hierarchies, which is necessary for the purification and perfection of the soul. The inverse process practically seeks an "astral body" that can remain in the Earthly context and avoid that judgment. To some extent, this is always happening when humans develop one-sided and obsessive passions, drives, etc. that become 'autonomous psychic complexes' (Jung). Certain occult schools seek to take conscious control of that process so as to attain the 'immortality' normally only present for the soul-spirit that radiates out into the Cosmos, for something like a body made of psycho-physical electrical energy that can crystallize itself within the Earthly context.

Tomberg's research into the ghost phenomenon, which I also clipped out, may be helpful for more context as well.

An analysis of the manifestations of ghosts has enabled me to extract from them the following characteristic traits:

1. a ghost is an entity made up of psycho-physiological electrical energy, with an inferior consciousness in comparison with that of a normal human person;

2. the consciousness which is revealed by the actions of a ghost, and by its way of acting in general, is very limited and extremely specialised—one is tempted to characterise it as “maniacal”, since it manifests itself as the crystallisation of a single passion, a single habit, or a single fixed idea;

3. the energy of which the ghost is constituted becomes weakened with time—provided that it is not nourished by an affirmative and favourable attitude from its human entourage; it fades away. One can make it disappear through the Church ritual of exorcism, or by individual prayer, or lastly by a special action which demands courage and which consists in clasping and breathing in the ghost, in such a way as to receive it into oneself and of oneself to make the electrical energy of the ghost dissipate. I dare not recommend this latter method because it entails the experience of an electric shock—which can be excessive—at the moment when the energy of the ghost passes into your organism. I may add, however, that it is this experience of an electric shock which gives absolute certainty with respect to the electrical nature of the “body” of the ghost. At the same time it can also supply proof—in the inner forum of consciousness, it goes without saying—that the ghost is not the soul of the departed one, and that it is a burden to him, being bound to the soul of the departed by a heavy link of responsibility. In the case that I have mentioned, soon after the dissipation of the ghost’s electrical energy through its reception into oneself, the departed one hastens to make acknowledgement of his gratitude, by means of a very vivid and clear dream, for his deliverance from this heavy burden.
...
And the same thing that happens with human beings who are possessed by strong desires, passions and intentions can be achieved methodically by making use of the scientific method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”. Then one could not only animate the double crystallised from a desire, a passion or a dominant intention, but also equip it with an intellectual apparatus of very developed functioning and a mechanical memory in which all the facts of experience on the physical plane are accumulated. The “self” of such an occultist would then be allied to this double, who is the bearer of his memory and intellect, and could incarnate himself anew—avoiding purgatory and the whole path of purification, illumination and union which is the lot of the human soul after death.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 358-359). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Ashvin, I have read the whole thing now. I am saying a very basic thing: if standard crystallization goes from spirit, to soul, to body, then inverted crystallization has to go the opposite direction.

Tomberg says that, according to Gurdjieff, immortality happens by crystallization in the physical body (starting point of the process) of a new body that can resist physical death. The soul created by God does not exist, it's created by man, from the physical human body. It’s an amount of crystallized energy within the physical human body created by man through friction, through the fight between yes and no within man. It is the construction plan of a tower (Tower of Babel) from mortality (body) to immortality.

Tomberg calls this process inverted crystallization, from the physical body to the creation of three other bodies, that grant immortality, through friction/metal fusion/electricity (in short). On the contrary - he says - the normal crystallization (the stone) is the final state of the process of transition from gas to solid, as for example with water, from water vapor to liquid water to ice, or, in other words, from spiritual, to soul, to physical. In the original book, p. 428 (in the book, not in the .pdf), there is even a diagram:

Normal crystallization is top-down:
Spirit → Soul → Body.
Inverted Crystallization (construction of the Tower of Babel) is bottom-up:
Body → Soul → Spirit.

And here comes the sentence that I believe has been wrongly turned in its beginning, which becomes evident if one looks at the paragraph in its entirety:

"With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual. And it is thus that one can conquer death and realize immortality…corporeal immortality. For if the spiritual and the psychic, in becoming corporeal, become mortal, would it not be possible that the corporeal, in rising to the psychic and spiritual, becomes immortal?"

As it is, the above paragraph is contradictory, not only compared with the little diagram that precedes it, but also within itself: "If the spiritual and the psychic, in becoming corporeal (normal crystallization) become mortal” it should be possible to reverse the process (inverted crystallization) and go from mortal (corporeal) to immortal, by elevating the body to the psycho-spiritual (like ghosts, who achieve such survival of the body, by maintaining physical manifestations, after physical death).

So the reversed, materialistic, crystallization, à la Gurdjieff, transforms physical body into a ghost body, which is a physical manifestation, i.e. has sensory attributes, and realizes immortality/physical survival.

As Tomberg says a few lines below, it’s the process described by Gordjieff of “psychic crystallization effected from within the physical body”. The body is the starting point. The body is ensouled, meaning crystallized in a "specialized soul consciousness”, an energetic complex, “a psycho-electric double that resists physical death", remains on the physical plane. Such ensouled entity maintains physical characteristics.

Applying some more materialistic effort to such crystallization of physical body into a complex of desires that naturally happens with the ghost, is the transhuman endeavor:

“This same thing can be realized and accomplished methodically, through the scientific method of the construction of the Tower of Babel. In this way it will become possible not only to ensoul the crystallized double of a desire, a passion, or a dominant plan, but also to provide it with a fully functional intellectual machinery and a mechanical memory that retains all the facts of experience of the physical plane. The “self” of such an occultist, would become able in this way to join forces with this double, bearer of his memory and intellect, and reincarnate without passing through purgatory and the path of purification, illumination and union, which is the destiny of the human soul after death."


So I understand what you say, basically we are saying the same thing, but I maintain that, for clarity of what Tomberg unfolds, in logical symmetry, the labels should be turned around as I said. Hopefully I have better clarified now?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Thanks for sharing. I think the text in bold should be turned around. "The process of crystallization designated as the “construction of the tower of Babel”, takes place, in contrast, from below above: With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual." The inverse crystallization is a matter of transformation of the body into psychic/spiritual, as an attempt to make the body immortal, not the other way round.

Shouldn't it be reversed in your comment as well? "Although there are very conscious attempts to corporealize the soul and spirit, it is also what we are always doing in the name of materialistic reductionist science." I would replace the bold by 'attempts to ensoul the body', in the logic of inverse crystallization presented by Tomberg.

Federica,

I don't think so. The spiritualization (or etherization) of the body is what we seek to do in our progressive efforts, to put on the new Resurrection body as prefigured in Christ Jesus. The inverse process seeks the opposite - to make the soul-spirit imitate the physical body more in its functioning. At the level of standard philosophy, theology, science, etc., we could say that inverse process manifests as the attempts to understand everything of a soul-spiritual nature in coarse physical terms, i.e. what is already familiar and suspected through sense-experience. In that way, the mere corporeal context is projected into the soul-spiritual experience. Another manifestation is the 'phantom layer' of concepts that has been discussed here, which goes to the other extreme but practically ends up in the same place, i.e. a physicalizing or naturalizing of the soul-spirit experience. For ex. the analytic idealist who begins conceiving of God/MAL as some-thing akin to an instinctive, predictable animal.

At the occult level, Tomberg gives the example of what Gurdjieff described. I may have snipped out a helpful passage in that context, so here it is:

Let us now take account of the essential points in the quoted text. Firstly, it is the physical body which gives birth to what is called in the quotation the “astral body” which will be the bearer of survival. Then, according to the text, immortality is neither a birthright of the human soul nor a gift of divine grace—it is made by means of the crystallisation of a new body within the physical body which can resist death and survive the destruction of the physical body. That is to say, the soul created by God does not exist; it must be created by the human being from within the human physical body. Thus it is a quantity of energy crystallised within the human physical body and engendered through this latter, produced by friction or the struggle between “yes” and “no” in man. For both the robber and the monk, and also the occultist, can become immortal through the energy that they produce by their efforts.

Then he goes on to describe how this is not mere fantasy on the part of Gurdjieff and others, but gives the example of ghosts as a concrete manifestation of the inverse crystallisation of a 'new body within the physical body' that can survive death (which is not the astral/desire body as occult science understands it). The normal process is that our physical-etheric experience becomes a spiritual imprint that is received by the astral body and carried into the Spheres after death, i.e. into the living judgment of the higher hierarchies, which is necessary for the purification and perfection of the soul. The inverse process practically seeks an "astral body" that can remain in the Earthly context and avoid that judgment. To some extent, this is always happening when humans develop one-sided and obsessive passions, drives, etc. that become 'autonomous psychic complexes' (Jung). Certain occult schools seek to take conscious control of that process so as to attain the 'immortality' normally only present for the soul-spirit that radiates out into the Cosmos, for something like a body made of psycho-physical electrical energy that can crystallize itself within the Earthly context.

Tomberg's research into the ghost phenomenon, which I also clipped out, may be helpful for more context as well.

An analysis of the manifestations of ghosts has enabled me to extract from them the following characteristic traits:

1. a ghost is an entity made up of psycho-physiological electrical energy, with an inferior consciousness in comparison with that of a normal human person;

2. the consciousness which is revealed by the actions of a ghost, and by its way of acting in general, is very limited and extremely specialised—one is tempted to characterise it as “maniacal”, since it manifests itself as the crystallisation of a single passion, a single habit, or a single fixed idea;

3. the energy of which the ghost is constituted becomes weakened with time—provided that it is not nourished by an affirmative and favourable attitude from its human entourage; it fades away. One can make it disappear through the Church ritual of exorcism, or by individual prayer, or lastly by a special action which demands courage and which consists in clasping and breathing in the ghost, in such a way as to receive it into oneself and of oneself to make the electrical energy of the ghost dissipate. I dare not recommend this latter method because it entails the experience of an electric shock—which can be excessive—at the moment when the energy of the ghost passes into your organism. I may add, however, that it is this experience of an electric shock which gives absolute certainty with respect to the electrical nature of the “body” of the ghost. At the same time it can also supply proof—in the inner forum of consciousness, it goes without saying—that the ghost is not the soul of the departed one, and that it is a burden to him, being bound to the soul of the departed by a heavy link of responsibility. In the case that I have mentioned, soon after the dissipation of the ghost’s electrical energy through its reception into oneself, the departed one hastens to make acknowledgement of his gratitude, by means of a very vivid and clear dream, for his deliverance from this heavy burden.
...
And the same thing that happens with human beings who are possessed by strong desires, passions and intentions can be achieved methodically by making use of the scientific method of the “construction of the tower of Babel”. Then one could not only animate the double crystallised from a desire, a passion or a dominant intention, but also equip it with an intellectual apparatus of very developed functioning and a mechanical memory in which all the facts of experience on the physical plane are accumulated. The “self” of such an occultist would then be allied to this double, who is the bearer of his memory and intellect, and could incarnate himself anew—avoiding purgatory and the whole path of purification, illumination and union which is the lot of the human soul after death.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 358-359). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Ashvin, I have read the whole thing now. I am saying a very basic thing: if standard crystallization goes from spirit, to soul, to body, then inverted crystallization has to go the opposite direction.

Tomberg says that, according to Gurdjieff, immortality happens by crystallization in the physical body (starting point of the process) of a new body that can resist physical death. The soul created by God does not exist, it's created by man, from the physical human body. It’s an amount of crystallized energy within the physical human body created by man through friction, through the fight between yes and no within man. It is the construction plan of a tower (Tower of Babel) from mortality (body) to immortality.

Tomberg calls this process inverted crystallization, from the physical body to the creation of three other bodies, that grant immortality, through friction/metal fusion/electricity (in short). On the contrary - he says - the normal crystallization (the stone) is the final state of the process of transition from gas to solid, as for example with water, from water vapor to liquid water to ice, or, in other words, from spiritual, to soul, to physical. In the original book, p. 428 (in the book, not in the .pdf), there is even a diagram:

Normal crystallization is top-down:
Spirit → Soul → Body.
Inverted Crystallization (construction of the Tower of Babel) is bottom-up:
Body → Soul → Spirit.

And here comes the sentence that I believe has been wrongly turned in its beginning, which becomes evident if one looks at the paragraph in its entirety:

"With regard to this latter process, it is a matter of transformation into “body” of the psychic and spiritual. And it is thus that one can conquer death and realize immortality…corporeal immortality. For if the spiritual and the psychic, in becoming corporeal, become mortal, would it not be possible that the corporeal, in rising to the psychic and spiritual, becomes immortal?"

As it is, the above paragraph is contradictory, not only compared with the little diagram that precedes it, but also within itself: "If the spiritual and the psychic, in becoming corporeal (normal crystallization) become mortal” it should be possible to reverse the process (inverted crystallization) and go from mortal (corporeal) to immortal, by elevating the body to the psycho-spiritual (like ghosts, who achieve such survival of the body, by maintaining physical manifestations, after physical death).

So the reversed, materialistic, crystallization, à la Gurdjieff, transforms physical body into a ghost body, which is a physical manifestation, i.e. has sensory attributes, and realizes immortality/physical survival.

As Tomberg says a few lines below, it’s the process described by Gordjieff of “psychic crystallization effected from within the physical body”. The body is the starting point. The body is ensouled, meaning crystallized in a "specialized soul consciousness”, an energetic complex, “a psycho-electric double that resists physical death", remains on the physical plane. Such ensouled entity maintains physical characteristics.

Applying some more materialistic effort to such crystallization of physical body into a complex of desires that naturally happens with the ghost, is the transhuman endeavor:

“This same thing can be realized and accomplished methodically, through the scientific method of the construction of the Tower of Babel. In this way it will become possible not only to ensoul the crystallized double of a desire, a passion, or a dominant plan, but also to provide it with a fully functional intellectual machinery and a mechanical memory that retains all the facts of experience of the physical plane. The “self” of such an occultist, would become able in this way to join forces with this double, bearer of his memory and intellect, and reincarnate without passing through purgatory and the path of purification, illumination and union, which is the destiny of the human soul after death."


So I understand what you say, basically we are saying the same thing, but I maintain that, for clarity of what Tomberg unfolds, in logical symmetry, the labels should be turned around as I said. Hopefully I have better clarified now?

I understand your position here, which is nicely outlined above, but I don't think it shows the phrase in question was misstated or in contradiction to other parts. We should remember there is a normal healthy process by which crystallized forms become spiritualized. In the mineral domain we call it melting or evaporation and in the domain of living organisms we call it death. The physical body and its processes die to their material substance and their Earthly functioning. That includes our intellectual thinking and thought forms that are tied to the sensory spectrum. The healthy process renounces such thinking across the threshold. I remind of the Steiner lecture on how Ahriman seeks to abdicate his proper role of bringing death to natural (mineral) forms (or we could say overextend that proper role to higher modes of thinking) and thereby keep intellectual thinking alive across the threshold, so that all supra-sensory ideas-ideals are only conceived in sensory terms, i.e. materialist reductionism.

We can best characterize Ahriman by saying: he is the Lord of Death, far and wide the ruler of all the powers that have to bring about in the physical sense world what this world has to have, the annihilation and death of its entities. Death in the sense world is a necessary part of its organization, for otherwise the beings in it would accumulate to excess, if destruction of life were not at hand. The task of regulating this in a lawful way fell to Ahriman from the spiritual world; he is the ruler of the ordering of death. His sovereign domain is the mineral world, a world that is utterly dead. One can say that death is poured out over the whole of the mineral world. Furthermore, because our earth world is constituted as it is, the mineral world and its laws pervade all the other kingdoms of nature. Plants, animals, human beings — all are permeated, as far as they belong to the earth, by the mineral; they absorb the mineral substances and, with them, all the forces and laws of the mineral kingdom; they are subject to these laws insofar as they are part of the being of the earth. Therefore whatever belongs justifiably to death extends also into the higher regions of the lawful rule of Ahriman.
...
Ahriman, however, can overstep his bounds. In the first place, he can so far overdo that he sets to work on human thinking. A man who does not see into the spiritual world and has no understanding of it will not believe that Ahriman can put his fingers upon human thinking in a very real way — nevertheless, he does! Insofar as human thinking lives in the sense world, it is bound to the brain, which according to universal law is subject to decay. Ahriman has to regulate the passage of the human brain towards decay, but when he oversteps his territory, he develops the tendency to loosen this human thinking from its mortal instrument, the brain, in order to make it independent. He tries to detach the physical thinking directed to the sense world from the physical brain, into whose current of decay this thinking should merge when the human being passes through the gate of death. Ahriman has the tendency, when he admits man as a physical being into the stream of death, to snatch his thinking out of the current of decay. Throughout a man's whole life Ahriman is always fastening his claws into this thinking activity and working on the human being so that his thinking will tear itself away from destruction. Because Ahriman is active in this way in human thinking and because men bound to the sense world naturally perceive only the effects of the spiritual beings, those who are thus in the clutches of Ahriman feel the impulse to wrench their thinking out of its place in the great cosmic order. The result is the materialistic frame of mind; this is the reason men want to apply their thinking only to the sense world, and the people who refuse to believe in a spiritual world are the ones particularly obsessed by Ahriman: it is he who enters their thinking and prevails upon its remaining in the sense world.

Tomberg does not call the healthy process of body returning to soul and spirit 'inverse crystallisation', but rather radiation. He elaborates on this distinction in other places. The IC process does not renounce the bodily substance and functioning, such as intellectual thinking, but seeks to maintain it at a more subtle (electrical) level that circumvents the natural process of mineral decay. That is why it is proper to say it is a transformation of the soul-spiritual into "body". It is a counterfeit soul-spiritual that is more bodily in nature than it is spiritual. So it seeks to attain continuity of consciousness between incarnations without any of the purification and moral perfection that comes through the healthy radiating process from body to spirit. Again, that is the heart of the matter - the IC transhumanist pursuit (and at a lower level, standard reductionist culture) seeks to avoid submitting to the wise Divine judgment of human experience-deeds and attain immortality while remaining the same or even degenerating in moral stature.

[Federica]

Tomberg does not call the healthy process of body returning to soul and spirit 'inverse crystallisation', but rather radiation. He elaborates on this distinction in other places. The IC process does not renounce the bodily substance and functioning, such as intellectual thinking, but seeks to maintain it at a more subtle (electrical) level that circumvents the natural process of mineral decay. That is why it is proper to say it is a transformation of the soul-spiritual into "body". It is a counterfeit soul-spiritual that is more bodily in nature than it is spiritual. So it seeks to attain continuity of consciousness between incarnations without any of the purification and moral perfection that comes through the healthy radiating process from body to spirit. Again, that is the heart of the matter - the IC transhumanist pursuit (and at a lower level, standard reductionist culture) seeks to avoid submitting to the wise Divine judgment of human experience-deeds and attain immortality while remaining the same or even degenerating in moral stature.

Yes, I noticed how he speaks of radiation, or de-crystallization. In other words this whole dynamic can be seen as a whole circle, and it can be walked in both directions, healthy or unhealthy, so in principle, no sequence is inappropriate, in its relevant context. Surely the IC process (unhealthy) does not renounce the bodily substance and functioning. It seeks to maintain it, yes. For this reason it's not inappropriate to speak of transformation into the body. But in this particular context, Tomberg was only taking half circles, so to say, contrasting the healthy half of normal crystallization to how it can become unhealthy when run in reverse. That's why I would have preferred (let's say), for clarity and logic, not to see 'de-radiation' mixed in, just in that particular sentence

[AshvinP]

Tomberg does not call the healthy process of body returning to soul and spirit 'inverse crystallisation', but rather radiation. He elaborates on this distinction in other places. The IC process does not renounce the bodily substance and functioning, such as intellectual thinking, but seeks to maintain it at a more subtle (electrical) level that circumvents the natural process of mineral decay. That is why it is proper to say it is a transformation of the soul-spiritual into "body". It is a counterfeit soul-spiritual that is more bodily in nature than it is spiritual. So it seeks to attain continuity of consciousness between incarnations without any of the purification and moral perfection that comes through the healthy radiating process from body to spirit. Again, that is the heart of the matter - the IC transhumanist pursuit (and at a lower level, standard reductionist culture) seeks to avoid submitting to the wise Divine judgment of human experience-deeds and attain immortality while remaining the same or even degenerating in moral stature.

Yes, I noticed how he speaks of radiation, or de-crystallization. In other words this whole dynamic can be seen as a whole circle, and it can be walked in both directions, healthy or unhealthy, so in principle, no sequence is inappropriate, in its relevant context. Surely the IC process (unhealthy) does not renounce the bodily substance and functioning. It seeks to maintain it, yes. For this reason it's not inappropriate to speak of transformation into the body. But in this particular context, Tomberg was only taking half circles, so to say, contrasting the healthy half of normal crystallization to how it can become unhealthy when run in reverse. That's why I would have preferred (let's say), for clarity and logic, not to see 'de-radiation' mixed in, just in that particular sentence

Right. I actually prefer that way of putting it because it emphasizes the ricochet effect of those inverse and subtly amoral efforts. No doubt that Gurdjieff and his students, for ex., would feel that spawning new energetic bodies from within the psycho-physical organization is a viable path to "liberation" from 'machine-man' and therefore towards their spiritual ideals. The same thing goes for materialistic scientists like Elon Musk and his technologies, through which he feels to be helping people "liberate" from major physical obstacles like paralysis and thereby expand the expression of their spiritual capacities. And of course, we have become familiar here with how one-sided mysticism seeks loving ideals of spiritual unity but, in the process, only enslaves its thinking further to the fragmented physical spectrum. So the real outcome of these efforts is quite the opposite of what is intended by most of those pursuing them. Instead of liberating the soul into a more spiritual thinking experience, it conditions and chains the soul-spirit more to its lower psycho-physical complex.

[Federica]

Right. I actually prefer that way of putting it because it emphasizes the ricochet effect of those inverse and subtly amoral efforts. No doubt that Gurdjieff and his students, for ex., would feel that spawning new energetic bodies from within the psycho-physical organization is a viable path to "liberation" from 'machine-man' and therefore towards their spiritual ideals. The same thing goes for materialistic scientists like Elon Musk and his technologies, through which he feels to be helping people "liberate" from major physical obstacles like paralysis and thereby expand the expression of their spiritual capacities. And of course, we have become familiar here with how one-sided mysticism seeks loving ideals of spiritual unity but, in the process, only enslaves its thinking further to the fragmented physical spectrum. So the real outcome of these efforts is quite the opposite of what is intended by most of those pursuing them. Instead of liberating the soul into a more spiritual thinking experience, it conditions and chains the soul-spirit more to its lower psycho-physical complex.

This looks like a very good reason to prefer to put emphasis on the bodily focus of these endeavors of inverted crystallization. With this, it looks like I've come full circle, back to the starting point. Thanks for the tour, Ashvin
Does Tomberg explicitly speak of black powers somewhere in what you have read?