veilledruide
08-02-2006, 05:56 PM
Hi Daniel!
I'M [Name redacted per user request]. I speak french actually (I'm from Quebec, Canada), so forgive me for my bad english.
I have read Steiner for about three years now, though I read more than a hundred of his books/lecture cycles in this short time. I intend to comment on your understanding of Steiner and anthroposophy.
Escuse me if it seems i'm going in all directions at once...
voilà:
Steiner would never have pleaded in favor of psychedelics. Anthroposophy can never be compared to shamanism (it is decadent now and inclines one into the eighth sphere because it is bound to atavistic clairvoyance), because he regarded shamanism as "atavistic clairvoyance", which means they are forces belonging to another age, in the past, for people with a different body-soul-spirit constitution than today. Atavistic clairvoyance is filled with illusions and can be dangerous: people who become visionaries (second sight, trance, hypnosis, visions, hallucinations, etc.) are going toward the edge of the eighth sphere, where lost souls go and can never come back. You will know more about the eighth sphere (the double of the fourth, our present Earth), the Abyss, in Steiner's "The occult movement in the nineteenth century". I offer you more information about the eighth sphere, coming from an anonymous internet source (aka econcrisis.homestead.com):
"The destiny of Ahriman and Lucifer is that they work with their forces in earth evolution and repeatedly make the greatest efforts to hold back the wider progress of evolution; they try to establish a realm for themselves, and have again and again to suffer disillusionment." [1]
The preceding is one of the most general statements I've ever read by Steiner about the goals of Lucifer and Ahriman. In previous essays, I have concentrated on a few of the approaches they use to sidetrack our evolution, but I didn't go into much detail on their intended destination. That is the subject of this essay.
The "destination" to which I refer is known as the Eighth Sphere. It's a quasi-spiritual world which surrounds us. It was produced by Lucifer and Ahriman just as our solar system's previous "incarnation," a.k.a. the Old Moon "manvantara," was ending. As Steiner puts it, "Thus as Sphere Three [Old Moon manvantara was] advancing to a further stage, something is wrested from the Spirits of Form by Lucifer and Ahriman; into this part that is wrested away, Lucifer and Ahriman penetrate, instead of the Sprits of Form. The activities of Lucifer and Ahriman are added to the Spirits of Movement [among others which created the Old Moon] and, as a result Eight arises out of Three." [2]
In An Outline of Occult Science [3], Steiner describes this "substantiality": "[Mankind was] embedded in the above-described vaporous environment. The most manifold processes occur within this mistlike element. Substances now unite, now separate. Certain parts condense, others become rarefied. All this occurs in such a way that the human beings neither see nor hear it directly, but images [Imaginations] are called forth by it in their consciousness.... Although they are symbols, not copies, they correspond, nevertheless, to the outer events.... A Moon humanity is thus in the position to direct its actions in accordance with these pictures [although driven by dull urges instead of having free will]." [4]
Another angle on this Old Moon form of consciousness is provided by the following excerpt:
in days when the semi-fluid, semi-vaporous Earth was still united with the Moon. Man moved through the semi-fluid, semi-gaseous element like a fish, guiding his way by means of this organ. His perceptions were of a visionary, allegoric nature. Currents of warmth evoked in him the impression of dazzling red and of powerful sound. Currents of cold evoked the impression of shades of green and blue, silvery, rippling sounds. [4a]
Then, as the Earth manvantara (the first one with "solid" matter) began to materialize, Lucifer and Ahriman took the opportunity to grab some of it for their world and infused it into the "substance" which they had stolen from the Old Moon: "Thus when the mineral comes into existence out of the Imaginative substantiality, it is snatched by Lucifer and Ahriman and made into Imagination [i.e. given the form of Imagination instead of that which it was supposed to take]." [5]
Steiner reinforces this statement in a passage which includes a tantalizing potential clue to the nature of the Ghost Society:
"Mark this well: Instead of pure Imagination [Old moon "substantiality"] being there, the Imaginations ARE DENSIFIED BY THE INFUSION OF A MINERAL ELEMENT THAT HAS BEEN WRESTED FROM THE EARTH. Densified Imaginations are thus created.... They are ghosts, spectres - that is to say, behind our world there is a world of spectres created by Lucifer and Ahriman." [5]
But that wasn't the end of it; Lucifer and Ahriman continue to take whatever they can from Earth, and convert it into Old Moon substance to add to their world:
Lucifer and Ahriman strive unceasingly to draw from the Earth's substances whatever they can snatch, in order to form their Eighth Sphere which then, when it is sufficiently advanced, will be detached from the Earth and go its own way in the Cosmos together with Lucifer and Ahriman. [7]
This impolite pair find their greatest success in seizing physical matter in human beings, specifically, in the brain. From what I gather, this is because, as Steiner puts it, "physical substance there is more spiritualized that anywhere else." He also states that "everything that is similar to the head ... is equally exposed to the danger of being dispatched to the Eighth Sphere." [8]
"New Age" gang spreads confusion about the 8th Sphere
In the Occult Movement in the 19th Century, Steiner devotes considerable time to the spin put on the 8th Sphere by A.P. Sinnett's book Esoteric Buddhism. Sinnett essentially states that the present Moon is the 8th Sphere, when in fact the physical aspect of the Moon was created by Jahve to prevent a certain amount of matter from being seized by Lucifer and Ahriman. Steiner claims that Sinnett's distortion was intended to convey a materialistic version of reincarnation, which he does not describe. I'll take his word for it, but I think it's safe to say that it also tends to conceal a major aspect of what Lucifer and Ahriman are doing.
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Klingsor (Lucifer) VS the moon
According to Walter johannes Stein, The Death of Merlin, chp13, pp:192:
"Klingsor formed an alliance with Iblis (the musilm form of Lucifer). Iblis the wife of King Ibert, is described by Wolfram as the woman whose lover Klingsor illegitimately becomes. The jealous King responds by castrating Klingsor. the power of Lucifer appears here as the power that fights against the forces of physical procreation. The cosmic expression of the forces of procreation and sustenance is the moon. FOR EXAMPLE THE EMBRYO DEVELOPS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE MOON CYCLES, AND OUR FIRST NOURISHMENT, MILK, IS ALSO DEPENDENT ON THIS CYCLE. The moon is the cosmic image of the grail vessel, Gangandi Greidi, "food for the way", is the name given to the Grail vessel in the Nordic version of the Grail legend. The powers which serve the metabolic processes of nurishment and procreation are high spiritual powers but human beings can misuse them by giving them to Lucifer through passion, through lust; these powers can also be taken away but the seeker of the Grail must transform them. What that means is indicated by Wlofram in Parzival attitude to Condwiramurs Klingsor, on the other hand, is robbed of these powers. The nature of pure love can be learnt from the sun which freely gives its vitalizing strenght and demands noting in return. Grail love endeavours to be similarly altruistic, only wanting to give."
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Steiner also mentions that H.P. Blavatsky, upon realizing that she was being used by so-called left-hand initiates (who pursue selfish interests) to give the impression that their propaganda was coming from benevolent higher beings, tried to correct Sinnett's error. But she wasn't a very good writer, and Sinnett's teachings became the generally accepted view among theosophists.
Seducing and driving us to the 8th Sphere
"If Rome had developed in such a way that a great all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been habitable for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer had drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. YOU SEE HOW AHRIMAN AND LUCIFER WORK TOGETHER. LUCIFER WANTS TOTAKE MEN'S SOULS AWAY AND FOUND A PLANET WITH THEM OF HIS OWN.AHRIMAN HAS TO HELP HIM. WHILE LUCIFER SUCKS THE JUICE OUT OF THE
LEMON, AS IT WERE, AHRIMAN PRESSES IT OUT, THEREBY HARDENING WHATREMAINS. This is what he tried to do to the civilization of Rome. Here we have an important cosmic process going on all due to the intention and resolve of luciferic and ahrimanic powers. As I have said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet [as of 1916] to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that THE NECESSITY TO UNDERSTAND THESE ATTACKS WILL BECOME EVER GREATER." [emphasis added] [9]
"But the endeavor of Lucifer and Ahriman is TO DRAG THE FREE WILL OF MAN, AND WHATEVER STEMS FROM IT, into the Eighth Sphere. This means that man is perpetually exposed to the danger of having his free will wrested from him and dragged by Lucifer and Ahriman into the Eighth Sphere.
"This happens if the element of free will is transformed, FOR EXAMPLE, into visionary clairvoyance. When this is the case, a man is already in the Eighth Sphere. This is a matter of which occultists are reluctant to speak, because it is an awful, terrible truth.
...
Lucifer and Ahriman are engaged perpetually in shackling man's free will and in conjuring all sorts of things before him in order TO TEAR AWAY WHAT HE MAKES OUT OF THESE THINGS and let it disappear into the Eighth Sphere."
I presume that what Steiner means by "conjuring all sorts of things before him" means that they directly or indirectly arrange stimuli which are calculated to produce certain states of mind which facilitate the theft of will.
Free will is our ability to convert our decisions into objects and events in the physical world, and developing it is one of our main tasks at this stage in our evolution. Therefore, taking it from us is a means of interfering with our evolution.
Satan and Lucifers' basic strategy for leading our higher souls or egos to the 8th Sphere is to cause humans to become disenchanted with Earth and unwittingly enchanted with the Eighth Sphere.
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Here is something about the illicit astrality present in poisonous plants (a demon is in it):
In previous reviews of Nutrition and Bees, we discovered that poisons in the plant world have a nature of astrality about them that should be reserved for the animal world. Plants that develop poisons are trying to act like animals, something that will be good for them to do in the epoch following Earth epoch, but as any good out of its time, that something becomes a evil, a harmful poison, in our time. Steiner looks at the deadly nightshade Belladonna and the harmless violet and compares them.
[page 153] The Belladonna develops its bell-shaped flowers inside which the fruit is formed and the astral element penetrates into the fruit. The violet develops its capsule only in the etheric element. The fruit of the deadly nightshade assimilates the astral element and in consequence the plant is poisonous.
This is most interesting. We find that our astral body is the bearer of forces which prove to be poisonous when assimilated by plants. This is how we must think of poison. We can only acquire an inner understanding of poison when we realize that man's astral body contains in effect the forces of all existing toxins, for they are an integral part of his being.
We might say that the violet is on a true path, but the deadly nightshade is on a false path. This will become important as we enter the study of "true and false paths in spiritual investigation" as the title of this enbooked series of lectures promises. How are we to understand the latest varieties of mediums, the so-called "channels" -- such as Lazaris, Ramtha, and Seth that were so popular in the last quarter of the 20th Century? Once more we find a "good out of its time."
[page 156, 157] And when a medium is in a trance condition, when the brain is insulated, an entity of this kind which is subject to Ahrimanic influences and whose function is to transmit the achievements of civilization to the future, slips into the brain. Instead of being the carrier of the human Ego, such a medium is, temporarily, the vehicle of an elementary being which is neglecting its duty in the Cosmos.
Thus they slip into it [the part of brain vacated by the medium's Ego] and introduce into the contemporary world what their observation has taught them of the art of writing. Thus, with the help of mediums they project into the present that which, in accordance with their mission, they ought to communicate to the future. Mediumism depends upon the fact that what is to become future capacities is already developed in the present in a vague and chaotic manner.
The beings who take possession of channels are slackers, skipping out on their real duties, and getting caught up the world of the present. Steiner tells us that in the typical séance, someone with clairvoyant vision will see the group surrounded by poisonous plants with fruits and flowers from which demoniac beings emerge. (page 162) This reminds me of the phrase from Matt 7:16, 20 "Therefore by their fruits ye will know them."
When is a human being apt to become a medium or a channel? When somehow their consciousness becomes dimmed. Our brain weighs about 1,500 grams, but floats in a liquid medium so that its effective weight is about 20 grams. In this small portion of the brain, the Ego resides. If it were to vacate that portion of the brain, an elemental being can slip in and take possession of the brain.
[page 167, 168] And fundamentally this danger is always present whenever the consciousness of man, i. e., his full Ego-consciousness, is suppressed, whenever he is in a stupefied, comatose condition or has actually suffered syncope [RJM: fainted]. Whenever man's consciousness is damped down, not through sleep, but through some other factor, there is the danger that man will be exposed to the world of elementary beings.
From the above we get the distinct impression that someone who attends séances, who consults mediums, or studies the writings of channels, is not on the true path, but rather the false path in spiritual investigation.
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Here is again taken from an ex-website, took off the web:
"Oh Owl, Prince of ALL MORTAL WISDOM, Owl of Bohemia, we do beseech thee, grant us thy counsel."
I have placed a stress on "all mortal wisdom," in order to bring attention to the fact that Ishtar, the "Lady of the MEs" (data banks), might have been able to provide information to mankind, but that without the capacity to understand, mankind would not be able to absorb it. So, there is an inner, God-given aspect to wisdom, which is one meaning of owl symbology.
The Genesis account of Lucifer tempting Adam and Eve with knowledge is a hint of how "our eyes were opened," in two senses of the phrase: God used Lucifer to give us our intelligence, and it is only because of Lucifer's influence that light became visible. The following quotations from Steiner's works provide some detail on these processes, starting with outer light.
Whenever we direct our occult vision to a fixed star, we first of all encounter the normal Spirits of Wisdom. The whole heavens would be invisible to physical sight and only visible to clairvoyant consciousness if none but these normal Spirits of Wisdom were active; but everywhere Luciferic spirits are mingled with the normal Spirits of Wisdom, and bring physical light of its own into the world of the fixed star. When at night the starry heaven is illuminated, Phosphorus actually works down upon us from countless points ["a thousand points of light"]: and everywhere in the universe we find the possibility of formation only through the cooperation of the opposing forces; through the combined working of the normal spirits of the hierarchies with those who are rebels that is, those who have remained behind. Unillumined to physical eyes but visible to spiritual sight, is the starry world through the normal Spirits of Wisdom; it became luminous to physical eyes, it is revealed in Maya [the illusion we consider to be the real world] through Lucifer or the Luciferic spirits who are, and must be, active everywhere. [15]
Now, on to the somewhat more complex subject of "inner light":
The superhuman entities previously mentioned, the leaders in the field of love ["moon gods"], had already been so perfect on the preceding planet that they did not have to [incarnate].
[A]t the beginning of the formation of the earth, [the luciferic beings] were further advanced than men, but still were at the stage where knowledge must be acquired through inner organs. These beings were in a special position. They were too far advanced to pass through the physical human body [i.e. they could not incarnate], male or female, but on the other hand, were not [sufficiently advanced to] act through full clairvoyance like the leaders of love. They could not yet be beings of love, [but] they could no longer be "men." Thus they could only continue their own development as half superhuman beings, in which they were aided by men. They could speak to creatures with a brain in a language which the latter could understand. [Translation might be a good analogy, as implied below.] Thereby the human soul energy which was turned inward was stimulated, and could connect itself with knowledge and wisdom [like a translator connects people who speak different languages]. It was thus that wisdom of a human kind first appeared on earth.
The "half superhuman beings" mentioned above could use this human wisdom in order to achieve for themselves that of perfection which they still lacked. In this manner THEY BECAME THE STIMULATORS OF HUMAN WISDOM. One therefore calls them bringers of light (Lucifer).
[T]he creation of the understanding is related to the activity of the sun. The dawn of the understanding in human nature is the lighting up of an inner sun. This is said not only in a metaphorical, but also in a quite real sense. When the epoch of the fire mist had ebbed from the earth, these spirits found within man an opportunity to resume their activity connected with the sun.
It now becomes clear whence the name Lucifer, that is, "the bearer of light," originates, and why these beings are designated as "sun gods" in mystery science. [16]
One must be quite clear about the fact that only later did man assume the dense substantiality which he has today, and that he did this very gradually. If one wants to form an idea of his corporeality on the level of development which is being discussed, one can best do this by imagining it as similar to water vapor or to a cloud suspended in the air. But of course this idea approaches reality in a completely external way. For the fire cloud "man" is internally alive and organized. In comparison to what man became later, however, one must imagine him at this stage as in a state of soul slumber, and as only very dimly conscious. Everything which can be called intelligence, understanding, reason is lacking in this being.
[Eons pass between the preceding and the following]
[Luciferic] beings now acquire power over this upper half ["head"]. In earlier stages of their development, these beings advanced further than men, but not as far as the moon gods. They could not exercise their power in the fire mist [as could the moon gods]. But now that something they themselves had lacked previously [the capacity to understand] has been formed in the human organs of understanding through [the influence of the higher beings on] the fire mist, their time has come.
At an earlier time [before the fire mist came into being], the moon gods had attained an understanding capable of acting externally [on, for example, the fire mist].... They could act externally on the things of earth. [But] the lower beings we have just mentioned had not attained such an understanding which acts outwardly. Therefore, the time of the fire mist found them unprepared [to influence it].
Now, however, [a capability to understand] is present. It exists in men. These beings seize upon this human understanding in order to act on the things of earth by means of it. [Elsewhere, Steiner indicates that our urge to create is a luciferic tendency, whereas the urge to destroy is satanic.]
Thus man comes under a double leadership [Love and Wisdom]. In his lower part he is under the power of the moon gods; in his developed personality, however, he comes under the leadership of those entities which are summed up under the name "Lucifer," the name of their regent.
The Luciferic gods thus complete their own development by making use of the awakened human powers of understanding.... At the same time they give man the predisposition to freedom, to the discrimination between "good" and "evil."
While it is true that the human organ of understanding has been formed entirely under the leadership of the moon gods, these gods would have left it to slumber; they were not interested in making use of it [because] they possessed their own powers of understanding. In their own interest, the Luciferic beings were concerned with developing the human understanding and directing it toward the things of earth [which opened us up to Ahriman's/Satan's influence]. Thereby for men THEY BECAME THE TEACHERS OF ALL THAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. But they could not be anything more than stimulators.... With their guidance man had to learn to find the laws of his being. Under Lucifer's leadership he himself had to become as "one of the gods." [17]
We are able to understand each other as easily as we do only because the Luciferic powers gave us this common intelligence. Intelligence - this Luciferic spirituality - came into being because Michael [acting on behalf of God] imbued humanity with Luciferic influences.... [L]uciferic spirituality, which we think of as our intelligence, is widely consdered today as the most distinctive characteristic." [18]
The following quotations are from Evil, a collection of lectures by Steiner [available through various on-line bookstores]:
"Ever since the Lemurian epoch ... [luciferic] forces made our inner life the focal point of their attack, by infiltrating our desires, impulses, and passions. There were two consequences of this: we were able to become free ... [from] the sway of divine, spiritual beings.... But ... we also had to accept our potential for evil arising through our passions, emotions and desires." p 100
Lucifer's influence was primarily one towards freedom, enabling [mankind] to overcome a passive submission to random external powers, allowing them ... a capacity for acting independently. p 103
But ... [Lucifer's] influence ... dragged them down ... [and] made their desires and actions, their whole being in fact of a lower nature than it would have been [otherwise]." p103
"How, then, does the luciferic influence act? It penetrates into the astral body and is thus able to work upon all three 'bodies' of the human being - astral, etheric and physical.... In the etheric it brings about IMPULSES OF FALSEHOOD AND LYING." P103, emphasis added
"[T]hrough Lucifer there arises selfishness [egotism] in the astral body, lying and FALSEHOOD in the etheric body, and SICKNESS AND DEATH in the physical body." p 104
"The ahrimanic influence is therefore a result of the luciferic: Lucifer takes possession of [i.e. penetrates and influences] us from within, and we are as a result susceptible to attack from without [by beings from Ahriman's subphysical realm]. p 100
This will hopefully provide some idea of how we obtained what we call intelligence. There is much more to it, but the upshot for purposes of this section is that Lucifer is associated with wisdom, knowledge, freedom, egotism, falsehood, sickness, and death. Keep these traits in mind for later.
Lucifer incarnated in approximately 3000 B.C. into a Chinese nobleman, who then became a teacher. [19] So, not only was he involved in giving us our reason and free will, but he also provided mankind with what Steiner calls, on the same page, "the pre-Christian, pagan culture which still survived in the gnosis of the earliest Christian centuries." Interestingly, Blavatsky indicates that the Oriental Cabala is the original:
[According to HPB, these branches were all sourced in "the great Oriental mother-root" and its "primitive Oriental Cabala" -- Cabala meaning (esoteric) "tradition." Then she briefly traces some of its branchings, alluding to the Egyptian, Pythagorean, and Greek mysteries, primitive Christianity, its early Gnostic divisions, and their relation to the origin of the Rosicrucian brotherhood in the 13th century.]
As alchemists and conjurers they [the Rosicrucians] became proverbial. Later . . . they gave birth to the more modern Theosophists, at whose head was Paracelsus, and to the Alchemists. . . .
The Rosicrucian Cabala is but an epitome of the Jewish and the Oriental ones combined, the latter being the most secret of all. The Oriental Cabala, the practical, full, and only existing copy, is carefully preserved at the headquarters of this Brotherhood in the East, and, I may safely vouch, will never come out of its possession. . . .[20]
The Cult of Isis Adopts Lucifer
There are a few more direct indications linking Lucifer and Ishtar. Among many other titles, Ishtar was known as "The Lightbringer," "Light of the World," "Exalted Light of Heaven," and "Torch of Heaven and Earth." Ishtar is also known as Venus, and according to Steiner, Lucifer is the planetary being of Venus. [21]
The statue of her in New York Harbor, which is known as the Statue of Liberty (designed by a French Freemason), carries a torch and a book, symbolizing intelligence and information, two components of wisdom. The torch is also a symbol of a future role of Lucifer. Note the statue's similarity to the Colossus of Rhodes, which was dedicated to Ishtar's brother, Shamash/Helios, the Sun God (which is also a designation for luciferic beings).
(...)
Lucifer and Ahriman's Greco-Roman Agenda
In his lecture-series The Inner Impulses of Evolution, Rudolf Steiner showed how Lucifer and Ahriman have been working to achieve their goal since Atlantean times. The following concentrates on the Greco-Roman period:
Yesterday, we tried to characterize the forces that permeated Greece and Rome in order to obtain an idea of the INFLUENCES THAT HAVE BEEN CARRIED OVER FROM THE FOURTH INTO THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE [i.e. from the Greco-Roman era into the current era, which began in 1413 and continues to about the year 3573], and we gave some indication of where we have to look today for signs of continued activity of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean age. I want to ask you now to turn your attention once again to our description of the civilizations of Greece and Rome.
In the way it developed, the civilization of Greece was a source of great disappointment to the luciferic powers.... THEY HAD EXPECTED THE CIVILIZATION OF GREECE, THE FOURTH EPOCH OF POST-ATLANTEAN TIMES, TO BRING INTO BEING FOR THEM ALL THEY HAD STRIVEN FOR DURING ATLANTEAN TIMES. On Atlantis they had developed certain activities, certain influences and forces and they had expected to see the fruits of their labors appear in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. What was it they were really looking for?
To speak of such a matter lets us look right into the luciferic soul. We come to know this luciferic life that continually strives, hoping that certain results may ensue, but that continually meets with fresh disappointment. A logician would naturally ask, "Why do not these luciferic powers stop trying? Why do they not see that they must be forever and repeatedly disappointed?" Such a conclusion would be human, not luciferic, wisdom. At any rate, the luciferic powers have yet to come to his conclusion. ON THE CONTRARY, IT IS THEIR PRACTICE TO REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS WHENEVER THEY EXPERIENCE DISAPPOINTMENT. [9/11 was a disappointment to them, so look out!]
What was it, then, that the luciferic powers expected from this fourth post-Atlantean age? They wanted to obtain mastery of all the soul forces of the Greek people, those soul forces that were, as we have seen, directed to carrying over the ancient imaginations of the Chaldean-Egyptian period, and to incorporate them into the creations of their own fantasy. THE LUCIFERIC POWERS MADE IT THEIR ENDEAVOR TO WORK SO STRONGLY ON THE HUMAN BEINGS OF THE GREEK CIVILIZATION THAT THEIR IMAGINATIONS, REFINED AND DISTILLED TO FANTASY, SHOULD FILL THEIR WHOLE BEING. THE GREEKS WOULD THEN HAVE LOST THEMSELVES IN A SOUL WORLD, IN AN EVERYDAY THINKING, FEELING AND WILLING THAT WOULD HAVE CONSISTED ENTIRELY OF THOSE SUBTLE IMAGINATIONS THAT HAD BECOME COMPLETE FANTASY. [In other words, imaginations without any relation to Earth.]
If the Greeks had developed nothing in their souls but these imaginations refined to fantasy, if these enticing imaginations had come to fill their souls completely, THE LUCIFERIC POWERS WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LIFT THE GREEKS AND A GREAT PART OF HUMANITY OUT OF HUMAN EVOLUTION TO PLACE THEM IN THEIR OWN LUCIFERIC WORLD. This was the intention of the luciferic powers. From the Atlantean epoch on, it had been their hope to achieve in the fourth post-Atlantean age what they had failed to do in Atlantis. Humanity, at the stage it had then reached, would have been incorporated into the cosmos. THEY WANTED NOTHING LESS THAN TO CREATE FOR THEMSELVES A SEPARATE WORLD WERE EARTHLY GRAVITY DID NOT EXIST BUT WERE HUMAN BEINGS WOULD DWELL WITH ABSOLUTE SUPERSENSIBLE LIGHTNESS, ENTIRELY GIVEN UP TO A LIFE OF FANTASY (eighth sphere). [A parody of Devachan/Heaven?] IT WAS THE HOPE OF THE LUCIFERIC BEINGS TO CREATE A PLANETARY BODY, WHICH WOULD CONTAIN THOSE MEMBERS OF HUMANITY WHO HAD REACHED THIS HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT OF THE FANTASY LIFE. THEY MADE EVERY ENDEAVOR TO LEAD THE SOULS OF THE GREEKS AWAY FROM THE EARTH. HAD THEY SUCCEEDED, THESE SOULS WOULD GRADUALLY HAVE FORSAKEN THE EARTH. THE BODIES THAT STILL CAME TO BIRTH WOULD HAVE BEEN DEGENERATE. EGOLESS BEINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN BORN, THE EARTH WOULD HAVE FALLEN INTO DECADENCE [Satan's realm of death] AND A SPECIAL LUCIFERIC KINGDOM WOULD HAVE BEGUN [the aforementioned new planet].
Within the Roman civilization the ahrimanic powers gathered for a stupendous onslaught. That attempt was like a repetition of their attempt made in Atlantean times, and it developed infinitely strong powers and forces.
Thus did Ahriman meet with his disappointment, as Lucifer had met with his. BUT THEY WILL TAKE UP THEIR TASKS AGAIN IN THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE WITH ALL THE MORE DETERMINATION. Here is the point at which we must gain an understanding of the forces that are operative in our age, insofar as such an understanding is possible today.
The fourth post-Atlantean age extends both backwards and forwards from its central point in 333 A.D. It ended about 1413 A.D. and it began about 747 B.C. These are of course, approximate dates. I have just told you that the disappointment of Lucifer and Ahriman in the forms the Greek and Roman civilizations had assumed, has led them to make still stronger efforts in our fifth post-Atlantean age. THEIR EFFORTS ARE ALREADY AT WORK IN THE HUMAN FORCES THAT HAVE BEEN ACTIVE FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY [i.e. the Venetian black magicians, such as Sarpi and Contarini].
They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now [i.e. 1916] only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that the necessity to understand these attacks will become ever greater.
To understand how these powers work in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we must turn our attention for a moment to what is intended for man in the right and normal course of his evolution. [2]
(...)
Inner Impulses of Evolution:
We know that this is the age of the development of the consciousness soul and that, to accomplish this, a number of forces soul and bodily forces must be active. FIRST, A CLEAR PERCEPTION OF THE SENSE WORLD IS NECESSARY. THIS DID NOT EXIST IN EARLIER TIMES BECAUSE, AS YOU KNOW, A VISIONARY, IMAGINATIVE ELEMENT CONTINUOUSLY PLAYED INTO THE HUMAN SOUL [a dream-like state in which objects were represented by symbols, although there was a correlation between the symbols and the objects].
THE OTHER TASK IS TO UNFOLD FREE IMAGINATIONS [i.e. perceiving and thinking with the etheric body] side by side with the clear view of [physical] reality in a way, a kind of repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean age. To date, humanity has not progressed too far in this task. Free imaginations as sought through spiritual science means imaginations not as they were in the third post-Atlantean age, but unfettered and undistilled into fantasy [apparently referring to the aforementioned dreamlike state, in which an encounter with an object triggered a vision of a symbol which had been assigned to that object by the higher beings]. It means imaginations in which man moves as freely as he does only in his intellect [referring to the new way of thinking, using ideas derived from the etheric world and thinking with the etheric body]. That, then, is the other task of the fifth post-Atlantean age. The unfoldment of these two faculties will lead to a right development of the consciousness soul in our present epoch.
The entire aim in the work of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers in the fifth post-Atlantean age, concerning both the perception of the primal [etheric] phenomenon and the development of free imaginations [thinking with the etheric body], is to hinder these forces from arising in man. THE LUCIFERIC AND AHRIMANIC POWERS ARE WORKING IN THIS FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE TO DISTURB THESE FORCES IN THE HUMAN SOUL, TO EMPLOY THEM TO A WRONG END, THUS BRINGING MEN'S SOULS OUT OF THE EARTH SPHERE TO ESTABLISH A NEW SPHERE OF THEIR OWN. Many things must work together to disturb the right, quiet and slow unfolding of these forces. Note well that I say the quiet and slow unfolding because the entire period of 2,160 years, starting in 1413 A.D., should be used for the gradual unfoldment of the forces I have named, that is, free imaginations and the gradual development of working with primal phenomena. At intervals by fits and starts, as it were the luciferic and ahrimanic powers throw the whole weight of their opposition against this right evolution. When we bear in mind that everything is prepared for by the world beyond the earth long before it happens, we shall then not be surprised to find preparations being made to bring the strongest possible forces of opposition against the normal evolution of humanity.
On the one hand, men will have to direct their gaze quite selflessly [referring to the meditative attitude] to the outer world to work in it and to gain knowledge of it. On the other, by powerful application of their personalities, they will have to bring it all into inner movement in order to find the imaginations for outer activity and outer knowledge [i.e. process the new knowledge using the new thinking to solve problems in the physical world]. Gradually, the consciousness soul and its culture will achieve this transformation.
We have already seen how the luciferic and ahrimanic powers poured what they had developed in Atlantean times into Greece and Rome. NOW, IN AN ALTERED FORM, THEY HAVE TRIED TO REPEAT THESE EFFORTS before the arrival of the fifth post-Atlantean age. You will not be surprised when I say that for this fifth post-Atlantean age, too, a powerful impetus had to be present BEARING ALONG WITH IT THE AFTER WORKINGS, IN A LUCIFERIC AND AHRIMANIC SENSE, FROM ATLANTIS. We know that the Atlantean influences spread out from a region that was called Atlantis even by Plato. Let us make a diagram and imagine Atlantis here, then over here on the right would be Europe and Asia, and here on the left would be America. The old Atlantean forces, including the old luciferic and ahrimanic forces, spread out from Atlantis. Some part of these Atlantean forces, however, was held back, and it came to work in our fifth post-Atlantean age as luciferic and ahrimanic forces. That is, some part of the good forces, which were good and right in Atlantean times, have been carried over to our time to become luciferic and ahrimanic forces [by virtue of belonging to the past]. Only the center was transferred to another region.
Its intent was to lucifericize and ahrimanicize it. IT WAS ACTUALLY THE DESCENDANTS OF THE OLD ATLANTEAN TEACHERS WHO WERE NOW WORKING FROM A PLACE IN ASIA. A PRIEST THERE HAD BEEN EDUCATED TO BEHOLD TO HAVE A BELATED VISION, AS IT WERE, OF WHAT THE ATLANTEANS CALLED THE "GREAT SPIRIT," AND TO RECEIVE HIS COMMANDS. These the priest communicated to a young man of remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority, received the name "The Great Ruler of the Earth" from his community. This was Genghis Khan. THE GREAT SPIRIT, THROUGH HIS FOLLOWER AND THROUGH THAT PRIEST, GAVE TO GENGHIS KHAN THE COMMAND TO SUMMON ALL THE POWERS OF ASIA TO SPREAD THE INFLUENCE THAT WOULD LEAD THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE BACK INTO A LUCIFERIC FORM. These forces and they were far more powerful than the forces established in Greek culture were all employed to this end. FREE IMAGINATIONS WERE TO BE CHANGED INTO OLD, VISIONARY IMAGINATIONS. EVERY EFFORT WAS TO BE MADE TO LULL THE SOUL OF MAN TO SLEEP IN A DIM AND DREAMY EXPERIENCE OF IMAGINATIONS INSTEAD OF A FREE EXPERIENCE FILLED THROUGH AND THROUGH WITH CLEAR UNDERSTANDING.
With the help of the special forces that had been preserved from Atlantis, IT WAS THE INTENDED PURPOSE TO CARRY AN INFLUENCE INTO THE WEST THAT WOULD MAKE ITS CULTURE VISIONARY. THEN IT WOULD HAVE BECOME POSSIBLE TO SEPARATE THE SOULS OF MEN FROM THE EARTH AND TO FORM A NEW CONTINENT, A NEW PLANETARY BODY WITH THEM. ALL THE UNREST AND DISTURBANCE THAT CAME INTO THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN MAN THROUGH THE MONGOLIAN INVASIONS [which were facilitated by Venetian Intelligence], EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH THEM THAT HAS GONE ON WORKING INTO THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN EPOCH ALL THIS UNREST, WHICH WAS PREPARED LONG AGO, IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE GREAT ATTEMPT THAT IS BEING MADE FROM ASIA TO BRING ABOUT A VISIONARY EUROPEAN CULTURE. It would cut it off from the conditions of its further evolution and lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has experienced again and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be estranged from the earth.
SOMETHING WAS NEEDED TO COUNTERBALANCE THIS TENDENCY. An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the direction of the normal evolution of mankind. The influence of Genghis Khan's priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in the human race that would draw man away from the earth. Over against this, a corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the earth; THIS WAS PROVIDED THROUGH THE DISCOVERY OF THE WESTERN WORLD. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and thereby earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man. The discovery of America and everything connected with it, and the way man carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when seen in wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the activity of Genghis Khan. AMERICA HAD TO BE DISCOVERED SO THAT MAN MIGHT BE BROUGHT TO GROW CLOSER TO THE EARTH, TO GROW MORE AND MORE MATERIALISTIC. Man needed weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was the aim of the descendants of the "Great Spirit."
Please do not go about saying that I have presented the discovery of America as an ahrimanic deed. In reality, I have said the very opposite. I have said that AMERICA HAD TO BE DISCOVERED AND THAT THE ENTIRE EVENT WAS NECESSARY TO THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. AHRIMANIC FORCES ENTERED [the American continent], HOWEVER, AND SET THEMSELVES IN VIOLENT OPPOSITION TO WHAT WAS HAPPENING QUITE RIGHTLY IN THE NORMAL COURSE OF PROGRESS. Things are not so simple that we can say, "There is Lucifer, and there is Ahriman; they act and behave in such and such a way, and divide the world between them." Things are by no means so simple as that.
We find, therefore, MANY FORCES WORKING TOGETHER when we set out to listen to them in their field of action behind the physical plane. These forces take possession of other forces. THEY TRY TO SEIZE THE FORCES IN MAN THAT HAVE CONTINUED ON FROM THE FOURTH POST-ATLANTEAN EPOCH IN ORDER TO DISTORT THEM AND MAKE THEM SERVE THEIR ENDS.
East of Europe, however, in all the culture of the East, we find an untold number of people who suffer greatly under the disturbing influence of Lucifer. His influence is, as we know, TO DRAW MAN AGAIN AND AGAIN AWAY FROM THE EARTH, TO DRAW HIM RIGHT OUT OF HIS PHYSICAL BODY SO THAT HE SHALL PERPETUALLY FALL INTO A STATE WHERE HE BECOMES NO MORE THAN A VISION OF HIMSELF AND IS COMPLETELY SOUL. That is the tendency that has been grafted onto Eastern Europe.
The feeling of being drawn in the other direction was given to the West. The world of imagination was pulled down into the heavy physical body so that what should rightly be free imagination working merely in the soul becomes instead something that rams the soul down into the organism, thereby causing the organism also to live on imaginations."
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Here are titles about the eighth sphere as kingdom of lucifer (and ahriman) and dark side of the moon
La reincarnation sans l'esprit: histoire d'une contre-verite (Irene Diet)
Michael and the two-horned beast (Bernard Nesfield-Cookson)
The East in the light of the West (Sergei O. Prokofieff)
You might also like to check "From Jundi Shapur to Silicon Valley", by the anthroposophist Francis Paul Emberson, about the incarnation of Ahriman (Satan) in computers and our future which looks a lot like The Matrix, with big spider webs across the earth, crawling with spiders of artificial intelligence. The use of fallen etheric forces (electricity, magnetism and the mysterious "third force" involving nuclear powers) inspired by/inhabiting ahrimanic elementals (lizzies) wich are also our own shadow-self, doppelganger, the ahrimanic Double, which comes from the inner earth and want to take over or planet enslaving us.
I also strongly suggest that you read about the ways to save these beings in the cosmic order, as pointed by Nicolaas de Jong in his article "Ufos: The search for Truth, Reality and tools for their redemption", available on the internet. Also: "Ufos: preeminent phenomena of our time" by Patrick Steensma.
Steiner does not talk about a "Wave"(2012), but indicates that the Christ is coming back in the etheric world since 1933. It means that more and more people will experience a new form of clairvoyance, for example, thing's and people's aura will be seen. The new way of clairvoyance, though, is not a return to the ancient passive, atavistic, mediumnic and visionary kind of clairvoyance. This new clairvoyance cannot rely on ouija tables because in this way the hand is moved by elemental beings taking their knowledge from the beings on the moon, who once were with us as teachers in Lumeria and Atlantis. When Laura was talking with "Cassiopaeans", she cold only know the given answer by putting the letters one after the other, making a significant statement. This is still an unconscious way and must be avoided. Elemental beings communicating this way (though mediums) are infinitely more clever that whatever we can grasp nor imagine. They can misguide us into half-truths like "the Christ event is not very significant", "the moon is the eight sphere", and so on. The new clairvoyance is described by Jesaiah Ben Aharon, in "The new experience of the supersensible", like a renewed "vision of Paul on Damascus". We will have inspiring and moving revelations wide awake. These are not visions in the old sense. The new clairvoyance must be developed by a strengthening of our grounding in clear perception of the outside world, combined to a healthy development in the areas of thinking, feeling and willing. The michaelic yoga is not inspire-expire but perceive in-think out. This way, imaginations are formed and the refresh our dead knowledge of the world, enabling us to join Christ in a conscious experience of nature and the cycle of year, for example.
The development of the new clairvoyance is hindered by spirits of hindrances such as Lucifer and Ahriman (not to mention the asuras and Sorat, the Beast, which are far superior in evil). Lucifer takes us back into old time religion and ecstatic, subjective mysticism. Ahriman, Mephistopheles or Satan, wants to make us unbelievers in spirit and believers in science, matter and progress. Half-baked oriental mysticism illegitimately joined with modern physics (like Fritjof Capra's works The Tao of Physics) only produces a subtler form of materialism, a super-materialism, in the vein of spiritism and mediumnism. Lucifer and Ahriman join their effort against a healthy experience of Christ in the etheric world by diverting the new clairvoyant faculties into the old kind of clairvoyance (vision, mediumship, spiritism) or into new techniques of manipulating consciousness by means of material means: drugs, electromagnetism, physical sound waves, etc. Spiritual materialism is one of the traps that must be recognised and avoided by all occultist students. The major stuff that we give to the eighth sphere is exactly that materialistic (or spiritual-materialist) imaginative stuff. These materialist (or spiritual-materialist) thoughts (thought-forms) give form, in the eighth sphere, to all fantasies coming from the imagination-activity, morever the most science-fictionesque or grotesque thought-forms. These become "probable realities". The spiritual worlds must not be confused with the spectre nature of the substance of the eighth sphere, which takes the forms of our materialist (or spiritual-materialist) thought-forms. All that is linked with our head (where Ahriman dwells) and our bellies (where Lucifer dwells), is a door opening to this dead world of the eighth sphere. We must instead create moral and spiritual thought-forms that will become the spiritual ground, the body of the future earth-man, called Jupiter state by Steiner (the New Jerusalem).
According to Nicolaas de Jong (2001), "lizzies" (reptilians) are fallen elementals of an ahrimanic (satanic) nature; we must change our thinking in order to reconnect in a healthy way to the elemental kingdom, so that when - in the future - elementals attain the stage of humanhood, they will have at their disposition an adequate spiritual body, made up of the imaginative body that we will have created by our thinking, and not a coarse and dead body which they will use to torment us and parasite us (that which they already do and do more and more in the future). Our though forms, in relation to the elemental world (which is used against us by fallen angelic hierarchies), will become living forms in the future - our little "creatures" - and will be on their way to attain human egohood. Right now and forever, he have a great responsibility in their fall and so have a special role, a moral duty, in their spiritualization process - that is their "coming back into the light".
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Steiner also says that future humans from Jupiter are influencing people in "high places" (he says Lenin, Trotski, and others) in their unconsious, in their metabolism, and will. They are ahrimanic beings, not unripe humans in becoming, they are destined to be humans in Jupiter stade of earth's future. Other ahrimanic beings are influencing the intellect of materialists, following Marx and others. Others are imbuing us with nationalistic sentiments and reverting us in our race, the traits that make individuals from the same race look alike and act alike. Other ahrimanic beings are elementals seduced and driven by ahriman. Others are dead human beings used by ahriman as ahrimanic beings. They are forced to obey ahriman fro a while because they were lazy and immoral. A lot of ahrimanic beings are on the moon, along with luciferic beings. OUr super ancient teachers from lemuria, already invisible in atlantis, are also on the moon right now, cohabiting with the worst ahrimanic and luciferic beings, along with quite helpful luciferic ones.
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Now
about psychedelics...
I suggest you to read Bernard Lievegoed's Man on the threshold - the challenge of inner development. You get in there a medecinal approach of anthroposophy, that is highly needed to understand drugs. you may also learn alot about drugs in In place of the Self, written by an anthroposophist - I don't remember the name.
I must confess though that I do/did experiment in psychedelics and very recently (on 23 june, Quebec's national celebration). I discovered to one night some wisdom: the fire of saint-John Baptist, a tradition for quebecers, is like nationalistic identification, you are playing with fire when talking politics in a family reunion (in french quebec there is much arguing about an eventual secession from english canada). Nationalism is a psychosexual problem. Sex and fire a alike. fire and egoism, and pleasure, burning desire. The ahrimanic process that start in summer along with st john's tide. The sulfuric-fire ahrimanisation of human beings in summer, culminating in michaelmas (september 29) and trees bearing fruits. The michael process of iron combatting the sulfur dragon. the dragon is not only in human besings but also in petroleum and fire and smoke (carbon dioxide is a symbol of the dragon activity, it is poison). The lily is the symbol of quebec on its flag. The lily is a n hexagram. The hexagram was a symbol of the hebrew (blood), governed by michael. It became the symbol of gabriel and the blood relationship of merovingians and royal blood, initiates of magic powers in their blood carrying for a while the grail impulse, the knowledge and extract of the ego (blood) of christ. the gabriel era ended in 1879, and then started michael reign which is cosmopolite. Gabriel was with blood ties and nationalism and materialism, michael is with spiritual science, cosmopolitism, and freedom from blood ties, elective affinity. therefore nationalistic impulse of quebecers is marked with and akward backward looking flaw: a lily for its symbol is a gabriel cult in a nationalistc ahrimanic garment. We are away from christ and the holy patron of Quebec, St-John the baptist. This is a reflexion, though not a vision that came from DM.
Psychedelics in a reverting back in atavistic clairvoyance. Consciousness must not be lowered with anithing like drugs, hypnosis, transe, mediums, second sight, or anything like this. When visionaries gain visions, they are elaborating a world that awaits them after death. Them and all those who believed it. an hypnotist and his patient get caught in a tangled web of karma that they will hardly be able to detangle. a false world in created in our head by using drugs. synthetic is ahrimanic. Drifting toward suibnature. this is taken up by lucifer and ahriman to construct the eighth sphere. Read Steienr more carefully and all this will glow on your forehead. There is also a wrong relationsjip established with, the ego, from one side, and elementals, from the others. elementals that have not been redeemed by our conscious striving for truth and beauty in our reltionship to them, will come back in a later life to haunt us. Just like plastic does dissolve in nature, they a still here when we come back to incarnate.
Psychedelics are material means to attain occult knowledge, just like channeling/mediums, spiritism, and phenomenalism (that which Steiner asociated with the anglo-saxon habit of thought to weigh and mesure material traces of occult phenomena, being obsessed with not knowing the thing but to mesure it, seal it in space/matter). One should never rely on material means to gain knowledge of the supersensible. Real knowledge itself is supersensible. This is ahrimanic.
The other side of this is extatic mysticism. Steiner warned alot about the complacency and the egoism involved in mystic exstacy. They think they are god, that a divine spark burns in themselves. This is just an hallucination of bodily processes (in Polarities in the evolution of mankind, Steiner). This mystic thinks his self-knowledge is better than materialism, thoug what he is knowing is only the knowledge of the matter inside his body, the organic processes. This is all he really learns about, he he does so without knowing it. materialists who are looking for atomic and subatomic particles are running at a rainbow trying to catch its tail. They only learns about themselves looking at the atom: they get the image they constructed in their mind, the rainbow of outside matter, the non-existent atom.
One cannot say that Steiner really said that we needed luciferic impulses to counter ahriman. We need Christ. Christ is there. What we miss is the knowledge of the christ, the sophia of christ, the isis of Christ. Steiner arrived to an understanding of anthroposophia, the sister of michael (marduk), daughter of sophia(sopha-EA). es he said that in ARTS, we need more beauty, more luciferic impulses. The mission of Lucifer is linked with the Holy Spirit. But he can also drive you into the eighth sphere if one is seduced by him. to make a long story short, Lucifer is one of the hierarchies that were commanded by other hierarchies to develop inner life of their own - that is the beginning of lies and error and egoism. They are not bad spirits, yet they temps us in doing wrong, in forgetting christ. Lucifer was a great teacher. Greek-germanic-hindou gods are luciferic. oriental religion is luciferic. intelligence, abstract knowledge is luciferic in the it kills Isis-sophia the knowledge of Christ and cosmic wisdom. Isis is dead and her grave is the stars. This is the reverse of the death of osiris: osiris was dismembered by Ahriman, Isis in put in a single grave in the blank whiteness of the stars, in space. (Luciferic beings have a role in planetary formation: while sun beings radiate toward the cosmos, luciferic beings come down from the cosmos and makematerial planets by applying their rounding - egoisitc - forces to matter in planetary "orbits". That is why they can be seen and astronomy can be done. Modern astronomy and abstract mathematical logic has killed Isis, the knowldge of cosmic impulses and above all, christ.
Lucifer has a mission that was linked with the temple legend of freemasonry. Cain is child of Lucifer and eve. He commits fratricide. He is reincarnated in hiram, abel is Salomon. Salomon has a role in hiram's death. Hiram makes a prophecy before his trespassing: a member of my decendance shall complete the temple. This points to the future role of freemasonry. This is linked with the mastery of elemental powers through moral technique or mechanical occultism (not the objective occultism that Steiner condemns in The occult movement in the nineteeth century) that will make machines work by themselves magically, through the powers of the elementals. The Cain people has this latent power. They are "The West"... This is also linked with the shining independence and wisdom of lucifer: gnosis that was carried in catarism manicheism and bogomiles is of luciferic origin. Example: augustine father of catholicism believed in outer authority, while his manichean master (in contra faustum) says he shouldn't rely upon any outer authority. This points toward the "son of the widow" symbol: with secret societies (egyptian gnosis), males and fathers are away from home. Children are alone with mother as an so of a widow. The aurotiy of the father is not there and the being is guided by the self-directive feminine principle. yhis is luciferic, this taste for independance and freedom (we owe freedom to lucifer and those whose "vulcans" that incarnated in atlantis, in denser conditions than lemuria - thus we have young souls (artistotelians) and old souls (platonicians). This "staying behind while other humans wee incarnating, they were wainting for sonditions that would help them to develop their intellect and independence, in arts, architecture, science, etc. In the future, man will have to become a co-creator, and then the metamorphosed luciferic power of self-development will help to master creation, become a creator himself (as the artist or builder). This is linked to the future liberation of prometheus, chained to the mineral rock-brain by a jealous zeus. Yahve hated Cain. Zeus hated Prometheus. Prometheus is a forward, creative thinker, not Epimetheus. Epimetheus is more like Abel.
the tongues of fire, the descent of the holy spirit above the head of disciples in the pentecost (whitsuntide) is luciferic wisdom transformed it its own power of salvation. the realising of our devanic nature (gods hidden in matter) and the god in the making that is ourselves. the serpent nature is the fractioning of this spirit in independent beings. Sophia is linked with the serpent. this is the changing of the astral nature into manas-sophia, the virgin. The holy spirit is healing spirit. Lucifer is redeemed in the holy spirit. Relying on religions and the orient, one does not find christ,one finds lucifer. Boddisattvas give knowledge of the Christ, though only a reflection, christ is life itself. Boddisattvas are dispenser of the knowldge of christ. they gain their value by reflecting christ to us. Oriental mahatmas can only give boddhisattvas lunar wisdom as an unconscious reflection of the solar christ. Bouddha-mercury is also a messenger of christ though it is not written in buddhist written tradition.
Thank you. I suggest you read more of Steiner before writing anything new. It will change your way of thinking drastically.
Have a nice day!
[Name redacted per user request]
Hello again Daniel,
I forgot to mention something about lucifer and ahriman. They are part of our evolution, they are necessary for our evolution. But Sorat isn't. Sorat is the Beast (Apocalypse of John). It is from out of this world.
towards ourselves, regarding our inner world and all its fire of desire and egoism, we need to be more ahrimanic, colder and more "objective". Towards the external world, in our science, we must be more luciferic, that is to be more enthousiastic about knowledge about the outer world. In ourselves we are luciferic, so we need to develop an ahrimanic contrebalancement. in our relationship to the outer world of appearances, we are ahrimanic, we see only a dead world, killed by our intellectual abstract mathematical thinking and dead perception that do no go farther than the physical-mineral.
Lucifer and ahriman are necessities, though they seduce us to be off-balance with the world, to slip away from the dynamic equilibrium between spirit and matter (lucifer and ahriman) that which Christ is the leader. Sorat is the beast that governs lucifer and ahriman. the more we fall prey to their seduction, the more sorat can take hold of ourselves in the future. Sorat's influence will be more in the future. right now the asruas, destroyers of the ego, locusts, spreading with the anglo-american death-bringing culture, are gaining more power than lucifer and ahriman.
Losing ourselves in fantasy puts our will in danger to slip into the eighth sphere, I repeat myself. Lucifer is not the light, it is the bringer of light. Lucifer is gaining hold of our spiritual urge with new age, a religion that is unscientific and still pretends to be spiritual knowledge. ahriman makes a materialism that is devoid of the spirit. Now though, there is a supermaterialism that is posing as a victory over materialism, the new spiritualism of "new age", technochamanism, psychedelics. all this distorts the right connexion with the Christ who is coming back in the ehteric realm. we are developing the new clairvoyance though the attacks of the spirits of hindrances are more cunning and damaging. psychedelics puts chaos in spiritual development, and can put someone in love with atavistic visionary clairvoyance, wich is a return to ancient clairvoyance. Only the new clairvoyance can establidh a right relationship with christ and michael. Lucifer tries to seduce us into becoming angels prematurely without realising all our potential as human being in becoming. Steiner calls the ancient clairvoyance the Fenris Wolf. Cults coming back to shamanic practices, wiccan rituals, are decadent and revive only the dormant faculties of atavistic clairyovance. The way to the new clairvoyance is described in the magnificied book.
Jesuits are an incarnation of luciferic cult. The exercices of ignacius of loyola are of a luciferic nature. they form moral automatons, soldiers of christ, proclaimers of a historical jesus (denial of Christ). they took over catholicism and spread the cult of jesus "the simple man of nazareth", and inculcating a fear of gnosis. even if gnosis was luciferic, jesuits are also luciferic. They are against development like science and refuse the impulse of the counsciousness soul (modern age in the development of the human soul, as perceval, lonely and fool but free). Jesuists and catholicism wanted to keep us in a cult that is mithraism, belonging to another time in the past. Jesuits, even though they were from the begining involed in high degrees of masonry, were the biggest ennemies of true gnosis, real masonry (not the fossil we know), authentic rosicrucianism and goetheanism. This is just another another example that luciferianism is not the way at all. It is an imbalanced impulse taken for itself. We must counterbalance ahrimanism of our age and our lives by a Christ-inspired dosage of luciferic force. Lucifer's role in all this is secondary - a mere tool , the positive that is opposite to the negative in electricity -- in the whole equilibrium process revealed in imaginations (by Michael, agent of Christ) to the pupil who is developing the new imaginative consciousness (not waking up the old serpent), experiencing the new vision of Paul in Damascus (this one was not in a blurred sybil-consciousness but in clear daylight consciousness). Atavistic consciousness only reveal mysteries of our body from insight in metabolic precesses. the knowledge of the cosmos thus gained is limited to a mere sahdow of cosmic processes reflected in bodily prrocesses and experienced in the blood. the new yoga is not breathing techniques but perception-ideation exercice of contemplation-concentration meditation. Read Jesaiah Ben Aharon the New Experience of the Supersensible. The best anthroposophical book ever.
I also suggest you to read:
Egyptian myths and mysteries
the Temple Legend
Old and new methods of initation
Polarities in the evolution of mankind
Secret brotherhoods
Nature spirits
the spiritual guidance of the individual and humanity
Blood is a very special fluid
The true nature of the second coming
Art in the light of the wisdom of the mysteries
Occult science
True and false paths of spiritual investigation
If you read fernch i may send you an article I wrote, a synthesis of the Ahrimanic challenge today. It completes a firt part about Lucifer. It is followed by an article on asuras and the beast sorat 666, as opposed to the white lodge of the twelve bodhisattvas and the brotherhood of the grail.
What the angels need to tell us now - and - More messages from the angels (Irene Johansson) are good anthroposophical books concerning the dimmed couisnciousness encounter with angels and elemenals (like mediumnism) versus the new clairvoyance, the day clear consciousness and morality of the person that communicates silently with his angel. We must beware of fallen angels and above all not turn this into an invocation, a spirit calling or some sort of seance.
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also, Rupert sheldrake is closer to theosophy than anthroposophy. His idea of morphogenetic fields is akwardly materialistic, attributing a quality belonging to matter (field) to something that is spiritual (ether-astral). What he means by that expression is in fact the ether and the astral mixed up, though he does not want to admit it. Fact: he is a member of the theosophical society (source: Nick Thomas: The battle for the etheric realm). In fact ether is not as theosophy or sheldrake indicate; it is not rarefied subtle matter. It is a negative counterpart to matter and space; a counterspace, a countermatter, antimatter. take a glove a reverse it in order to see the inside out. that is the etheric realm. astral organises the etheric which itself organises matter. Take a look at Goethe (and Henry Bortoft) and Steiner to understand this in another way than sheldrake's materialistic theory of morphogenetic fields. Beter to read Owen Barfield, Henry Bortoft and Rudolf Steiner about Goethe than to rely on Sheldrake.
good continuance of your work. all the good for you.
[Name redacted per user request]
Hi Daniel,
it's [Name redacted per user request] again.
I forgot something else.
you are right when you say that Steiner asserted that we need lucifer knowledge.
In the past, Lucifer was an inner world god. a god of the underworld. a lower god. a god that is within ourselves, in our dream world and our life between death and rebirth. dionisiac god.
Christ was a sun god, a higher god, a god like appollo outside us, in the outer world, in our life between birth and death. appolonian god.
after the golgotha event, they switched places: christ became an inner god, searched from within, like Eckhart did search for the light, for christ, within. Lucifer is now outside us, in the outer world.
rosicrucian wisdom tells us that we must know Chist by a lucifer knowledge, a luciferic knowledge of christ.
You will find ll that I said in Steiner's cycle of lectures entitled "The east in the light of the west" (following the Schuré's mystery play "the children of lucifer" (an allusion to the fact that we are children of lucifer - in time, wisdom from the past - but brother of christ - in space, in simultaneity like brotherhood.
This is an excellent lecture cycle. you may find this free in rudolf steiner archive: www.rsarchive.com (http://www.rsarchive.com)
Thank you
[Name redacted per user request]
I'M [Name redacted per user request]. I speak french actually (I'm from Quebec, Canada), so forgive me for my bad english.
I have read Steiner for about three years now, though I read more than a hundred of his books/lecture cycles in this short time. I intend to comment on your understanding of Steiner and anthroposophy.
Escuse me if it seems i'm going in all directions at once...
voilà:
Steiner would never have pleaded in favor of psychedelics. Anthroposophy can never be compared to shamanism (it is decadent now and inclines one into the eighth sphere because it is bound to atavistic clairvoyance), because he regarded shamanism as "atavistic clairvoyance", which means they are forces belonging to another age, in the past, for people with a different body-soul-spirit constitution than today. Atavistic clairvoyance is filled with illusions and can be dangerous: people who become visionaries (second sight, trance, hypnosis, visions, hallucinations, etc.) are going toward the edge of the eighth sphere, where lost souls go and can never come back. You will know more about the eighth sphere (the double of the fourth, our present Earth), the Abyss, in Steiner's "The occult movement in the nineteenth century". I offer you more information about the eighth sphere, coming from an anonymous internet source (aka econcrisis.homestead.com):
"The destiny of Ahriman and Lucifer is that they work with their forces in earth evolution and repeatedly make the greatest efforts to hold back the wider progress of evolution; they try to establish a realm for themselves, and have again and again to suffer disillusionment." [1]
The preceding is one of the most general statements I've ever read by Steiner about the goals of Lucifer and Ahriman. In previous essays, I have concentrated on a few of the approaches they use to sidetrack our evolution, but I didn't go into much detail on their intended destination. That is the subject of this essay.
The "destination" to which I refer is known as the Eighth Sphere. It's a quasi-spiritual world which surrounds us. It was produced by Lucifer and Ahriman just as our solar system's previous "incarnation," a.k.a. the Old Moon "manvantara," was ending. As Steiner puts it, "Thus as Sphere Three [Old Moon manvantara was] advancing to a further stage, something is wrested from the Spirits of Form by Lucifer and Ahriman; into this part that is wrested away, Lucifer and Ahriman penetrate, instead of the Sprits of Form. The activities of Lucifer and Ahriman are added to the Spirits of Movement [among others which created the Old Moon] and, as a result Eight arises out of Three." [2]
In An Outline of Occult Science [3], Steiner describes this "substantiality": "[Mankind was] embedded in the above-described vaporous environment. The most manifold processes occur within this mistlike element. Substances now unite, now separate. Certain parts condense, others become rarefied. All this occurs in such a way that the human beings neither see nor hear it directly, but images [Imaginations] are called forth by it in their consciousness.... Although they are symbols, not copies, they correspond, nevertheless, to the outer events.... A Moon humanity is thus in the position to direct its actions in accordance with these pictures [although driven by dull urges instead of having free will]." [4]
Another angle on this Old Moon form of consciousness is provided by the following excerpt:
in days when the semi-fluid, semi-vaporous Earth was still united with the Moon. Man moved through the semi-fluid, semi-gaseous element like a fish, guiding his way by means of this organ. His perceptions were of a visionary, allegoric nature. Currents of warmth evoked in him the impression of dazzling red and of powerful sound. Currents of cold evoked the impression of shades of green and blue, silvery, rippling sounds. [4a]
Then, as the Earth manvantara (the first one with "solid" matter) began to materialize, Lucifer and Ahriman took the opportunity to grab some of it for their world and infused it into the "substance" which they had stolen from the Old Moon: "Thus when the mineral comes into existence out of the Imaginative substantiality, it is snatched by Lucifer and Ahriman and made into Imagination [i.e. given the form of Imagination instead of that which it was supposed to take]." [5]
Steiner reinforces this statement in a passage which includes a tantalizing potential clue to the nature of the Ghost Society:
"Mark this well: Instead of pure Imagination [Old moon "substantiality"] being there, the Imaginations ARE DENSIFIED BY THE INFUSION OF A MINERAL ELEMENT THAT HAS BEEN WRESTED FROM THE EARTH. Densified Imaginations are thus created.... They are ghosts, spectres - that is to say, behind our world there is a world of spectres created by Lucifer and Ahriman." [5]
But that wasn't the end of it; Lucifer and Ahriman continue to take whatever they can from Earth, and convert it into Old Moon substance to add to their world:
Lucifer and Ahriman strive unceasingly to draw from the Earth's substances whatever they can snatch, in order to form their Eighth Sphere which then, when it is sufficiently advanced, will be detached from the Earth and go its own way in the Cosmos together with Lucifer and Ahriman. [7]
This impolite pair find their greatest success in seizing physical matter in human beings, specifically, in the brain. From what I gather, this is because, as Steiner puts it, "physical substance there is more spiritualized that anywhere else." He also states that "everything that is similar to the head ... is equally exposed to the danger of being dispatched to the Eighth Sphere." [8]
"New Age" gang spreads confusion about the 8th Sphere
In the Occult Movement in the 19th Century, Steiner devotes considerable time to the spin put on the 8th Sphere by A.P. Sinnett's book Esoteric Buddhism. Sinnett essentially states that the present Moon is the 8th Sphere, when in fact the physical aspect of the Moon was created by Jahve to prevent a certain amount of matter from being seized by Lucifer and Ahriman. Steiner claims that Sinnett's distortion was intended to convey a materialistic version of reincarnation, which he does not describe. I'll take his word for it, but I think it's safe to say that it also tends to conceal a major aspect of what Lucifer and Ahriman are doing.
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Klingsor (Lucifer) VS the moon
According to Walter johannes Stein, The Death of Merlin, chp13, pp:192:
"Klingsor formed an alliance with Iblis (the musilm form of Lucifer). Iblis the wife of King Ibert, is described by Wolfram as the woman whose lover Klingsor illegitimately becomes. The jealous King responds by castrating Klingsor. the power of Lucifer appears here as the power that fights against the forces of physical procreation. The cosmic expression of the forces of procreation and sustenance is the moon. FOR EXAMPLE THE EMBRYO DEVELOPS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE MOON CYCLES, AND OUR FIRST NOURISHMENT, MILK, IS ALSO DEPENDENT ON THIS CYCLE. The moon is the cosmic image of the grail vessel, Gangandi Greidi, "food for the way", is the name given to the Grail vessel in the Nordic version of the Grail legend. The powers which serve the metabolic processes of nurishment and procreation are high spiritual powers but human beings can misuse them by giving them to Lucifer through passion, through lust; these powers can also be taken away but the seeker of the Grail must transform them. What that means is indicated by Wlofram in Parzival attitude to Condwiramurs Klingsor, on the other hand, is robbed of these powers. The nature of pure love can be learnt from the sun which freely gives its vitalizing strenght and demands noting in return. Grail love endeavours to be similarly altruistic, only wanting to give."
---------------
Steiner also mentions that H.P. Blavatsky, upon realizing that she was being used by so-called left-hand initiates (who pursue selfish interests) to give the impression that their propaganda was coming from benevolent higher beings, tried to correct Sinnett's error. But she wasn't a very good writer, and Sinnett's teachings became the generally accepted view among theosophists.
Seducing and driving us to the 8th Sphere
"If Rome had developed in such a way that a great all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been habitable for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer had drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. YOU SEE HOW AHRIMAN AND LUCIFER WORK TOGETHER. LUCIFER WANTS TOTAKE MEN'S SOULS AWAY AND FOUND A PLANET WITH THEM OF HIS OWN.AHRIMAN HAS TO HELP HIM. WHILE LUCIFER SUCKS THE JUICE OUT OF THE
LEMON, AS IT WERE, AHRIMAN PRESSES IT OUT, THEREBY HARDENING WHATREMAINS. This is what he tried to do to the civilization of Rome. Here we have an important cosmic process going on all due to the intention and resolve of luciferic and ahrimanic powers. As I have said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet [as of 1916] to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that THE NECESSITY TO UNDERSTAND THESE ATTACKS WILL BECOME EVER GREATER." [emphasis added] [9]
"But the endeavor of Lucifer and Ahriman is TO DRAG THE FREE WILL OF MAN, AND WHATEVER STEMS FROM IT, into the Eighth Sphere. This means that man is perpetually exposed to the danger of having his free will wrested from him and dragged by Lucifer and Ahriman into the Eighth Sphere.
"This happens if the element of free will is transformed, FOR EXAMPLE, into visionary clairvoyance. When this is the case, a man is already in the Eighth Sphere. This is a matter of which occultists are reluctant to speak, because it is an awful, terrible truth.
...
Lucifer and Ahriman are engaged perpetually in shackling man's free will and in conjuring all sorts of things before him in order TO TEAR AWAY WHAT HE MAKES OUT OF THESE THINGS and let it disappear into the Eighth Sphere."
I presume that what Steiner means by "conjuring all sorts of things before him" means that they directly or indirectly arrange stimuli which are calculated to produce certain states of mind which facilitate the theft of will.
Free will is our ability to convert our decisions into objects and events in the physical world, and developing it is one of our main tasks at this stage in our evolution. Therefore, taking it from us is a means of interfering with our evolution.
Satan and Lucifers' basic strategy for leading our higher souls or egos to the 8th Sphere is to cause humans to become disenchanted with Earth and unwittingly enchanted with the Eighth Sphere.
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Here is something about the illicit astrality present in poisonous plants (a demon is in it):
In previous reviews of Nutrition and Bees, we discovered that poisons in the plant world have a nature of astrality about them that should be reserved for the animal world. Plants that develop poisons are trying to act like animals, something that will be good for them to do in the epoch following Earth epoch, but as any good out of its time, that something becomes a evil, a harmful poison, in our time. Steiner looks at the deadly nightshade Belladonna and the harmless violet and compares them.
[page 153] The Belladonna develops its bell-shaped flowers inside which the fruit is formed and the astral element penetrates into the fruit. The violet develops its capsule only in the etheric element. The fruit of the deadly nightshade assimilates the astral element and in consequence the plant is poisonous.
This is most interesting. We find that our astral body is the bearer of forces which prove to be poisonous when assimilated by plants. This is how we must think of poison. We can only acquire an inner understanding of poison when we realize that man's astral body contains in effect the forces of all existing toxins, for they are an integral part of his being.
We might say that the violet is on a true path, but the deadly nightshade is on a false path. This will become important as we enter the study of "true and false paths in spiritual investigation" as the title of this enbooked series of lectures promises. How are we to understand the latest varieties of mediums, the so-called "channels" -- such as Lazaris, Ramtha, and Seth that were so popular in the last quarter of the 20th Century? Once more we find a "good out of its time."
[page 156, 157] And when a medium is in a trance condition, when the brain is insulated, an entity of this kind which is subject to Ahrimanic influences and whose function is to transmit the achievements of civilization to the future, slips into the brain. Instead of being the carrier of the human Ego, such a medium is, temporarily, the vehicle of an elementary being which is neglecting its duty in the Cosmos.
Thus they slip into it [the part of brain vacated by the medium's Ego] and introduce into the contemporary world what their observation has taught them of the art of writing. Thus, with the help of mediums they project into the present that which, in accordance with their mission, they ought to communicate to the future. Mediumism depends upon the fact that what is to become future capacities is already developed in the present in a vague and chaotic manner.
The beings who take possession of channels are slackers, skipping out on their real duties, and getting caught up the world of the present. Steiner tells us that in the typical séance, someone with clairvoyant vision will see the group surrounded by poisonous plants with fruits and flowers from which demoniac beings emerge. (page 162) This reminds me of the phrase from Matt 7:16, 20 "Therefore by their fruits ye will know them."
When is a human being apt to become a medium or a channel? When somehow their consciousness becomes dimmed. Our brain weighs about 1,500 grams, but floats in a liquid medium so that its effective weight is about 20 grams. In this small portion of the brain, the Ego resides. If it were to vacate that portion of the brain, an elemental being can slip in and take possession of the brain.
[page 167, 168] And fundamentally this danger is always present whenever the consciousness of man, i. e., his full Ego-consciousness, is suppressed, whenever he is in a stupefied, comatose condition or has actually suffered syncope [RJM: fainted]. Whenever man's consciousness is damped down, not through sleep, but through some other factor, there is the danger that man will be exposed to the world of elementary beings.
From the above we get the distinct impression that someone who attends séances, who consults mediums, or studies the writings of channels, is not on the true path, but rather the false path in spiritual investigation.
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Here is again taken from an ex-website, took off the web:
"Oh Owl, Prince of ALL MORTAL WISDOM, Owl of Bohemia, we do beseech thee, grant us thy counsel."
I have placed a stress on "all mortal wisdom," in order to bring attention to the fact that Ishtar, the "Lady of the MEs" (data banks), might have been able to provide information to mankind, but that without the capacity to understand, mankind would not be able to absorb it. So, there is an inner, God-given aspect to wisdom, which is one meaning of owl symbology.
The Genesis account of Lucifer tempting Adam and Eve with knowledge is a hint of how "our eyes were opened," in two senses of the phrase: God used Lucifer to give us our intelligence, and it is only because of Lucifer's influence that light became visible. The following quotations from Steiner's works provide some detail on these processes, starting with outer light.
Whenever we direct our occult vision to a fixed star, we first of all encounter the normal Spirits of Wisdom. The whole heavens would be invisible to physical sight and only visible to clairvoyant consciousness if none but these normal Spirits of Wisdom were active; but everywhere Luciferic spirits are mingled with the normal Spirits of Wisdom, and bring physical light of its own into the world of the fixed star. When at night the starry heaven is illuminated, Phosphorus actually works down upon us from countless points ["a thousand points of light"]: and everywhere in the universe we find the possibility of formation only through the cooperation of the opposing forces; through the combined working of the normal spirits of the hierarchies with those who are rebels that is, those who have remained behind. Unillumined to physical eyes but visible to spiritual sight, is the starry world through the normal Spirits of Wisdom; it became luminous to physical eyes, it is revealed in Maya [the illusion we consider to be the real world] through Lucifer or the Luciferic spirits who are, and must be, active everywhere. [15]
Now, on to the somewhat more complex subject of "inner light":
The superhuman entities previously mentioned, the leaders in the field of love ["moon gods"], had already been so perfect on the preceding planet that they did not have to [incarnate].
[A]t the beginning of the formation of the earth, [the luciferic beings] were further advanced than men, but still were at the stage where knowledge must be acquired through inner organs. These beings were in a special position. They were too far advanced to pass through the physical human body [i.e. they could not incarnate], male or female, but on the other hand, were not [sufficiently advanced to] act through full clairvoyance like the leaders of love. They could not yet be beings of love, [but] they could no longer be "men." Thus they could only continue their own development as half superhuman beings, in which they were aided by men. They could speak to creatures with a brain in a language which the latter could understand. [Translation might be a good analogy, as implied below.] Thereby the human soul energy which was turned inward was stimulated, and could connect itself with knowledge and wisdom [like a translator connects people who speak different languages]. It was thus that wisdom of a human kind first appeared on earth.
The "half superhuman beings" mentioned above could use this human wisdom in order to achieve for themselves that of perfection which they still lacked. In this manner THEY BECAME THE STIMULATORS OF HUMAN WISDOM. One therefore calls them bringers of light (Lucifer).
[T]he creation of the understanding is related to the activity of the sun. The dawn of the understanding in human nature is the lighting up of an inner sun. This is said not only in a metaphorical, but also in a quite real sense. When the epoch of the fire mist had ebbed from the earth, these spirits found within man an opportunity to resume their activity connected with the sun.
It now becomes clear whence the name Lucifer, that is, "the bearer of light," originates, and why these beings are designated as "sun gods" in mystery science. [16]
One must be quite clear about the fact that only later did man assume the dense substantiality which he has today, and that he did this very gradually. If one wants to form an idea of his corporeality on the level of development which is being discussed, one can best do this by imagining it as similar to water vapor or to a cloud suspended in the air. But of course this idea approaches reality in a completely external way. For the fire cloud "man" is internally alive and organized. In comparison to what man became later, however, one must imagine him at this stage as in a state of soul slumber, and as only very dimly conscious. Everything which can be called intelligence, understanding, reason is lacking in this being.
[Eons pass between the preceding and the following]
[Luciferic] beings now acquire power over this upper half ["head"]. In earlier stages of their development, these beings advanced further than men, but not as far as the moon gods. They could not exercise their power in the fire mist [as could the moon gods]. But now that something they themselves had lacked previously [the capacity to understand] has been formed in the human organs of understanding through [the influence of the higher beings on] the fire mist, their time has come.
At an earlier time [before the fire mist came into being], the moon gods had attained an understanding capable of acting externally [on, for example, the fire mist].... They could act externally on the things of earth. [But] the lower beings we have just mentioned had not attained such an understanding which acts outwardly. Therefore, the time of the fire mist found them unprepared [to influence it].
Now, however, [a capability to understand] is present. It exists in men. These beings seize upon this human understanding in order to act on the things of earth by means of it. [Elsewhere, Steiner indicates that our urge to create is a luciferic tendency, whereas the urge to destroy is satanic.]
Thus man comes under a double leadership [Love and Wisdom]. In his lower part he is under the power of the moon gods; in his developed personality, however, he comes under the leadership of those entities which are summed up under the name "Lucifer," the name of their regent.
The Luciferic gods thus complete their own development by making use of the awakened human powers of understanding.... At the same time they give man the predisposition to freedom, to the discrimination between "good" and "evil."
While it is true that the human organ of understanding has been formed entirely under the leadership of the moon gods, these gods would have left it to slumber; they were not interested in making use of it [because] they possessed their own powers of understanding. In their own interest, the Luciferic beings were concerned with developing the human understanding and directing it toward the things of earth [which opened us up to Ahriman's/Satan's influence]. Thereby for men THEY BECAME THE TEACHERS OF ALL THAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. But they could not be anything more than stimulators.... With their guidance man had to learn to find the laws of his being. Under Lucifer's leadership he himself had to become as "one of the gods." [17]
We are able to understand each other as easily as we do only because the Luciferic powers gave us this common intelligence. Intelligence - this Luciferic spirituality - came into being because Michael [acting on behalf of God] imbued humanity with Luciferic influences.... [L]uciferic spirituality, which we think of as our intelligence, is widely consdered today as the most distinctive characteristic." [18]
The following quotations are from Evil, a collection of lectures by Steiner [available through various on-line bookstores]:
"Ever since the Lemurian epoch ... [luciferic] forces made our inner life the focal point of their attack, by infiltrating our desires, impulses, and passions. There were two consequences of this: we were able to become free ... [from] the sway of divine, spiritual beings.... But ... we also had to accept our potential for evil arising through our passions, emotions and desires." p 100
Lucifer's influence was primarily one towards freedom, enabling [mankind] to overcome a passive submission to random external powers, allowing them ... a capacity for acting independently. p 103
But ... [Lucifer's] influence ... dragged them down ... [and] made their desires and actions, their whole being in fact of a lower nature than it would have been [otherwise]." p103
"How, then, does the luciferic influence act? It penetrates into the astral body and is thus able to work upon all three 'bodies' of the human being - astral, etheric and physical.... In the etheric it brings about IMPULSES OF FALSEHOOD AND LYING." P103, emphasis added
"[T]hrough Lucifer there arises selfishness [egotism] in the astral body, lying and FALSEHOOD in the etheric body, and SICKNESS AND DEATH in the physical body." p 104
"The ahrimanic influence is therefore a result of the luciferic: Lucifer takes possession of [i.e. penetrates and influences] us from within, and we are as a result susceptible to attack from without [by beings from Ahriman's subphysical realm]. p 100
This will hopefully provide some idea of how we obtained what we call intelligence. There is much more to it, but the upshot for purposes of this section is that Lucifer is associated with wisdom, knowledge, freedom, egotism, falsehood, sickness, and death. Keep these traits in mind for later.
Lucifer incarnated in approximately 3000 B.C. into a Chinese nobleman, who then became a teacher. [19] So, not only was he involved in giving us our reason and free will, but he also provided mankind with what Steiner calls, on the same page, "the pre-Christian, pagan culture which still survived in the gnosis of the earliest Christian centuries." Interestingly, Blavatsky indicates that the Oriental Cabala is the original:
[According to HPB, these branches were all sourced in "the great Oriental mother-root" and its "primitive Oriental Cabala" -- Cabala meaning (esoteric) "tradition." Then she briefly traces some of its branchings, alluding to the Egyptian, Pythagorean, and Greek mysteries, primitive Christianity, its early Gnostic divisions, and their relation to the origin of the Rosicrucian brotherhood in the 13th century.]
As alchemists and conjurers they [the Rosicrucians] became proverbial. Later . . . they gave birth to the more modern Theosophists, at whose head was Paracelsus, and to the Alchemists. . . .
The Rosicrucian Cabala is but an epitome of the Jewish and the Oriental ones combined, the latter being the most secret of all. The Oriental Cabala, the practical, full, and only existing copy, is carefully preserved at the headquarters of this Brotherhood in the East, and, I may safely vouch, will never come out of its possession. . . .[20]
The Cult of Isis Adopts Lucifer
There are a few more direct indications linking Lucifer and Ishtar. Among many other titles, Ishtar was known as "The Lightbringer," "Light of the World," "Exalted Light of Heaven," and "Torch of Heaven and Earth." Ishtar is also known as Venus, and according to Steiner, Lucifer is the planetary being of Venus. [21]
The statue of her in New York Harbor, which is known as the Statue of Liberty (designed by a French Freemason), carries a torch and a book, symbolizing intelligence and information, two components of wisdom. The torch is also a symbol of a future role of Lucifer. Note the statue's similarity to the Colossus of Rhodes, which was dedicated to Ishtar's brother, Shamash/Helios, the Sun God (which is also a designation for luciferic beings).
(...)
Lucifer and Ahriman's Greco-Roman Agenda
In his lecture-series The Inner Impulses of Evolution, Rudolf Steiner showed how Lucifer and Ahriman have been working to achieve their goal since Atlantean times. The following concentrates on the Greco-Roman period:
Yesterday, we tried to characterize the forces that permeated Greece and Rome in order to obtain an idea of the INFLUENCES THAT HAVE BEEN CARRIED OVER FROM THE FOURTH INTO THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE [i.e. from the Greco-Roman era into the current era, which began in 1413 and continues to about the year 3573], and we gave some indication of where we have to look today for signs of continued activity of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean age. I want to ask you now to turn your attention once again to our description of the civilizations of Greece and Rome.
In the way it developed, the civilization of Greece was a source of great disappointment to the luciferic powers.... THEY HAD EXPECTED THE CIVILIZATION OF GREECE, THE FOURTH EPOCH OF POST-ATLANTEAN TIMES, TO BRING INTO BEING FOR THEM ALL THEY HAD STRIVEN FOR DURING ATLANTEAN TIMES. On Atlantis they had developed certain activities, certain influences and forces and they had expected to see the fruits of their labors appear in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. What was it they were really looking for?
To speak of such a matter lets us look right into the luciferic soul. We come to know this luciferic life that continually strives, hoping that certain results may ensue, but that continually meets with fresh disappointment. A logician would naturally ask, "Why do not these luciferic powers stop trying? Why do they not see that they must be forever and repeatedly disappointed?" Such a conclusion would be human, not luciferic, wisdom. At any rate, the luciferic powers have yet to come to his conclusion. ON THE CONTRARY, IT IS THEIR PRACTICE TO REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS WHENEVER THEY EXPERIENCE DISAPPOINTMENT. [9/11 was a disappointment to them, so look out!]
What was it, then, that the luciferic powers expected from this fourth post-Atlantean age? They wanted to obtain mastery of all the soul forces of the Greek people, those soul forces that were, as we have seen, directed to carrying over the ancient imaginations of the Chaldean-Egyptian period, and to incorporate them into the creations of their own fantasy. THE LUCIFERIC POWERS MADE IT THEIR ENDEAVOR TO WORK SO STRONGLY ON THE HUMAN BEINGS OF THE GREEK CIVILIZATION THAT THEIR IMAGINATIONS, REFINED AND DISTILLED TO FANTASY, SHOULD FILL THEIR WHOLE BEING. THE GREEKS WOULD THEN HAVE LOST THEMSELVES IN A SOUL WORLD, IN AN EVERYDAY THINKING, FEELING AND WILLING THAT WOULD HAVE CONSISTED ENTIRELY OF THOSE SUBTLE IMAGINATIONS THAT HAD BECOME COMPLETE FANTASY. [In other words, imaginations without any relation to Earth.]
If the Greeks had developed nothing in their souls but these imaginations refined to fantasy, if these enticing imaginations had come to fill their souls completely, THE LUCIFERIC POWERS WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LIFT THE GREEKS AND A GREAT PART OF HUMANITY OUT OF HUMAN EVOLUTION TO PLACE THEM IN THEIR OWN LUCIFERIC WORLD. This was the intention of the luciferic powers. From the Atlantean epoch on, it had been their hope to achieve in the fourth post-Atlantean age what they had failed to do in Atlantis. Humanity, at the stage it had then reached, would have been incorporated into the cosmos. THEY WANTED NOTHING LESS THAN TO CREATE FOR THEMSELVES A SEPARATE WORLD WERE EARTHLY GRAVITY DID NOT EXIST BUT WERE HUMAN BEINGS WOULD DWELL WITH ABSOLUTE SUPERSENSIBLE LIGHTNESS, ENTIRELY GIVEN UP TO A LIFE OF FANTASY (eighth sphere). [A parody of Devachan/Heaven?] IT WAS THE HOPE OF THE LUCIFERIC BEINGS TO CREATE A PLANETARY BODY, WHICH WOULD CONTAIN THOSE MEMBERS OF HUMANITY WHO HAD REACHED THIS HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT OF THE FANTASY LIFE. THEY MADE EVERY ENDEAVOR TO LEAD THE SOULS OF THE GREEKS AWAY FROM THE EARTH. HAD THEY SUCCEEDED, THESE SOULS WOULD GRADUALLY HAVE FORSAKEN THE EARTH. THE BODIES THAT STILL CAME TO BIRTH WOULD HAVE BEEN DEGENERATE. EGOLESS BEINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN BORN, THE EARTH WOULD HAVE FALLEN INTO DECADENCE [Satan's realm of death] AND A SPECIAL LUCIFERIC KINGDOM WOULD HAVE BEGUN [the aforementioned new planet].
Within the Roman civilization the ahrimanic powers gathered for a stupendous onslaught. That attempt was like a repetition of their attempt made in Atlantean times, and it developed infinitely strong powers and forces.
Thus did Ahriman meet with his disappointment, as Lucifer had met with his. BUT THEY WILL TAKE UP THEIR TASKS AGAIN IN THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE WITH ALL THE MORE DETERMINATION. Here is the point at which we must gain an understanding of the forces that are operative in our age, insofar as such an understanding is possible today.
The fourth post-Atlantean age extends both backwards and forwards from its central point in 333 A.D. It ended about 1413 A.D. and it began about 747 B.C. These are of course, approximate dates. I have just told you that the disappointment of Lucifer and Ahriman in the forms the Greek and Roman civilizations had assumed, has led them to make still stronger efforts in our fifth post-Atlantean age. THEIR EFFORTS ARE ALREADY AT WORK IN THE HUMAN FORCES THAT HAVE BEEN ACTIVE FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY [i.e. the Venetian black magicians, such as Sarpi and Contarini].
They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now [i.e. 1916] only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that the necessity to understand these attacks will become ever greater.
To understand how these powers work in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we must turn our attention for a moment to what is intended for man in the right and normal course of his evolution. [2]
(...)
Inner Impulses of Evolution:
We know that this is the age of the development of the consciousness soul and that, to accomplish this, a number of forces soul and bodily forces must be active. FIRST, A CLEAR PERCEPTION OF THE SENSE WORLD IS NECESSARY. THIS DID NOT EXIST IN EARLIER TIMES BECAUSE, AS YOU KNOW, A VISIONARY, IMAGINATIVE ELEMENT CONTINUOUSLY PLAYED INTO THE HUMAN SOUL [a dream-like state in which objects were represented by symbols, although there was a correlation between the symbols and the objects].
THE OTHER TASK IS TO UNFOLD FREE IMAGINATIONS [i.e. perceiving and thinking with the etheric body] side by side with the clear view of [physical] reality in a way, a kind of repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean age. To date, humanity has not progressed too far in this task. Free imaginations as sought through spiritual science means imaginations not as they were in the third post-Atlantean age, but unfettered and undistilled into fantasy [apparently referring to the aforementioned dreamlike state, in which an encounter with an object triggered a vision of a symbol which had been assigned to that object by the higher beings]. It means imaginations in which man moves as freely as he does only in his intellect [referring to the new way of thinking, using ideas derived from the etheric world and thinking with the etheric body]. That, then, is the other task of the fifth post-Atlantean age. The unfoldment of these two faculties will lead to a right development of the consciousness soul in our present epoch.
The entire aim in the work of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers in the fifth post-Atlantean age, concerning both the perception of the primal [etheric] phenomenon and the development of free imaginations [thinking with the etheric body], is to hinder these forces from arising in man. THE LUCIFERIC AND AHRIMANIC POWERS ARE WORKING IN THIS FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE TO DISTURB THESE FORCES IN THE HUMAN SOUL, TO EMPLOY THEM TO A WRONG END, THUS BRINGING MEN'S SOULS OUT OF THE EARTH SPHERE TO ESTABLISH A NEW SPHERE OF THEIR OWN. Many things must work together to disturb the right, quiet and slow unfolding of these forces. Note well that I say the quiet and slow unfolding because the entire period of 2,160 years, starting in 1413 A.D., should be used for the gradual unfoldment of the forces I have named, that is, free imaginations and the gradual development of working with primal phenomena. At intervals by fits and starts, as it were the luciferic and ahrimanic powers throw the whole weight of their opposition against this right evolution. When we bear in mind that everything is prepared for by the world beyond the earth long before it happens, we shall then not be surprised to find preparations being made to bring the strongest possible forces of opposition against the normal evolution of humanity.
On the one hand, men will have to direct their gaze quite selflessly [referring to the meditative attitude] to the outer world to work in it and to gain knowledge of it. On the other, by powerful application of their personalities, they will have to bring it all into inner movement in order to find the imaginations for outer activity and outer knowledge [i.e. process the new knowledge using the new thinking to solve problems in the physical world]. Gradually, the consciousness soul and its culture will achieve this transformation.
We have already seen how the luciferic and ahrimanic powers poured what they had developed in Atlantean times into Greece and Rome. NOW, IN AN ALTERED FORM, THEY HAVE TRIED TO REPEAT THESE EFFORTS before the arrival of the fifth post-Atlantean age. You will not be surprised when I say that for this fifth post-Atlantean age, too, a powerful impetus had to be present BEARING ALONG WITH IT THE AFTER WORKINGS, IN A LUCIFERIC AND AHRIMANIC SENSE, FROM ATLANTIS. We know that the Atlantean influences spread out from a region that was called Atlantis even by Plato. Let us make a diagram and imagine Atlantis here, then over here on the right would be Europe and Asia, and here on the left would be America. The old Atlantean forces, including the old luciferic and ahrimanic forces, spread out from Atlantis. Some part of these Atlantean forces, however, was held back, and it came to work in our fifth post-Atlantean age as luciferic and ahrimanic forces. That is, some part of the good forces, which were good and right in Atlantean times, have been carried over to our time to become luciferic and ahrimanic forces [by virtue of belonging to the past]. Only the center was transferred to another region.
Its intent was to lucifericize and ahrimanicize it. IT WAS ACTUALLY THE DESCENDANTS OF THE OLD ATLANTEAN TEACHERS WHO WERE NOW WORKING FROM A PLACE IN ASIA. A PRIEST THERE HAD BEEN EDUCATED TO BEHOLD TO HAVE A BELATED VISION, AS IT WERE, OF WHAT THE ATLANTEANS CALLED THE "GREAT SPIRIT," AND TO RECEIVE HIS COMMANDS. These the priest communicated to a young man of remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority, received the name "The Great Ruler of the Earth" from his community. This was Genghis Khan. THE GREAT SPIRIT, THROUGH HIS FOLLOWER AND THROUGH THAT PRIEST, GAVE TO GENGHIS KHAN THE COMMAND TO SUMMON ALL THE POWERS OF ASIA TO SPREAD THE INFLUENCE THAT WOULD LEAD THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN AGE BACK INTO A LUCIFERIC FORM. These forces and they were far more powerful than the forces established in Greek culture were all employed to this end. FREE IMAGINATIONS WERE TO BE CHANGED INTO OLD, VISIONARY IMAGINATIONS. EVERY EFFORT WAS TO BE MADE TO LULL THE SOUL OF MAN TO SLEEP IN A DIM AND DREAMY EXPERIENCE OF IMAGINATIONS INSTEAD OF A FREE EXPERIENCE FILLED THROUGH AND THROUGH WITH CLEAR UNDERSTANDING.
With the help of the special forces that had been preserved from Atlantis, IT WAS THE INTENDED PURPOSE TO CARRY AN INFLUENCE INTO THE WEST THAT WOULD MAKE ITS CULTURE VISIONARY. THEN IT WOULD HAVE BECOME POSSIBLE TO SEPARATE THE SOULS OF MEN FROM THE EARTH AND TO FORM A NEW CONTINENT, A NEW PLANETARY BODY WITH THEM. ALL THE UNREST AND DISTURBANCE THAT CAME INTO THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN MAN THROUGH THE MONGOLIAN INVASIONS [which were facilitated by Venetian Intelligence], EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH THEM THAT HAS GONE ON WORKING INTO THE FIFTH POST-ATLANTEAN EPOCH ALL THIS UNREST, WHICH WAS PREPARED LONG AGO, IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE GREAT ATTEMPT THAT IS BEING MADE FROM ASIA TO BRING ABOUT A VISIONARY EUROPEAN CULTURE. It would cut it off from the conditions of its further evolution and lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has experienced again and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be estranged from the earth.
SOMETHING WAS NEEDED TO COUNTERBALANCE THIS TENDENCY. An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the direction of the normal evolution of mankind. The influence of Genghis Khan's priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in the human race that would draw man away from the earth. Over against this, a corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the earth; THIS WAS PROVIDED THROUGH THE DISCOVERY OF THE WESTERN WORLD. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and thereby earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man. The discovery of America and everything connected with it, and the way man carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when seen in wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the activity of Genghis Khan. AMERICA HAD TO BE DISCOVERED SO THAT MAN MIGHT BE BROUGHT TO GROW CLOSER TO THE EARTH, TO GROW MORE AND MORE MATERIALISTIC. Man needed weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was the aim of the descendants of the "Great Spirit."
Please do not go about saying that I have presented the discovery of America as an ahrimanic deed. In reality, I have said the very opposite. I have said that AMERICA HAD TO BE DISCOVERED AND THAT THE ENTIRE EVENT WAS NECESSARY TO THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. AHRIMANIC FORCES ENTERED [the American continent], HOWEVER, AND SET THEMSELVES IN VIOLENT OPPOSITION TO WHAT WAS HAPPENING QUITE RIGHTLY IN THE NORMAL COURSE OF PROGRESS. Things are not so simple that we can say, "There is Lucifer, and there is Ahriman; they act and behave in such and such a way, and divide the world between them." Things are by no means so simple as that.
We find, therefore, MANY FORCES WORKING TOGETHER when we set out to listen to them in their field of action behind the physical plane. These forces take possession of other forces. THEY TRY TO SEIZE THE FORCES IN MAN THAT HAVE CONTINUED ON FROM THE FOURTH POST-ATLANTEAN EPOCH IN ORDER TO DISTORT THEM AND MAKE THEM SERVE THEIR ENDS.
East of Europe, however, in all the culture of the East, we find an untold number of people who suffer greatly under the disturbing influence of Lucifer. His influence is, as we know, TO DRAW MAN AGAIN AND AGAIN AWAY FROM THE EARTH, TO DRAW HIM RIGHT OUT OF HIS PHYSICAL BODY SO THAT HE SHALL PERPETUALLY FALL INTO A STATE WHERE HE BECOMES NO MORE THAN A VISION OF HIMSELF AND IS COMPLETELY SOUL. That is the tendency that has been grafted onto Eastern Europe.
The feeling of being drawn in the other direction was given to the West. The world of imagination was pulled down into the heavy physical body so that what should rightly be free imagination working merely in the soul becomes instead something that rams the soul down into the organism, thereby causing the organism also to live on imaginations."
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Here are titles about the eighth sphere as kingdom of lucifer (and ahriman) and dark side of the moon
La reincarnation sans l'esprit: histoire d'une contre-verite (Irene Diet)
Michael and the two-horned beast (Bernard Nesfield-Cookson)
The East in the light of the West (Sergei O. Prokofieff)
You might also like to check "From Jundi Shapur to Silicon Valley", by the anthroposophist Francis Paul Emberson, about the incarnation of Ahriman (Satan) in computers and our future which looks a lot like The Matrix, with big spider webs across the earth, crawling with spiders of artificial intelligence. The use of fallen etheric forces (electricity, magnetism and the mysterious "third force" involving nuclear powers) inspired by/inhabiting ahrimanic elementals (lizzies) wich are also our own shadow-self, doppelganger, the ahrimanic Double, which comes from the inner earth and want to take over or planet enslaving us.
I also strongly suggest that you read about the ways to save these beings in the cosmic order, as pointed by Nicolaas de Jong in his article "Ufos: The search for Truth, Reality and tools for their redemption", available on the internet. Also: "Ufos: preeminent phenomena of our time" by Patrick Steensma.
Steiner does not talk about a "Wave"(2012), but indicates that the Christ is coming back in the etheric world since 1933. It means that more and more people will experience a new form of clairvoyance, for example, thing's and people's aura will be seen. The new way of clairvoyance, though, is not a return to the ancient passive, atavistic, mediumnic and visionary kind of clairvoyance. This new clairvoyance cannot rely on ouija tables because in this way the hand is moved by elemental beings taking their knowledge from the beings on the moon, who once were with us as teachers in Lumeria and Atlantis. When Laura was talking with "Cassiopaeans", she cold only know the given answer by putting the letters one after the other, making a significant statement. This is still an unconscious way and must be avoided. Elemental beings communicating this way (though mediums) are infinitely more clever that whatever we can grasp nor imagine. They can misguide us into half-truths like "the Christ event is not very significant", "the moon is the eight sphere", and so on. The new clairvoyance is described by Jesaiah Ben Aharon, in "The new experience of the supersensible", like a renewed "vision of Paul on Damascus". We will have inspiring and moving revelations wide awake. These are not visions in the old sense. The new clairvoyance must be developed by a strengthening of our grounding in clear perception of the outside world, combined to a healthy development in the areas of thinking, feeling and willing. The michaelic yoga is not inspire-expire but perceive in-think out. This way, imaginations are formed and the refresh our dead knowledge of the world, enabling us to join Christ in a conscious experience of nature and the cycle of year, for example.
The development of the new clairvoyance is hindered by spirits of hindrances such as Lucifer and Ahriman (not to mention the asuras and Sorat, the Beast, which are far superior in evil). Lucifer takes us back into old time religion and ecstatic, subjective mysticism. Ahriman, Mephistopheles or Satan, wants to make us unbelievers in spirit and believers in science, matter and progress. Half-baked oriental mysticism illegitimately joined with modern physics (like Fritjof Capra's works The Tao of Physics) only produces a subtler form of materialism, a super-materialism, in the vein of spiritism and mediumnism. Lucifer and Ahriman join their effort against a healthy experience of Christ in the etheric world by diverting the new clairvoyant faculties into the old kind of clairvoyance (vision, mediumship, spiritism) or into new techniques of manipulating consciousness by means of material means: drugs, electromagnetism, physical sound waves, etc. Spiritual materialism is one of the traps that must be recognised and avoided by all occultist students. The major stuff that we give to the eighth sphere is exactly that materialistic (or spiritual-materialist) imaginative stuff. These materialist (or spiritual-materialist) thoughts (thought-forms) give form, in the eighth sphere, to all fantasies coming from the imagination-activity, morever the most science-fictionesque or grotesque thought-forms. These become "probable realities". The spiritual worlds must not be confused with the spectre nature of the substance of the eighth sphere, which takes the forms of our materialist (or spiritual-materialist) thought-forms. All that is linked with our head (where Ahriman dwells) and our bellies (where Lucifer dwells), is a door opening to this dead world of the eighth sphere. We must instead create moral and spiritual thought-forms that will become the spiritual ground, the body of the future earth-man, called Jupiter state by Steiner (the New Jerusalem).
According to Nicolaas de Jong (2001), "lizzies" (reptilians) are fallen elementals of an ahrimanic (satanic) nature; we must change our thinking in order to reconnect in a healthy way to the elemental kingdom, so that when - in the future - elementals attain the stage of humanhood, they will have at their disposition an adequate spiritual body, made up of the imaginative body that we will have created by our thinking, and not a coarse and dead body which they will use to torment us and parasite us (that which they already do and do more and more in the future). Our though forms, in relation to the elemental world (which is used against us by fallen angelic hierarchies), will become living forms in the future - our little "creatures" - and will be on their way to attain human egohood. Right now and forever, he have a great responsibility in their fall and so have a special role, a moral duty, in their spiritualization process - that is their "coming back into the light".
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Steiner also says that future humans from Jupiter are influencing people in "high places" (he says Lenin, Trotski, and others) in their unconsious, in their metabolism, and will. They are ahrimanic beings, not unripe humans in becoming, they are destined to be humans in Jupiter stade of earth's future. Other ahrimanic beings are influencing the intellect of materialists, following Marx and others. Others are imbuing us with nationalistic sentiments and reverting us in our race, the traits that make individuals from the same race look alike and act alike. Other ahrimanic beings are elementals seduced and driven by ahriman. Others are dead human beings used by ahriman as ahrimanic beings. They are forced to obey ahriman fro a while because they were lazy and immoral. A lot of ahrimanic beings are on the moon, along with luciferic beings. OUr super ancient teachers from lemuria, already invisible in atlantis, are also on the moon right now, cohabiting with the worst ahrimanic and luciferic beings, along with quite helpful luciferic ones.
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Now
about psychedelics...
I suggest you to read Bernard Lievegoed's Man on the threshold - the challenge of inner development. You get in there a medecinal approach of anthroposophy, that is highly needed to understand drugs. you may also learn alot about drugs in In place of the Self, written by an anthroposophist - I don't remember the name.
I must confess though that I do/did experiment in psychedelics and very recently (on 23 june, Quebec's national celebration). I discovered to one night some wisdom: the fire of saint-John Baptist, a tradition for quebecers, is like nationalistic identification, you are playing with fire when talking politics in a family reunion (in french quebec there is much arguing about an eventual secession from english canada). Nationalism is a psychosexual problem. Sex and fire a alike. fire and egoism, and pleasure, burning desire. The ahrimanic process that start in summer along with st john's tide. The sulfuric-fire ahrimanisation of human beings in summer, culminating in michaelmas (september 29) and trees bearing fruits. The michael process of iron combatting the sulfur dragon. the dragon is not only in human besings but also in petroleum and fire and smoke (carbon dioxide is a symbol of the dragon activity, it is poison). The lily is the symbol of quebec on its flag. The lily is a n hexagram. The hexagram was a symbol of the hebrew (blood), governed by michael. It became the symbol of gabriel and the blood relationship of merovingians and royal blood, initiates of magic powers in their blood carrying for a while the grail impulse, the knowledge and extract of the ego (blood) of christ. the gabriel era ended in 1879, and then started michael reign which is cosmopolite. Gabriel was with blood ties and nationalism and materialism, michael is with spiritual science, cosmopolitism, and freedom from blood ties, elective affinity. therefore nationalistic impulse of quebecers is marked with and akward backward looking flaw: a lily for its symbol is a gabriel cult in a nationalistc ahrimanic garment. We are away from christ and the holy patron of Quebec, St-John the baptist. This is a reflexion, though not a vision that came from DM.
Psychedelics in a reverting back in atavistic clairvoyance. Consciousness must not be lowered with anithing like drugs, hypnosis, transe, mediums, second sight, or anything like this. When visionaries gain visions, they are elaborating a world that awaits them after death. Them and all those who believed it. an hypnotist and his patient get caught in a tangled web of karma that they will hardly be able to detangle. a false world in created in our head by using drugs. synthetic is ahrimanic. Drifting toward suibnature. this is taken up by lucifer and ahriman to construct the eighth sphere. Read Steienr more carefully and all this will glow on your forehead. There is also a wrong relationsjip established with, the ego, from one side, and elementals, from the others. elementals that have not been redeemed by our conscious striving for truth and beauty in our reltionship to them, will come back in a later life to haunt us. Just like plastic does dissolve in nature, they a still here when we come back to incarnate.
Psychedelics are material means to attain occult knowledge, just like channeling/mediums, spiritism, and phenomenalism (that which Steiner asociated with the anglo-saxon habit of thought to weigh and mesure material traces of occult phenomena, being obsessed with not knowing the thing but to mesure it, seal it in space/matter). One should never rely on material means to gain knowledge of the supersensible. Real knowledge itself is supersensible. This is ahrimanic.
The other side of this is extatic mysticism. Steiner warned alot about the complacency and the egoism involved in mystic exstacy. They think they are god, that a divine spark burns in themselves. This is just an hallucination of bodily processes (in Polarities in the evolution of mankind, Steiner). This mystic thinks his self-knowledge is better than materialism, thoug what he is knowing is only the knowledge of the matter inside his body, the organic processes. This is all he really learns about, he he does so without knowing it. materialists who are looking for atomic and subatomic particles are running at a rainbow trying to catch its tail. They only learns about themselves looking at the atom: they get the image they constructed in their mind, the rainbow of outside matter, the non-existent atom.
One cannot say that Steiner really said that we needed luciferic impulses to counter ahriman. We need Christ. Christ is there. What we miss is the knowledge of the christ, the sophia of christ, the isis of Christ. Steiner arrived to an understanding of anthroposophia, the sister of michael (marduk), daughter of sophia(sopha-EA). es he said that in ARTS, we need more beauty, more luciferic impulses. The mission of Lucifer is linked with the Holy Spirit. But he can also drive you into the eighth sphere if one is seduced by him. to make a long story short, Lucifer is one of the hierarchies that were commanded by other hierarchies to develop inner life of their own - that is the beginning of lies and error and egoism. They are not bad spirits, yet they temps us in doing wrong, in forgetting christ. Lucifer was a great teacher. Greek-germanic-hindou gods are luciferic. oriental religion is luciferic. intelligence, abstract knowledge is luciferic in the it kills Isis-sophia the knowledge of Christ and cosmic wisdom. Isis is dead and her grave is the stars. This is the reverse of the death of osiris: osiris was dismembered by Ahriman, Isis in put in a single grave in the blank whiteness of the stars, in space. (Luciferic beings have a role in planetary formation: while sun beings radiate toward the cosmos, luciferic beings come down from the cosmos and makematerial planets by applying their rounding - egoisitc - forces to matter in planetary "orbits". That is why they can be seen and astronomy can be done. Modern astronomy and abstract mathematical logic has killed Isis, the knowldge of cosmic impulses and above all, christ.
Lucifer has a mission that was linked with the temple legend of freemasonry. Cain is child of Lucifer and eve. He commits fratricide. He is reincarnated in hiram, abel is Salomon. Salomon has a role in hiram's death. Hiram makes a prophecy before his trespassing: a member of my decendance shall complete the temple. This points to the future role of freemasonry. This is linked with the mastery of elemental powers through moral technique or mechanical occultism (not the objective occultism that Steiner condemns in The occult movement in the nineteeth century) that will make machines work by themselves magically, through the powers of the elementals. The Cain people has this latent power. They are "The West"... This is also linked with the shining independence and wisdom of lucifer: gnosis that was carried in catarism manicheism and bogomiles is of luciferic origin. Example: augustine father of catholicism believed in outer authority, while his manichean master (in contra faustum) says he shouldn't rely upon any outer authority. This points toward the "son of the widow" symbol: with secret societies (egyptian gnosis), males and fathers are away from home. Children are alone with mother as an so of a widow. The aurotiy of the father is not there and the being is guided by the self-directive feminine principle. yhis is luciferic, this taste for independance and freedom (we owe freedom to lucifer and those whose "vulcans" that incarnated in atlantis, in denser conditions than lemuria - thus we have young souls (artistotelians) and old souls (platonicians). This "staying behind while other humans wee incarnating, they were wainting for sonditions that would help them to develop their intellect and independence, in arts, architecture, science, etc. In the future, man will have to become a co-creator, and then the metamorphosed luciferic power of self-development will help to master creation, become a creator himself (as the artist or builder). This is linked to the future liberation of prometheus, chained to the mineral rock-brain by a jealous zeus. Yahve hated Cain. Zeus hated Prometheus. Prometheus is a forward, creative thinker, not Epimetheus. Epimetheus is more like Abel.
the tongues of fire, the descent of the holy spirit above the head of disciples in the pentecost (whitsuntide) is luciferic wisdom transformed it its own power of salvation. the realising of our devanic nature (gods hidden in matter) and the god in the making that is ourselves. the serpent nature is the fractioning of this spirit in independent beings. Sophia is linked with the serpent. this is the changing of the astral nature into manas-sophia, the virgin. The holy spirit is healing spirit. Lucifer is redeemed in the holy spirit. Relying on religions and the orient, one does not find christ,one finds lucifer. Boddisattvas give knowledge of the Christ, though only a reflection, christ is life itself. Boddisattvas are dispenser of the knowldge of christ. they gain their value by reflecting christ to us. Oriental mahatmas can only give boddhisattvas lunar wisdom as an unconscious reflection of the solar christ. Bouddha-mercury is also a messenger of christ though it is not written in buddhist written tradition.
Thank you. I suggest you read more of Steiner before writing anything new. It will change your way of thinking drastically.
Have a nice day!
[Name redacted per user request]
Hello again Daniel,
I forgot to mention something about lucifer and ahriman. They are part of our evolution, they are necessary for our evolution. But Sorat isn't. Sorat is the Beast (Apocalypse of John). It is from out of this world.
towards ourselves, regarding our inner world and all its fire of desire and egoism, we need to be more ahrimanic, colder and more "objective". Towards the external world, in our science, we must be more luciferic, that is to be more enthousiastic about knowledge about the outer world. In ourselves we are luciferic, so we need to develop an ahrimanic contrebalancement. in our relationship to the outer world of appearances, we are ahrimanic, we see only a dead world, killed by our intellectual abstract mathematical thinking and dead perception that do no go farther than the physical-mineral.
Lucifer and ahriman are necessities, though they seduce us to be off-balance with the world, to slip away from the dynamic equilibrium between spirit and matter (lucifer and ahriman) that which Christ is the leader. Sorat is the beast that governs lucifer and ahriman. the more we fall prey to their seduction, the more sorat can take hold of ourselves in the future. Sorat's influence will be more in the future. right now the asruas, destroyers of the ego, locusts, spreading with the anglo-american death-bringing culture, are gaining more power than lucifer and ahriman.
Losing ourselves in fantasy puts our will in danger to slip into the eighth sphere, I repeat myself. Lucifer is not the light, it is the bringer of light. Lucifer is gaining hold of our spiritual urge with new age, a religion that is unscientific and still pretends to be spiritual knowledge. ahriman makes a materialism that is devoid of the spirit. Now though, there is a supermaterialism that is posing as a victory over materialism, the new spiritualism of "new age", technochamanism, psychedelics. all this distorts the right connexion with the Christ who is coming back in the ehteric realm. we are developing the new clairvoyance though the attacks of the spirits of hindrances are more cunning and damaging. psychedelics puts chaos in spiritual development, and can put someone in love with atavistic visionary clairvoyance, wich is a return to ancient clairvoyance. Only the new clairvoyance can establidh a right relationship with christ and michael. Lucifer tries to seduce us into becoming angels prematurely without realising all our potential as human being in becoming. Steiner calls the ancient clairvoyance the Fenris Wolf. Cults coming back to shamanic practices, wiccan rituals, are decadent and revive only the dormant faculties of atavistic clairyovance. The way to the new clairvoyance is described in the magnificied book.
Jesuits are an incarnation of luciferic cult. The exercices of ignacius of loyola are of a luciferic nature. they form moral automatons, soldiers of christ, proclaimers of a historical jesus (denial of Christ). they took over catholicism and spread the cult of jesus "the simple man of nazareth", and inculcating a fear of gnosis. even if gnosis was luciferic, jesuits are also luciferic. They are against development like science and refuse the impulse of the counsciousness soul (modern age in the development of the human soul, as perceval, lonely and fool but free). Jesuists and catholicism wanted to keep us in a cult that is mithraism, belonging to another time in the past. Jesuits, even though they were from the begining involed in high degrees of masonry, were the biggest ennemies of true gnosis, real masonry (not the fossil we know), authentic rosicrucianism and goetheanism. This is just another another example that luciferianism is not the way at all. It is an imbalanced impulse taken for itself. We must counterbalance ahrimanism of our age and our lives by a Christ-inspired dosage of luciferic force. Lucifer's role in all this is secondary - a mere tool , the positive that is opposite to the negative in electricity -- in the whole equilibrium process revealed in imaginations (by Michael, agent of Christ) to the pupil who is developing the new imaginative consciousness (not waking up the old serpent), experiencing the new vision of Paul in Damascus (this one was not in a blurred sybil-consciousness but in clear daylight consciousness). Atavistic consciousness only reveal mysteries of our body from insight in metabolic precesses. the knowledge of the cosmos thus gained is limited to a mere sahdow of cosmic processes reflected in bodily prrocesses and experienced in the blood. the new yoga is not breathing techniques but perception-ideation exercice of contemplation-concentration meditation. Read Jesaiah Ben Aharon the New Experience of the Supersensible. The best anthroposophical book ever.
I also suggest you to read:
Egyptian myths and mysteries
the Temple Legend
Old and new methods of initation
Polarities in the evolution of mankind
Secret brotherhoods
Nature spirits
the spiritual guidance of the individual and humanity
Blood is a very special fluid
The true nature of the second coming
Art in the light of the wisdom of the mysteries
Occult science
True and false paths of spiritual investigation
If you read fernch i may send you an article I wrote, a synthesis of the Ahrimanic challenge today. It completes a firt part about Lucifer. It is followed by an article on asuras and the beast sorat 666, as opposed to the white lodge of the twelve bodhisattvas and the brotherhood of the grail.
What the angels need to tell us now - and - More messages from the angels (Irene Johansson) are good anthroposophical books concerning the dimmed couisnciousness encounter with angels and elemenals (like mediumnism) versus the new clairvoyance, the day clear consciousness and morality of the person that communicates silently with his angel. We must beware of fallen angels and above all not turn this into an invocation, a spirit calling or some sort of seance.
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also, Rupert sheldrake is closer to theosophy than anthroposophy. His idea of morphogenetic fields is akwardly materialistic, attributing a quality belonging to matter (field) to something that is spiritual (ether-astral). What he means by that expression is in fact the ether and the astral mixed up, though he does not want to admit it. Fact: he is a member of the theosophical society (source: Nick Thomas: The battle for the etheric realm). In fact ether is not as theosophy or sheldrake indicate; it is not rarefied subtle matter. It is a negative counterpart to matter and space; a counterspace, a countermatter, antimatter. take a glove a reverse it in order to see the inside out. that is the etheric realm. astral organises the etheric which itself organises matter. Take a look at Goethe (and Henry Bortoft) and Steiner to understand this in another way than sheldrake's materialistic theory of morphogenetic fields. Beter to read Owen Barfield, Henry Bortoft and Rudolf Steiner about Goethe than to rely on Sheldrake.
good continuance of your work. all the good for you.
[Name redacted per user request]
Hi Daniel,
it's [Name redacted per user request] again.
I forgot something else.
you are right when you say that Steiner asserted that we need lucifer knowledge.
In the past, Lucifer was an inner world god. a god of the underworld. a lower god. a god that is within ourselves, in our dream world and our life between death and rebirth. dionisiac god.
Christ was a sun god, a higher god, a god like appollo outside us, in the outer world, in our life between birth and death. appolonian god.
after the golgotha event, they switched places: christ became an inner god, searched from within, like Eckhart did search for the light, for christ, within. Lucifer is now outside us, in the outer world.
rosicrucian wisdom tells us that we must know Chist by a lucifer knowledge, a luciferic knowledge of christ.
You will find ll that I said in Steiner's cycle of lectures entitled "The east in the light of the west" (following the Schuré's mystery play "the children of lucifer" (an allusion to the fact that we are children of lucifer - in time, wisdom from the past - but brother of christ - in space, in simultaneity like brotherhood.
This is an excellent lecture cycle. you may find this free in rudolf steiner archive: www.rsarchive.com (http://www.rsarchive.com)
Thank you
[Name redacted per user request]