Etheric Forces- Mr. P. Schiller

Below are some notes of the lectures of a Mr. P. Schiller given in 1959 on the etheric forces.

He said there that "other kinds of power than the etheric will in time become unnecessary" (see the Mystery Plays). Our etheric sets it off. At present we use what the etheric forces have made  - coal - but in the future we will use the etheric forces directly.

From the notes Mr. Schiller's lectures: (They are a little disjointed but the points come through.)

Water is the servant of life.

Walk through  a landscape thinking only of water, act as though everything else is a gap. See streams running into rivers, rivers running to the sea/ocean- undercurrents. Rain coming down, trees taking water, rising in the tree as sap, water in the animal etc.
 
The air/gaseous is the servant - not of life, but of the emotional life: the servant of the soul. 

Warmth is the servant of the ego. Where there is warmth there is activity. Goethe knew this - hence his color theory. 

Do not give an electric train to a boy of nine, but plant a seed. He will note the leaf that grows, and get the feeling of wonder.

Prodigies can become moral wrecks; do not exploit what a child brings with it, but develop the full man.

"All engines must be a prolongation of the human body. The general idea even extends to your car."

Man is using more and more a realm in which he is unconscious. Live with beauty and wonder of nature.

Not without influence how I walk through a landscape. If I only look at a plant and see red flowers, green leaves I exile elemental beings still more. Understanding plants will redeem elemental beings. The same with Day, Night, Moon etc.

(The following appears to be references to lectures by Rudolf Steiner.)

"The gods hate the engine Ahriman has made on earth and made it more coarse."

19th January 1915 With every engine, with every mechanical device we create a starting point for demonical beings. With the understanding of dead nature we make complicated engines. We don't understand the life of spirit.

The Aeroplane uses the deadest part of the air not what we breathe in and out.

8th October 1923 We would build gliders (in Dornach if funds permitted) which fly in living air. Butterflies- as if wings move and carry the body with them. Build aircraft; use air as if air and not dead part.

28th Dec 1914 Man takes what is in nature and pulls it apart and puts it together again. He tears apart nature and puts it together again as he sees fit. What does this mean for elemental beings? We dispel the normal servants of the Hierarchies and put servants of Ahriman into it. We build body for Ahrimanic beings.

We take wonderful iron ore where stars are shining in it; and tear it apart.

Man with his ships, radar, engines, telephones etc. is making a new geological layer round our Earth (like a net.) [Prediction!]

Benedictus in the last Mystery Play will not be inspired unless he knows who inspires him. We are inspired by countless beings.

The entire possibility of making the steam engines rests upon the establishment of space without air or occupied by very thin air and the application of this to some use.

Yahveh breathed into man the living breath, the air, and he became thereby a living soul. Yahveh streams into the human being through the warmth. The human being drives him out when he creates a space containing rarefied air.

“When the steam engine is created in this way, Ahriman gains the possibility of establishing himself as a demon even in the very physical entity. In constructing steam engines, the condition is created for the incarnation of demons. If anyone is unwilling to believe in them, he need not do so; that is negative superstition. Positive superstition consists in seeing spirits where there are none; negative superstition consists in denying spirits where they are. In steam engines, ahrimanic demons are actually brought even into a physical object. That is, while the cosmos has descended with its spiritual element through what has been poured into human evolution, the spirit of the cosmos is driven out through what is created in the form of demons. That is to say, this new, important and wonderful advance has brought about not only a demonology, but also a demon magic that frequently imbues modern technology.”

The Karma of Vocation, November 27, 1916

"Of course, no one should suppose that what I have just said indicates that steam engines should be done away with. In that case one would have also to do away with a good deal more because they are by no means the most demoniacal. Whenever electricity is used — and much else besides — there is far more of demon magic because this operates with entirely different forces having an entirely different significance for the cosmos.

"Obviously, anyone who understands spiritual science will realize quite clearly that these things should not be done away with, that we cannot be reactionary or conservative in the sense that we must be opposed to progress. Indeed, the demon magic signifies progress, and the earth will continue to make more and more progress. Developments in the world soon will make it possible to produce immense effects ranging outward into the universe. Doing away with these things or condemning them is not what we are after because they are obviously justified. But what must be borne in mind is that since they must appear on the one side in the course of human progress, counter forces must be created on the other to reestablish a balance. Counter forces must be created. They must bring about a balance that can be created only if humanity again comes to understand the Christ principle, if humanity finds the way to Christ."
- Rudolf  Steiner, 1916, The Karma of Vocation Lecture 9

We can use engines if we realize that there has been a sacrifice.

Paul Schiller said there that "other kinds of power than the etheric will in time become unnecessary" (see the Mystery Plays). "Our etheric sets it off. At present we use what the etheric forces have made - coal - but in the future we will use the etheric forces directly."

Paul-Eugen Schiller (1900-1992) was an anthroposophist and a physicist who worked during the 1920s as an assistant at the research laboratory in Stuttgart on tasks set by Rudolf Steiner. Later, he moved to the Goetheanum, where he established a simple physics laboratory and devoted his life to developing Steiner's indications related to electricity, earthly magnetism, heat radiation, sensitive flames, etheric formative forces, the four ethers, resonant oscillation, and much more.