… musings on the Steiner Ideas of the Eighth Sphere and the Third Force

… musings on the Steiner Ideas of the Eighth Sphere and the Third Force by Joel A. Wendt

It is unfortunate, yet necessary, to admit that Rudolf Steiner did not know everything, and on occasion sometimes was completely wrong. If we do not do this, we are trapped in a Cave of our own limits and assumptions, where no new spiritual life can enter. Details will be provided as needed, and we will begin with the most important, which has to do with his relationship with the Holy Mother – Earth Mother.

In Stephen Clarke’s remarkable work: the “Mexican Mysteries Re-Imagined” – http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Clarke5.html – he points out that what Steiner had to say about the Inner Earth was not just wrong, but lost. Stephen writes, after quoting Steiner’s descriptions (1) of the Inner Earth: “Good grief; only the deviant or mentally disturbed would want to muck around in this; why bother?”

Steiner had begun those remarks with this statement: “The occult science of all epochs says the following about the interior of the earth … “. Stephen points to this statement as problematic in using the world “all”. It only takes one true and different view to falsify that assertion, and in the article he provides it.

As I studied Stephen’s ideas here, I made my own judgment, which was that Steiner’s mistake was to go toward this Realm as a “spiritual researcher”. That’s egotistical, as those of us who have met Her are aware, for we have those encounters when we are the most naked, the most empty, and the most vulnerable – ourselves as powerless as a new born baby.

When we do not do this, the Realm is a mirror of our own follies. We see only what we bring, not what is actually there. As a consequence, much of Steiner’s works have this quality of not really appreciating Her reality. Artists recognize these characteristics. In Star Wars V, Luke is being trained by Yoda, and has a battle underground (among rocks and direct and dangerous roots), where he meets Darth Vader, and kills him. When Luke takes off the mask, it is his (Luke’s) face that he sees. In Star Wars VIII, Rey is being trained by Luke, on Luke’s island retreat. She has a dream where she falls (or dives) into a pool of water, and then comes up in a rounded stone covered underground cave. As she turns around and looks about, she suddenly is faced with a mirror effect which catches both her front and her back. Which ever way she turns she sees endless mirages of her self.

In the Hermetic Science of the ancient Egyptians (magic), we begin with the Emerald Tablet, and an appreciation of the idea of the One and the Many. God is One, the Unity of All, yet manifested in infinite ways = the Many. Below in the notes is a version of the Emerald Tablet, translation by Issac Newton (2)

Tomberg, in his monumental “Meditations on the Tarot – a journey into Christian Hermeticism” points out that if we do not see the Divine in Its Magical and Mystical aspects, we have lost the heart of the matter, and he criticizes Steiner for not including those aspects of Reality in his works except in the smallest and most insignificant ways.

Human beings have a need for these pathways, and we find this phenomena in European anthroposophical circles via the modern fascination with Are Thoresen, and Judith vol Halle. Are is “magical” in his work, and Judith is “mystical” in hers. These are not flaws at all, by the way.

Both do not speak of having the meeting with the Lesser and Greater Guardians of the Threshold, which – frankly – is not necessary for everyone to experience, in order to manifest deep spiritual knowledge.

Are has an “atavistic” (gifts from prior lives) clairvoyance, which has its value in spite of Steiner’s “indications” otherwise. Are’s idea of “translocation”, however, is a sign of his limits, because it assumes that there is no divine meaning in the effect – but rather something evil. His dream about Vidar has generated a lot of interest, and may be completely true (Steiner claims to have met this Spirit) … the problem is that such a spirit has no place in the Americas.

Judith, with her stigmata and not eating, travels deeply into the time of Christ, but when I ask her students on the Internet, what does she have to say about Christ today, they have no answer. Steiner, in his work: Pastoral Medicine, speaks of a relationship between madness and the mystical awareness of saints. His research is that these “effects” represent a kind of out of sorts relationship in the connections between the ethereal or life body, and the astral or desire body, or between the ethereal body and the physical body.

This stuff about atavistic, and out or sorts relationships of the different bodies, works for Steiner, because he is hopelessly idealistic. Clearly, the Divine Mystery cares about those who have these qualities of soul. They have their place in the world, however much Steiner judges them as lacking some necessary characteristics.

Next I am going to take up some ideas of Steiner’s regarding the Eighth Sphere. At note (3) one will find many quotes …

Before I had studied the Eighth Sphere material, it was just vague references in various places. As a consequence I already had a personal relationship with certain ideas about cosmic order.

For example, it was clear to my experience that the Divine Mystery worked from outside of time and space, in the Eternal Now. Steiner writes: “… we do not live only in the fourth but also in this eighth sphere through the fact that our Divine Creators live in this sphere together with us.”.

In Steiner’s work is an interesting diagram, which also appears in Andrew Linnell’s short essay on “Anthroposophy and the Eighth Sphere”. [If you want a copy, here is his email address for asking to receive the pdf file: jandrewlinnell@gmail.com

Basically it is a set of circles, in a somewhat flattened U shape, and each circle refers to Steiner’s vision of seven different incarnations of this “place” in the Cosmos: Saturn, Sun, Moon (curving down) Earth (center), Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan (curving up). Below the Earth circle is another, called: the Eighth Sphere.

Steiner had mentioned, in Occult Movements of the Nineteenth Century, that it is helpful to see these spheres as nested inside each other, with the Eighth Sphere the outer circle. We also need to recognize the circles are symbols for spheres.

He writes as well: “ … we live within a sphere which belongs to the Form Spirits just as our earth belongs to us, but which, as the eighth sphere, permeates our earth and our organism with the exception of our head and all that is sense activity.”

Already I am curious as to why in one instance he uses the terms “our Divine Creators”, and in another “the Form Spirits”. I get the bit about our head, etc, because for us to have freedom in thinking, we need to have an aspect where They do not rule … we do.

He sez: “Will man now remain simply an inseparable member in the great organism which mounts to its eighth sphere, the great organism of the Elohim, or will he develop to freedom and become independent? This question of whether men should become independent was decided through a most definite cosmic act.”

He also sez: “If however the human being has connected himself too strongly with the forces of the senses, which should now detach themselves, if he is related to them and has not found the way to attach himself to what is to pass over to the next Globe, he will depart with the slag and become an inhabitant of this body of slag, in the same way as other beings are now inhabitants of the present moon.”

My reaction to the term “slag” was to wonder … If Nature recycles everything, will the same redemptive process not apply to “slag”? In fact, my view of the Asuras is that this is exactly what they do – They recycle the human spirit that loses the ability to continue, an experience leading to such a spirit giving up on existence all together. Having personally had a moment where my stress had so exhausted me, that I not only wanted to die, I wanted not to be – I understand the woe. In that mood the Mother came to me, and initiated me into Her Realm.

He sez “… there is an Eighth Sphere to which everything goes that cannot make any connection with this continuous evolution. This already forms itself as predisposition in the devachanic state. When a human being uses the life on earth only to amass what is of service to himself alone, only to experience an intensification of his own egotistical self, this leads in Devachan into the condition of Avitchi. A person who cannot escape from his own separateness goes into Avitchi. All these Avitchi men will eventually become inhabitants of the Eighth Sphere”.

This idea of “separateness” is interesting. Patrick Dixon in “America the Central Motif”:

“For this ‘all seeing eye’ to become an all being I’ it must set into the darkest, most separate place, die to itself as the seed in the soil, give itself to the deepest purpose of all, then by a mysterious alchemy, the Will of all shall surrender to the one, and there shall arise a type of human being who will perceive the Universe as being an Individual while they and other human beings are experienced as being universes within themselves.”

In Franz Bardon’s book “The Key to the True Quabbalah”, he distinguishes what he calls the path of sainthood, from the path of individual perfection. The saint only obtains to that particular aspect of divinity they currently manifest. The perfect man becomes himself all that God is.

Steiner sez: “The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal — the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere will eventually live on a moon. AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi.”

Here we start to drift away from the Mother, who has a definite connection to the Moon Sphere. Not just Christ, but the Mother as well makes up the nature of the Divine Mystery. A misconception perhaps due to Steiner’s failure to see Her properly.

Here we need to take a look at the concept of “good and evil”. Steiner’s works are permeated everywhere with that idea. Keep in mind that in the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity Steiner writes: “One must be able to confront an idea, and experience it, … otherwise one will fall into its bondage”. Was Steiner in bondage to the idea of “good and evil”?

Once we realize the Mother is the Many, it follows that all that what Steiner describes as evil beings, such as Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat, the Sun Demon, and the Asuras, are limited and guided in their work by She, who holds the whole world in His Hands. The logos-logic goes like this: If the evil ones could win, existence would already be over. Since that is not the case, if we seek for why, we find Her.

Bardon writes: “There is nothing unclean in the whole of the Creation.” “Good and evil are human conceptions”, not the fundamental Reality. Steiner even admits somewhere that various beings of the hierarchies went through a human stage. Which means facing the problem of good and evil?

He sez: “The unalloyed evil must be cast out of the stream of world evolution like dross. It will be relegated to the Eighth Sphere.”

… and: “But a part of this remained behind and was excluded, because it was no longer of any use to mankind. That constitutes the eighth sphere, which is no longer of use to the development of man, but can be used by higher beings.” (for what purpose? Seems to be missing.)

He sez: “If we direct our gaze beyond the sense-world, we shall no longer see the world only as known to the senses, but we shall also recognize Infinity.”

Here we get to a very special aspect of Steiner’s situation. He could point to the idea of Infinity, yet at this time “Projective Geometry” was little known. Steiner’s pupil, George Adams Kaufmann, with help from Olive Whicher, unveiled for us what this geometry can say about space. These works, such as “Space and the Light of Creation”, and “Physical and Ethereal Spaces” deal with the “Infinite”.

Reading the latter gives us a “yoga” for the imagination, and aught to be the most basic book in the stream of Goethean Science. Of course, few anthroposophists study Goethean Science at all, much less “Physical and Ethereal Spaces”.

When Steiner said that about the Infinite, he preceded those remarks with the comment that the sense world is Maya, an illusion. This ancient Eastern concept is not true. The sense world is Speech by the Word. As Goethe showed us, we learn from observing the phenomena, and “reading the book of Nature”.

I wrote a long essay on Cosmic Space: “The Misconception of Cosmic Space, as appears in the ideas of modern astronomy”. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/space.html Parallax is based on Euclidean Geometry, and if we substitute Projective Geometry all our conceptions about Cosmic Space change. Steiner sez: “Think on it: how the point becomes a sphere and yet remains itself. Hast thou understood how the infinite sphere may be only a point, and then come again, for then the Infinite will shine forth for thee in the finite.”

[ a little exercise for the imagination: Picture a dimensionless “point”, to which we add a short line. Conceive of the point as the center of a sphere, and the line as the sphere’s radius. In the imagination elongate the radius line, and be aware of how the sphere grows in “size”. Contract the line to zero length, and once more we have the only the “point”. Now increase the line to the Infinite. As we do this, the arc of curvature of the sphere lessens, until the sphere disappears into what is called: the Plane at Infinity.

This is hard to picture, but projective geometry allows for this as a completely logical transformation. Now imagine that the real “space” we inhabit has this qualitative nature. What has happened is that the three dimensional world we believe exists, has metamorphosed into a two dimensional Plane. The physical has crossed over into the ethereal. When we look at the starry world, we see a kind of boundary condition, behind which exists the invisible infinite ethereal realm.

This is also the Realm of Levity, or the abode of the Christ: “In It (the Word) was Life, and the Life was the Light of the World. Note in passing that Adams “Space and the Light of Creation”, has three chapters, the first of which is: “Radiation of Space”. From the Realm of Levity, He creates “space”, via the Living Light, and this also explains the mystery of dark matter and dark energy.

As Adams points out, Steiner also said: “we must become able to think the extensive intensely, and the intensive extensively”.

More Steiner: “Blavatsky was misled by certain beings who had an interest in guiding her into putting Lucifer in the place of Christ, and this was to be achieved by introducing precisely the opposite of the truth of the eighth sphere and by maligning the Jahve God, representing him merely as the god of the lower nature. Thus did those cosmic powers who desired to advance materialism work even through what was called “theosophy.””

The Third Force

I did a search of the Archive for the Third Force, and it couldn’t find it. It would put up third and force, but that just went on and on. Fortunately here is some relevant remarks by Georg Unger in his booklet “On Nuclear Energy and the Occult Atom”.

First quoting Steiner: “If we throw that which lives in the Harmony of the Spheres still further downwards, as far as the Asuras, there arises a still more terrible force, which will not be able to be kept secret for long. One can only wish … that mankind will have nothing immoral left in it”

Then in Unger’s text, there is a more elaborate version of this diagram:

warmth ether generates – in rising steps: light ether, then chemical number sound ether, then life meaning atomic ether

Warmth Ether – Gaseous Condition – Fluid Condition – Solid Condition

warmth ether also generates in falling steps, electricity lucifer, magnetism ahriman, and third force asuras Third Force

After which, Unger refers to a fallen, or evil, light ether, a fallen chemical ether, and a fallen life ether = possibly the Third Force. Later he writes “It is much more important that we can indicate certain things which are now at hand, and which we know and understand, for physics has entered the realm of a type of magic, dealing with the sub-sensible.”

Unger goes on trying to explain the difference between sub-sensible appearances and the sub-natural. He is uncertain whether or not atomic energy is the Third Force, or just the tip of an iceberg. In re-reading this text, I am still unable to clearly think the differences between the sub-natural and the sub-sensible appearances. The nearest I can come is to see the sub-natural as the community of Beings behind Nature, of a certain sort, and the sub-sensible the materialistic conceptions of such as electricity, magnetism, and atomic physics.

The booklet is apparently still in print, and is available at the Rudolf Steiner Bookstore.

In other places, Steiner has said: electricity is coagulated thought.

Is it possible for someone to know more than Steiner,

in particular instances?

Anthroposophists tend not to even think about this, but there is no Steiner without a huge supporting case of spiritual beings The so-called Akashic Record is not a library, but living cosmic beings (see for example: “Cosmic Memory”). Even Steiner points out that various hierarchies do not share the same goals.

Are the Beings that support Tomberg and Bardon the same as those who support Steiner?

Steiner said: “Jahve is connected in this mysterious way with the moon, as you will find explained also in Occult Science. From this statement you can estimate how materialistic it was to designate the moon as the eighth sphere, whereas it really is the force itself, the sphere, that attracts the moon.”

Bardon remarks that his work is very much an effect supported by Divine Providence. In my biography, I dedicated myself to the 23^rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” My whole biography is filled with events that involved this aspect of the Divine Mystery, an influence even Goethe acknowledged. Details on this are in a long essay here: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/04/30/stillborn-a-review-of-the-book-fire-borne and here: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2022/09/21/out-of-the-closet/

She – Divine Providence – led me to Bardon five years before She led me to Steiner. When that transition was initializing, Jahve visited me in the flesh, essentially blessing the union of those paths that would emerge in my own biography.

As I pointed out above, Steiner had a goofy relationship with the Mother, thinking Her Realm contained at its Core this: 9. The “earth-core.” This is the substance through whose influence black magic arises in the world. The power of spiritual evil comes from this source.”.

When we add in his fascination with “good and evil”, we can get a sense of the nature of the hierarchies that support his activities. As my life unfolded, my main “guides” were of the Mother’s Realm.

Tomberg writes of the Realm of the False Holy Spirit, and asserts that human beings cannot cross it without Her support.

To return to the idea of the Third Force, … my intuition is that it has always been Magic. Laying that aside for the moment, let me share my work on “electricity”.

I never liked the idea of electricity as “fallen” light. As a consequence I studied the phenomena, free of any assumptions one way or another. This link refers to those studies https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/02/14/some-reflections-on-the-truth-value-of-modern-theoretical-physics/:

Along side those studies, given that my gift was clair-thinking, not clairvoyance, I began to seek to understand what Beings stood behind material phenomena. The manifested sense world was an “effect” produced by the Spirit, so what Spirit manifested such aspects as “gravity”, “light”, and “electricity”, and such as the four fundamental forces or transformations recognized by modern physics: electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak and strong nuclear forces.

When these studies reached a certain qualitative confection, I saw/knew – with my clair-thinking – that electricity (which can’t be separated from magnetism) was the Father at Rest.

Goethe had asserted that there had to be some ground, some power, which gave order, otherwise the life forces alone would produce chaos. Ernst Lehrs’ “Man or Matter” describes electricity as providing to matter the property of “coherence”, aka “order”.

Thinking in pure Ideals led to my seeing that after the Creation, the Father rested, yet was not asleep. He is the One, of the One and the Many, and gives us the Unity of All things, which modern physics finds in the idea of quantum entanglement, where you can separate “particles” in space, but not in time.

Another modern phenomena is the apparent effect of an electromagnetic “field” to be able to harm living organisms. To my thinking, this “field” increases the level of order wherever it manifests. So we get reports of disease conditions, where people live near a high voltage power distribution system.

We also get an explanation for why 5G is so dangerous, and contributed to the “disease” conditions that arose in Wuhan China.

Let us next consider the problem Unger pointed out, suggesting that when we played with atomic energy, we were playing with the Third Force, although he saw these effects as the tip of an iceberg, … “It is much more important that we can indicate certain things which are now at hand, and which we know and understand, for physics has entered the realm of a type of magic, dealing with the sub-sensible.”

Radiant matter is molecules which have reached a limit of the macrocosmic process of densification. See George Blattmann’s discussion of the table of elements in his wonderful work: “Radiant Matter – decay and consecration”. These “molecules” fall apart spontaneously. .

An Atomic Bomb is made by going out into the world collecting yellow cake uranium. Uranium is naturally decaying – and has a very long half-life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium

What we do is collect a lot of yellow cake, and refine it, by getting rid of the other substances, within which Nature has embedded these molecules. The normal decay rate is increased by this process of concentration, producing U-235. The decay process involves emitting “alpha” particles, and when we put a lot of it together, we get a lot of free roaming alpha particles, which have the effect of increasing the decay rate of the surrounding uranium molecules – the “chain reaction”

We create then a globe of this deadly stuff, surround it with explosive substances designed to implode rather the explode, and make bombs. From one way of seeing, these activities produce extraordinarily powerful anti-life forces.

As a consequence, the bomb tears a hole in the ethereal realm, and then from the astral world, otherwise invisible beings rush in: aka: UFOs, for these beings have to clothe themselves in matter to remain in our material realm. Unger’s near magical tip of the iceberg.

Let us now add some of the Ideas out of the Hermetic Science (Magic) of the ancient Egyptians.

Unger does mention the existence of the ancient idea of the elements: fire, air, water, and earth, but dismisses it as not relevant. Bardon, however, in revealing the secrets of the Tetragrammaton, describe Fire as the symbol for Will, Air as the symbol for Intellect, Water as the symbol for Feeling, and all three of which unite in Earth, as the symbol for Consciousness.

These four are also aspects of what Steiner called the various incarnations of the Earth. Saturn is fire/will. Sun is air/intellect. Moon is water/feeling. While Earth is earth/consciousness.

Another central conception is the idea of the Macrocosm and the microcosm, which is that the human being is an exact analogue of the Majestic Whole. One consequence of this is that we have to see that within us lives all those “evil” beings, such as the Asuras, the Luciferic, the Ahrimanic, and the anti-Christ, or the Sun Demon (Sorat?) and so forth.

In Hermetic Science there are three kinds of processes. Negative processes, such as those which disassemble the matter in the food we eat. Positive processes where the dissolved matter is reconstituted into bodily substance. As well as Neutral processes, which have no effects, but are able to balance the other two.

Keep in mind the idea of “Wholeness”. All the processes work together, in a musical-like symphonic harmony.

When I first encountered Steiner internet venues, there was a lot of blame for current conditions, placed on Lucifer, Ahriman, and the Asuras, as if they worked upon humanity from outside us. Yet, Steiner describes, in “Lucifer and Ahriman”, at page 21: “…the very purpose of our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that man should become increasingly conscious of what takes effect through him in earthly existence.” … takes effect Through him …

As a consequence, in Facebook venues I have often asserted that to understand the luciferic and the ahrimanic, we need to observe these impulses in ourselves, and avoid speculating that we can observe these effects in the outer world. To call this or that phenomena (or person) as luciferic, ahrimanic, or asuric, is to not actually see the phenomena. Mostly we see some event or process we don’t like, and then attribute that to Evil. Our antipathies, or sympathies for that matter, are not (in the main) perceptions, but rather just examples of our lack of ability to “Judge Not”, as given in the Sermon on the Mount.

Bardon’s books examine the various “powers” of the Creation, and give ways to become able to apply those by ones-self. The first one: “Initiation Into Hermetics – A Course of Instruction of Magic Theory and Practice” [IIH] trains the student through a series of ten steps, each step training the mental sphere, the psychic sphere, and the physical sphere.

The second, which is the first book of his that Providence led me to, is: “On the Practice of Ceremonial Evocation – Instructions for Invoking Spirit Beings from the Spheres surrounding us” [PCE]

The third is: “The Key to the True Quabbalah – the Quabbalist as a Sovereign in the Microcosm and the Macrocosm”. [KTQ]

On a certain level all of these concern the understanding and application of Magic Powers, the term Magic being another name for Hermetic Science. In these works, in accord with the “Lore” of magical books, the texts themselves are manifestations of living Beings, and they have certain “secrets” that only a scholar of all three books will find.

Over the course of fifty years (1973 to 2023) I have read each of these several times, aka: I am a scholar of this material. In the books Bardon often has sentences that begin “the magician will … “, and rarely, but definitely, has sentences that refer to the “meditating scholar”.

Each book begins with an introductory section, called in IIH (50 pages) and KTQ (60 pages): “Theory”. In PCE, we begin with a long discussion, which is also essentially a theoretical and necessary introduction (140 pages).

After this beginning, are the “practices”. What this means is that first we are given the ideas, and then how we can set out to prove the truth of the ideas.

It should be kept in mind that Magic is a Moon Wisdom, which is under the aegis of Divine Providence, aka: the Mother. In addition, the God Jahve is a central supervising and Creative Spirit.

Steiner sez there are seven Elohim, or Sun spirits. One of them, bound Himself to the elements of Earth, and when the Hebrews left Egypt He became their God.

One intuitive understanding I acquired was that part of the point of Bardon’s works have to do with many individuals whose prior lives include some familiarity with Moon wisdoms. Providence leads them to these books, to enable them to work out their karma.

I also intuited this Idea, of there being three levels of Magic. Sorcery, Magic Proper, and Holy Magic. Sorcery involves a practice where a tradition of some sort, gives instructions as needed to pursue a particular result. These can be for healing, or such horrors as creating a curse. The practitioner follows a recipe, in order to achieve the desired result. People who practice these arts generally find themselves exhausted after this “work”. This happens because the sorcerer’s life forces are used by the evoked Being, in order to produce the result. The Being does not provide them.

In Magic Proper, the practitioner has undergone serious training, whether it is in the form of what lives in the Navajo ceremonies, or the Way described by Bardon in his books. Each “tradition” has its own cosmology and methods, yet it is ultimately the same level of Beings that co-participate. We should not exclude the rituals of the many religions, such as lives in the Mass practiced by the Catholics, or such beautiful rites as in the Tibetan sand paintings.

Holy Magic is prayer, which is a kind of petition for aid in either understanding or healing. The forces in this case come from the higher Beings Themselves. Tomberg’s “Meditations on the Tarot – a journey into Christian Hermeticism” can be seen as a deep revelation of Holy Magic.

The path of the meditating scholar is the one that I follow, and one that I believe is most effective for whoever wants to learn and appreciate Hermetic Science. The ultimate teaching is that the Highest Power is Knowledge Itself.

For someone who wants to learn the most from Bardon, it is the introductory materials that need the most attention … that is: the fundamental Ideas.

A special level of education is the result, given that the rules/Ideas are the fundamental processes by which the Creation was accomplished. Such that for a Steiner fan, we don’t just come to believe that the Spirits of Form did a certain task, but we learn “how” they did it – what are the fundamental laws.

There is nothing “supernatural” about these laws. They came into existence at the moment of the Creation, and in Hermetics we learn practices which enable us to know personally various “hows” ourselves, through what is called “the Key of the Elements”.

The primary principle is the akasha or generative principle, and from this we get the Element Fire, which is the Will, and was how that Saturn Globe was generated. Next came the Element Air, which is the Intellect, and was how the Sun Globe was generated, yet retains a kind of memory of the former. The Moon Globe which is the Feeling life again keeping aspects of the prior Globe, and all these eventually are united in the creation of the Element Earth, or Consciousness.

In IIH, the first Step is the basis of everything else. Its principle task is to enable us to learn how to breathe in the Light, and what can be done with this practice. Steiner had something to say about this, and Andrew Linnell wrote this:

“The undeveloped counterbalance for the future was called by Rudolf Steiner Refined Breathing. There exists a relationship of thinking with breathing that is expressed in these words from Steiner: “The lung is an organ that also has forces of head formation within it, though to a lesser degree. The whole human organism has everywhere these same forces, but in varying intensities. … The head is an advanced respiratory organ. Having moved beyond the lung stage, it represses air breathing and, instead of taking in air, takes in etheric forces through the senses.” (4)

Having practiced whole body pore-breathing of the light since the mid-1970’s, my suspicion is that the work, on Refined Breathing being “practiced”, is basically stuff people are making up. I even wrote an article on the efficacy for this practice, for people with the “flu”, which was happening during the inauguration of the Covid Mystery. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2020/03/23/the-magic-of-breathing-as-a-possible-aide-for-an-individual-with-the-flu/

Here I need to confess that I have a number of serious problems with Andrew’s work, as well as the community he is a part of: The Center for Anthroposophical Endeavors https://cfae.us/

My reason is very simple. They will not let me join. I do understand the “reasons” as it were, which is that I am a gadfly. I don’t think they understand the weakness of the idea of “Good and Evil”, or the epistemology problems that arise from their not understanding the significance of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The uncritical belief that Steiner never made mistakes, or his every word can be seen as the Truth, is one aspect. It creates a religion that has to be called: Steinerism. The need for this “anthroposophical” work to be open and scientific is ignored.

The way the Facebook page “Anthroposophy” defines what that term means (I can’t join that group anymore), is completely false … in fact dangerously false. Someone new to this work, who reads that, will get an entirely wrong idea of what Anthroposophy is. The CFAE journal on the Mysteries of Technology does not allow for disagreement, which makes it completely unscientific. Every contributor has their own field of interest, and these views are not disturbed with questions.

This same group tends to think that Ahriman has yet to incarnate, and since he is already here, they end up blind as to what he has done.

They are, however, justly concerned over various trends in modern life, such as Trans-humanism, and the serious attacks on the living Atmosphere of the Life Sphere of the Planet.

This brings us to Bardon’s second book, on Ceremonial Evocation.

Right now we have a dependency on Steiner for knowledge of that which the various hierarchies do. As to PCE (and the other texts), it is possible to get a pdf download, which enables us to search its extensive lists of various spirits of various spheres, who are experts in various subjects. The book provides, the sigil (the evocational sign), the name of the Being, its sphere and position in the Zodiac, has well its arena of expertise.

As with IIH, PCE has a trick or two up its magical sleeve, as it were. In the “theory” section, there is an elaborate discussion of the meaning and practical use of the Magic Circle. There are instructions for what to wear, how to design one’s “temple”, and make an elaborate circle, even on a silk cloth, with various sigils and so forth inscribed around the edge of the circle. After which, he states -suggestively – that the meditating scholar with find that the highest circle is in his hands. That is, sit in your asana posture (even in a chair), and make a circle of your thumbs and forefingers, or fold your fingers together, and imagine the circle going from that gesture, in a circle that moves up to the shoulders, and around the neck.. That suffices for evoking all the qualities the circle is to provide.

When meditating, it is also possible to see that the knees are the base of a triangle, whose upper point is just above the heart. It is into this triangle of our consciousness, that evoked beings can appear right in front of us.

Once we have identified a particular Being as one with the knowledge and capacities we seek, we evoke them as an aspect of our “meditation”, and perhaps apply Holy Magic, and pray for their guidance in the pursuit of our riddles. We can even just ask for intuitive support, as we ourselves worry the questions, for example: How do I connect with the Thrones in the Atmosphere, so as to gain advice for what to do to heal that world of chem-trails and other assaults.

Instead of doing a search of the Steiner archive, we go directly to the Source Itself. A meditating scholar will want all three books, for much can be learned by becoming slightly familiar with what they offer, keeping in mind that the highest “power” is Knowledge. “Knowledge” is the main aspect of KTQ.

In this book we are introduced to the “letters” which are the fundamental powers of the Creation. So, Bardon writes: “Pronouncing the letters: 1. in the experimenting (training) room … 2. in the whole universe … 3. in the body as an internal hollow space … 4. inductively (project) and deductively, i.e., materializing and dematerializing (condensing) it.

Each letter has a Color, a Sound Note, a Feeling, and a Region of the Body.

For example the “letter” “A”: light blue; G; feeling of ease; lobes of the lung (individually) … or “S”: purple red; G#; warmth; gall.

This four-fold “speech” produces the effect of the “letter” in the Creation. Once we can pronounce two letters together, we can get certain effects:

“D-J Someone who makes use of this letter combination may place himself, or others, into ecstasy – rapture – at any desired moment. Also mediums or people with medial gift may, by the help of this formula, be put into a somnambulistic state within a few moments.

Transferred to the astral body, this formula evokes strong sexual instincts in human beings and animals of both sexes.

If this formula is transferred into the material plane of human beings and animals, it will prevent infertility, either by direct use, or by embodying it eucharistically in food or drink.”

In IIH, Step II, we learn to concentrate on various senses, first one, then two or more (up to five) at the same time (optical, auditory, sensory, olfactory, and taste). As a practical matter, I made a list of the “letters”, and their qualities, plan to make just working with one letter and one quality as part of a short daily ritual; itself built around Step I. of IIH.0

Keep in might that to a higher Being, this kind of complex many faceted active is as simple as breathing is to us. We don’t actually breath, but rather are breathed. Highest hierarchies have same effect on the ones below them.

Also in KTQ there is an interesting diagram and comment, which I will try to describe and somewhat reproduce. Its discussion is near the end of the book, under the title Formulas of the Elements. It is suggestive (a companion short cut to Step I. Of IIH, and the creation of a Circle in PCE?) of how to use applications of single “letters” . It begins with this paragraph:

“These offer various possibilities of use. One formula, for instance, is for the power over each element; another one for the control of the magnetic fluid, or the qualitative power over the elements; and yet another endows one with power over the beings that are in the elements.”

For the diagram … one the left page is a table, whose upper level is the symbols of the elements. The symbol Fire is a triangle point upward. Air is the same, except it has a short horizontal life bisecting it. For Water the point or the triangle is downward, and the symbol for Earth is a repetition of the line gesture. It is useful to give some thought to these symbols, which are not arbitrary.

The Lore suggests that Fire and Water are the primary elements, and the Air and Earth are secondary.

On the opposite page is a pair of circles, where one is encouraged to think of the activity or pronouncing these letters as an inner gesture and an outer gesture. Again, it helps to meditate on the nature of the symbol, these too not bring arbitrary.

All three books begin with a different “colorful picture”, which is symbolic of the object of the course of study, and a worthy image for meditation. For IIH and TKQ, the symbols are near the front. For PCE, the symbol is near where the hundreds of “sigils” are laid out.

As I worked with remembering the wondrous complexity and depth of these works, I realized that Bardon had to be the reincarnation Hermes Trismegistus.

For fun, and further enlightenment on the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians, I encourage folk to get St. Germain’s “Practical Astrology” which is the only book I know of that combines astrology, numerology, and tarot, into a single system.

Summery Judgments

I don’t trust Steiner’s indications on the Eighth Sphere, given the obvious contradictions pointed to above. Namely the lack of a true sense of the Mother, and the confusion of good and evil, as expressed in such words as “slag”, “drag down”, and “fallen”.

One of Steiner’s concepts concerns the “return of the Moon”, which he places in the future. We can think of this in connection with the material, or matter based world. The Earth (consciousness) Globe was preceded by the Moon (feeling) Globe, an aspect of which was removed to the inwardness of the Moon, and then will return after the Earth Globe, perhaps in the Jupiter Globe.

My experience is that “materiality” is a created condition, and dependent on certain very powerful Beings, some of whom are what left the Old Moon Globe and now are said to be returning in the future. “It matters to me, for Matter to be, and that I to Matter do matter.”

There is nothing in the Creation that is not created and shaped by Love. There is nothing that Love cannot transmute, via the “Word” (pronounced according to the lawfulness observed in KTQ). Nothing is lost, and all are able to be Graced with Resurrection, by She who has the whole world in His Hands.

The true return of the Moon involves the reintegration of those Beings, who left because their powers were too great. This is an entirely spiritual (non-material) process, which is presently ongoing in our modern Civilization, revealed everywhere through the stories of magical abilities that are a staple of the arts of fiction, film, and television.

In a certain sense ancient magical abilities are reappearing in new ways, via the Collective Imagination. For example, in the wonderful TV series: Babylon Five, that last war is a war of psychic powers. In Stranger Things, the appearance of many such abilities are celebrated, midst the knowledge that governments and corporations try to weaponize these powerful capacities.

“The Secret of Moon-Acre” tells the tale of the return of the Moon after a long absence, and the main character, a young girl, discovers the pearls of wisdom that had been lost, and breaks the string that binds them in a necklace, so that they fall into the surrounding Nature, each one revealing the lost Wisdom, that Nature is self-aware and sentient … in our terms: the Many.

To unify the Eighth Sphere, and the Third Force, has been my purpose here. The oddity is that Hermetic Science has no analogue to that idea. As I puzzled over this, I came to see that a major problem was the concept of Time.

In the Eighth – VIII., Step of IIH, the central consideration is the Great Moment. In my own self studies I became aware that we human beings cannot yet escape the Now, or our own nature … which we clearly might not choose to do, even if we could.

In Ursula K. LeGuin’s remarkable novel “The Dispossessed”, the main character is a physicist trying to work out the relationship between sequential time, and simultaneous time.

With this background I would like to revisit the shallow U shape: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan, with the Eighth Sphere just below the “present day” Earth Sphere.

An underlying concept here is linear time. There is a past and a future and a present. In Hermetic Science there is the Idea of the Great Moment, which can operate free of any linear aspects.

For example, picture our earth and its surface. Some eight billion human beings are unfolding their biographies in a succession of Nows. One image I use is that of a place filled with flowers, each biography an individual flower, and each unfolding – in terms of the Nows – in an upward gesture. One Now piled upon the next Now. The linear aspect is not the existential truth, but a necessary fiction, needed for a conceptual orientation. The real nature of the Eighth Sphere is the timeless and spaceless realm where the Mystery resides. The various “Globes” are in movement, one after the other, yet always encapsulated by the Great Moment.

In that ever present Present, magical laws exist, and as the Beings who hid from view inside the Moon during the Earth period, and are destined to return – in Spirit, with knowledge of how to use Hermetic Science (magic) – we will discover how to evoke these fundamental powers in dealing with the real nature of atomic-anti-life, and discover how to get to know the Beings behind the UFO and Crop Circle phenomena, thereby replacing Dominion-Over with Communion-With.

See the movie “Moonfall”, for an artistic vision of this coming event. The Moon starts to leave its natural orbit, coming nearer and nearer with each revolution of the Earth. The heroes discover that the interior of the Moon has a community of Beings, whose powers come from their capture of a white-dwarf sun, and are in a battle with a dark power … an Artificial Intelligence.

They need our help to survive this battle.

And … very far from last and not least … a film clearly based on a vision of the meaning of the Return of the Moon: “Moontrap: Target Earth” A necessarily lengthy examination of this Mystery, which includes a discussion of how that film fits in with the works of Rudolf Steiner. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/moon~%21~earth.html

Notes

(1) Steiner, on the Inner Earth

“The occult science of all epochs says the following about the interior of the earth…

1. The topmost layer, the mineral mass, is related to the interior as an eggshell is to the egg. This topmost layer is called the Mineral Earth.

1. Under it is a second layer, called the Fluid Earth; it consists of a substance to which there is nothing comparable on Earth. It is not really like any of the fluids we know, for all these have a mineral quality. This layer has specific characteristics: its substance begins to display certain spiritual qualities, which consist in the fact that as soon as it is brought into contact with something living, it strives to expel and destroy this life. The occultist is able to investigate this layer by pure concentration.

1. The “Air Earth”. This is a substance, which annuls feelings: for instance, if it is brought into contact with any pain, the pain is converted into pleasure, and vice versa. The original form of feeling is, so to speak extinguished, rather as the second layer extinguishes life.

1. The “Water Earth”, or “Form Earth”. It produces in the material realm the effects that occur spiritually in Devachan.

1. There, we have the negative pictures of physical things. In the “Form Earth” a cube of salt, for example, would be destroyed, but its negative would arise. The form is as it were changed into its opposite; all its qualities would pass out into its surroundings. The actual space occupied by the object is left empty.

1. The “Fruit Earth.” This substance is full of exuberant energy. Every little part of it grows out at once like a sponge; it gets larger and larger and is held in place only by the upper layers. It is the underlying life which serves the forms of the layers above it.

1. The “Fire Earth.” Its substance is essentially feeling and will. It is sensitive to pain and would cry out if it were trodden on. It consists, as it were, entirely of passions.
2. The “Earth-mirror” or “Earth-reflector”. This layer gets its name from the fact that its substance, if one concentrates on it, changes all the characteristics of the earth into their opposites. If the seer disregards everything lying above it and gazes down directly into this layer, and if then, for example, he places something green before him, the green appears as red; every color appears as its complementary opposite. A polaric reflection arises, a reversal of the original. Sorrow would be changed by this substance into joy.
3. The “Divisive” layer. If with developed power one concentrates on it, something very remarkable appears. For example, a plant held in the midst of this layer appears to be multiplied, and so with everything else. But the essential thing is that this layer disrupts the moral qualities also. Through the power it radiates to the Earth’s surface, it is responsible for the fact that strife and disharmony exist there. In order to overcome this disruptive force, men must work together in harmony.

That is precisely why this layer was laid down in the Earth – so that men should be enabled to develop harmony for themselves. The substance of everything evil is prepared and organized there. Quarrelsome people are so constituted that this layer has a particular influence on them. This has been known to everyone who has written out of a true knowledge of occultism. Dante in his Divine Comedy calls this layer the Cain-layer. It was here that the strife between the brothers Cain and Abel had its source. The substance of this layer is responsible for evil having come into the world.

9. The “earth-core.” This is the substance through whose influence black magic arises in the world. The power of spiritual evil comes from this source.”ⁱ

(2) Issac Newton’s translation of the Emerald Tablet

is true without lying, certain and most true.
That which is below is like that which is above
and that which is above is like that is below
to do the miracles of one only thing
And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one:
so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

The Sun is its father,
the moon its mother,
the wind hath carried it in its belly,
the earth is its nurse.
The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.

Separate thou the earth from the fire,
the subtle from the gross
sweetly with great industry.
It ascends from the earth to the heaven
and again it descends to the earth
and receives the force of things superior and inferior.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.

Its force is above all force.
For it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.
So was ye world created.
From this are and do come admirable adaptations
where of the means is here in this.

Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist,
having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.

(3) Steiner on the Eighth Sphere – went to Archive and searched for “Eighth Sphere”, which is why I just copied and pasted, without the name of lecture or the book. The ideas are as “clear” as possible, and often confusing …

~!~ Thus, is I designate the sphere of which I have just spoken as the eighth sphere, we do not live only in the fourth but also in this eighth sphere through the fact that our Divine Creators live in this sphere together with us. If we now hold this eighth sphere in view, we find living there not only our Divine Creator Spirits, but also the Ahrimanic beings. Thus by living in the surroundings of the eighth sphere we live together with the Ahrimanic beings.

~!~ Focus your attention upon these two fundamental concepts which we have just gained; focus your attention upon the idea that we stand within two spheres: the sphere which we entered by passing through the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution and being now within the Earth evolution which is the fourth evolutionary stage; then consider the fact that we live within a sphere which belongs to the Form Spirits just as our earth belongs to us, but which, as the eighth sphere, permeates our earth and our organism with the exception of our head and all that is sense activity.

~!~ Will man now remain simply an inseparable member in the great organism which mounts to its eighth sphere, the great organism of the Elohim, or will he develop to freedom and become independent? This question of whether men should become independent was decided through a most definite cosmic act.

~!~ If however the human being has connected himself too strongly with the forces of the senses, which should now detach themselves, if he is related to them and has not found the way to attach himself to what is to pass over to the next Globe, he will depart with the slag and become an inhabitant of this body of slag, in the same way as other beings are now inhabitants of the present moon. Here we have the concept of the Eighth Sphere. Mankind must go through Seven Spheres.

~!~ Old Saturn corresponds to the physical body Old Sun corresponds to the etheric body Old Moon corresponds to the astral body The Earth corresponds to the Ego Future Jupiter corresponds to the Manas Future Venus corresponds to the Buddhi Future Vulcan corresponds to the Atma Beside these there is an Eighth Sphere to which everything goes that cannot make any connection with this continuous evolution. This already forms itself as predisposition in the devachanic state. When a human being uses the life on earth only to amass what is of service to himself alone, only to experience an intensification of his own egotistical self, this leads in Devachan into the condition of Avitchi. A person who cannot escape from his own separateness goes into Avitchi. All these Avitchi men will eventually become inhabitants of the Eighth Sphere. The other human beings will be inhabitants of the continuing chain of evolution. It is from this concept that religions have formulated the doctrine of hell. When man returns from Devachan, the astral, etheric and physical forces arrange themselves around him according to twelve forces of karma which in Indian esotericism are called Nidanas: They are as follows: 1. avidja non-knowledge 2. sanskara the organising tendencies 3. vijnana* consciousness 4. nama-rupa names and form 5. shadayadana what the intellect makes of things 6. sparsha contact with existence 7. vedana feeling 8. trishna thirst for existence 9. upadana a sense of comfort in existence 10. bhava birth 11. jati* the urge towards birth 12. jaramarana *

~!~ The asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the eighth sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal — the Christ. All those who strive towards the eighth sphere will eventually live on a moon. AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi.

~!~ They did not follow Lucifer because something was introduced into the evolution of the earth by the higher gods that prevented them from becoming light enough to do so. As I have shown you, what is called the eighth sphere was introduced into earthly evolution in ancient times. As one of its aspects, the eighth sphere consists of man’s acquiring such a preference for and attachment to his lower nature that Lucifer is not able to remove the higher nature from it.

~!~ Jahve is connected in this mysterious way with the moon, as you will find explained also in Occult Science. From this statement you can estimate how materialistic it was to designate the moon as the eighth sphere, whereas it really is the force itself, the sphere, that attracts the moon. In her misguided ways, Blavatsky developed special malice in her Secret Doctrine by maligning the Jahve God as a mere moon god.

~!~ Blavatsky was misled by certain beings who had an interest in guiding her into putting Lucifer in the place of Christ, and this was to be achieved by introducing precisely the opposite of the truth of the eighth sphere and by maligning the Jahve God, representing him merely as the god of the lower nature. Thus did those cosmic powers who desired to advance materialism work even through what was called “theosophy.”

~!~ The heavenly bodies became, according to human ideas, mere bodies to be estimated according to their physical condition. In the Middle Ages people saw in connection with the stars what only the eyes can see — the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars and the other planets, up to the sphere of the fixed stars. Then came the eighth sphere like a solid blue wall behind. Later Copernicus appeared and broke down the idea that only that which is perceptible to the senses can be authoritative.He led the gaze of man out into cosmic space, and announced that what people had called the limitations of space, what they had placed there as the eighth sphere limiting everything in space — was in reality no limitation; it was Maya, or illusion; for an infinite number of worlds had been poured forth into cosmic space. That which was formerly considered to be the boundary of space was shown to be only the boundary of the sense-world of man, and if we direct our gaze beyond the sense-world, we shall no longer see the world only as known to the senses, but we shall also recognize Infinity.It completes the work begun for external science by Giordano Bruno and others in that it says: that which external science is able to perceive is Maya, or illusion. Just as formerly one looked to the “eighth sphere” and thought that space was thereby bounded, so contemporary human thought believes that man is shut in or enclosed between birth and death. Spiritual science, however, expands man’s vision by directing his attention out and beyond the limits of birth and death.

~!~ Those who still remained of the Abel line were Sons of God, they remained akin to the divine. But they now had to guard themselves against entering the earthly sphere. And from this resulted what was to become the principle of asceticism among those who dedicated their lives to the service of God. It became a sin for such a dedicated one to have anything to do with those who had committed themselves to the affairs of earth.

~!~! Stated in scientific terms, they are held in check, unable to move backwards or forwards, between the earth and the Eighth Sphere at the point of latency, where the attraction of both is equal on all planes, until the “great day” or axidal coincidence, when they will be drawn irresistibly into the vortex of the latter.

~!~ That is the cosmic problem which is fundamental to Christianity. Something occurred at that time in occult spheres; it was the banishment of the enemies of mankind which has its echo in the Saga of the Antichrist, who was put in chains but will make his appearance again, if not opposed once more by the Christian principle in its primal force.

~!~ At one time, people looked up to the “eighth sphere” and believed it to be the boundary of the universe.

~!~ To cite an example which has often been quoted by me, let us assume that we have to do with a virtuoso pianist and an excellent piano technician, both perfect in their sphere. First of all the technician has to build the piano and then hand it over to the pianist. If the latter is a good player he will use it appropriately and both are equally good. But should the technician go into the concert hall instead of the pianist and start hammering away he would then be in the wrong place.

~!~ The unalloyed evil must be cast out of the stream of world evolution like dross. It will be relegated to the eighth sphere.

~!~ But a part of this remained behind and was excluded, because it was no longer of any use to mankind. That constitutes the eighth sphere, which is no longer of use to the development of man, but can be used by higher beings.’ (From previously unpublished notes). In the year 1915, Rudolf Steiner again went very thoroughly into the concept of the eighth sphere.

~!~!~!~!~!!!~!~

(4) From Andrew Linnell’s “Anthroposophy and the Eighth Sphere”

It is a Rosicrucian gesture to live in the environment of one’s times. To do so, we must find appropriate counterbalances. I will highlight some important counterbalances that apply to you as an individual but also to humanity in general. Anthroposophy and the Eighth Sphere 18 1. Christ Consciousness becomes one’s archetype. Christ consciousness within is the key to constantly refinding the balance and for all transformations. “The great problem of our time is that people slide into the ahrimanic sphere without having the support of the Christ force. … We can only become sure of ourselves as human beings if we walk the road created by the whole of technology, but do not let our lives be governed by the products of technology and grow to become able to behold the Christ-power that can become part of us to enable us to inwardly overcome those products of technology.” 2. Spiritual Science is itself a primary counterbalance. For example, as we venture into subNature, so must we balance this by ascending into super-Nature. 3. Modern Life Practices: • Practice spirit awareness. • Eurythmy where in the movement we experience the etheric. • Daily 1-hour Walk outdoors (not on a tread mill). • Singing such as in a choir or speech formation. • Gardening – something more than merely looking at Nature, get your hands dirty. • Outdoor play (children need at least 2 hours/day) especially in the winter months. • 20-20-20 Rule. If you are often wo

If you are often working in front of a computer screen, then, for your eyes, every 20 minutes, look out a window at nature that is at least 20 meters away and look for at least 20 seconds before returning to your screen. 4. Refined Breathing, an as-yet undeveloped counterbalance that uses the breathing of the four ethers analogously to how yoga practices breathe air. The undeveloped counterbalance for the future was called by Rudolf Steiner Refined Breathing. There exists a relationship of thinking with breathing that is expressed in these words from Steiner: “The lung is an organ that also has forces of head formation within it, though to a lesser degree. The whole human organism has everywhere these same forces, but in varying intensities. … The head is an advanced respiratory organ. Having moved beyond the lung stage, it represses airbreathing and, instead of taking in air, takes in etheric forces through the senses.” During the course of our evolution, the substance of our breathing has changed with changes in our bodily makeup. On Old Moon, we breathed fire instead of air. Just as today we breathe oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, on Old Moon we breathed fire in and cold out. “Just as no human today breathes fire, so future men will no longer inhale air. It will be Light. The development of Refined Breathing helps to prepare this for the sake of our evolution. Today, Refined Breathing is only an indication by Steiner. It needs a lot of work from us to bring it to the state of truly being the New Yoga. Today, we exhale vapor which our inner being has permeated. What is present in what we exhale is the spirit we’ve built up by our thoughts. This watery element has been placed there by one’s etheric body. Why this is so important? Because the sum of our moral-imbued exhalations becomes the foundation materials for the forming of the environment and bodies of the beings upon the human-stage of Jupiter. A clairvoya r. A clairvoyant can see in one’s exhalation the morality present within that Anthroposophy and the Eighth Sphere 19 person. What we exhale today contains the result of our inner work. In the future, all will be able to see another’s morality in their breath. Unconsciously, we are already at work in the preparation of Jupiter. More and more, we need to make this conscious.

In summary, we are called upon to be pioneers, to be the preparers of the future. Ahriman and technology have roles that provide the resistance for us to build strength for our coming cosmic tasks. Bemoaning technology comes from spiritual weakness. Rather, we need to face Ahriman and technology with soul strength and find the appropriate counterbalances. Facing evil is a necessary part of our evolution. But, without Christ active within us, we are no match for the powers of Lucifer, Ahriman, and the Asuras. Anthroposophy is a path that leads one to discover that they are truly cosmic beings where earth has been provided to us by God for our development. Only out of spiritual science, aware of our evolution and the necessity of evil, can we find the needed counterbalances. As one, Rudolf Steiner offered this meditation:

AUM. One wards off bad influences when one says it in the right way; it connects man with the creating Godhead, the three Logoi. The evil beings who want to tear men away from the Godhead can’t stand it. AUM must be spoken with the awareness:

Primal Self from which everything came

Primal Self to which everything returns:

Primal Self that lives in me

Towards you I strive.

Peace-peace-peace =

AUM. A is atma, U is buddhi, M is the wisdom that directs the higher self to AUM. (From Esoteric Lessons, lesson 15, GA 266

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