Federica wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 1:47 pmAshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:40 pm 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?
He does reference the hierarchies of the left and other 'demonic' powers (there is a distinction to be drawn there) in various places. I would recommend looking at the meditation on the tarot of The Devil (Lecture XV). There he also provides the following caution. I found it a refreshing perspective on the forces of evil and our approach to it, particularly since I am coming from an Anthroposophical foundation. Many Anthroposophists distanced themselves from Tomberg around the time of WWII and continue to do so today because of his independent thinking and his refusal to simply endorse everything said by Steiner and done by the Society, but I find it is exactly for that reason, among many others, that we should pay close attention to his meditative ideas.
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As it is a matter in the Tarot of a series of spiritual or Hermetic exercises, and as, on the other hand, every spiritual exercise tends to lead to the identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation, i.e. to an act of intuition, the fifteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, in so far as it is a spiritual exercise, cannot—and must not—lead to an experience of identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation. One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.
Unfortunately many authors—occultist and non-occultist—have dealt without rhyme or reason with the profound things of both good and evil. They believed they should “do their best” with respect to depth and penetration in their treatment of the subject of the mysteries of good and, equally, that of the secrets of evil. It is thus that Dostoyevsky released into the world certain profound truths of Christianity, and, at the same time, certain secret practical methods of evil. This is above all the case in his novel The Possessed.
Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil—and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil—is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. The East is under the domination of Lucifer, because it denies matter; the West is under the domination of Ahriman, because it has created a material civilisation and tends to materialism. All machines—including the apparatus of radio and television—incorporate Ahrimanic demons. Laboratories are the fortresses of Ahriman; theatres—and churches, some believe—are the fortresses of Lucifer. And so on. Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them—which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative élan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative élan! His series of lectures on the four Gospels, his lectures at Helsingfors and Düsseldorf on the celestial hierarchies—without mentioning his book on the inner work leading to initiation (Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?)—would alone suffice to inflame a deep and mature creative enthusiasm in every soul who aspires to authentic experience of the spiritual world. But it is the preoccupation with evil which has clipped the wings of the Anthroposophical Movement and which has rendered it such as it is since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.
One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative élan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology.
This is why you will certainly find luminous descriptions—although schematic—of the celestial hierarchies by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and also in the Cabbala and in the work of Rudolf Steiner, but you will search in vain for an analogous tableau with regard to the hierarchies of evil. You will certainly find amongst sorcerers’ grimoires and in the practical Cabbala (by Abramelin the Mage, for example) a host of names of particular beings belonging to the hierarchies of evil, but you will not find a description of their general classification in the manner of that by St. Dionysius the Areopagite of the celestial hierarchies. The world of the hierarchies of evil appears like a luxuriant jungle, where you can certainly, if necessary, distinguish hundreds and thousands of particular plants, but where you can never attain to a clear view of the totality. The world of evil is a chaotic world—at least, such as it presents itself to the observer.
One ought not to enter this jungle if one does not want to lose one’s way there; one should be an observer from outside. This is why meditation on the Arcanum “The Devil” must obey the laws indicated above concerning the attitude towards evil. It will therefore be a matter of an effort to comprehend this Arcanum at a distance by means of the phenomenological method.
Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 402-403). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.