Steiner on Swedenborg

Now, my friends, let me ask you to be really, really clever for a moment, and clever in a way that people who want to develop their clairvoyance usually are not. Obviously, Swedenborg did not perceive these beings from Mars with his ordinary senses, with his ordinary sense of sight. After all, he was seeing them in the spiritual world. In other words, he could not see them with his sense of sight or hear them with his sense of hearing or even understand them with his ordinary capacity for thought. As I have explained to you, this capacity for thought was actually a gift of the ancient Moon stage, that is, something that developed before the Mars forces came into play… [ Note 5 ] [gap in the stenographic record]. Among all the powers of cognition known to human beings, there was nothing that could have enabled him to understand these beings.

Thus we are confronted with the strange fact that Swedenborg undoubtedly recognized the beings he saw, but did not recognize them by means of any higher forces. He recognized them by means of some ability he should not have had because he was lacking the necessary consciousness — ordinary powers of consciousness on the physical plane are inadequate to explain what he was seeing. But in that case, how was he actually seeing? Now, Swedenborg had spent his life not only as a great scholar but also as a very pure person, and so a certain energy was transformed within him. All people on the physical plane have this energy, which is somewhat similar to clairvoyant ability. On the physical plane, however, it is used for a different purpose. What was this energy that enabled Swedenborg to see as he did?

Swedenborg was seeing by means of a force that perceives outer appearances without touching them in any way and without making use of the eyes. What kind of a force is that? On earth, on the physical plane, it is the force that comes to expression in sexual activity, the mysterious force that pulls people together in earthly love, a force different from all other powers of perception. Swedenborg had stored up this force, and when he reached a certain age it was transformed in him, although it remained sexual energy in some respects. He used this sexual energy to see spiritual worlds. That is, transformed sexual energy is actually the basis of Swedenborg's clairvoyance.

You can conclude from all this that human beings during their evolution on earth are provided with a force that expresses itself as sexuality during earthly life, but that will be transformed once it is no longer bound to the physical body. On the other hand, you can also come to the conclusion that the forces leading to clairvoyant vision are very intimately related to forces involved in what are now the lowest drives in human nature, and that one of these realms can be attracted by the other, so to speak.

My friends, it follows that clairvoyance is not something to be toyed with. Of course, what I have just said does not apply to spiritual science as such, but it does apply to all kinds of clairvoyance people grab for in passing without working to acquire it legitimately. We cannot take seriously enough the fact that clairvoyance is not to be developed by simply applying a transformation of our usual mode of perception on the physical plane to higher planes of existence. These higher planes require that we work toward a new mode of perception applicable to the spiritual world, a mode of perception that has nothing to do with sexual energy, since that is physical and exists only for the physical plane. Applying the same mode of perception to higher worlds as is applied on the physical plane, that is, the assumption that people can still perceive in the same way as they do on the physical plane, is what makes people relate clairvoyance and sexual energies.

There are several ways of avoiding this, and we are now at a crucial point in human evolution where these things must be understood. What I have just told you is ancient knowledge, and in olden times people knew how to protect themselves. They knew that people approaching the spiritual world had to recognize both their own weakness and the fact that strength of character, inner discipline, and doing away with any unrestrained emotional impulses are necessary for ascending into the spiritual worlds in the right way. Ancient initiates were aware of human weakness and took steps to prevent any possibility of mixing the two spheres.

How did they do it? Simply by keeping people away from the opposite sex whenever truly spiritual matters were being spoken of. That is, the female sex was not allowed to participate in gatherings in which spiritual scientific matters were discussed. That is why in the past women were excluded from all spiritual-scientific gatherings. This measure prevented the men from mixing the two spheres in any way, because they were bound by strictest oath not to discuss what went on in the lodge outside the lodge itself. Women, then, could have no connection to spiritual science other than the white gloves, which were a significant symbol of this whole state of affairs. [ Note 6 ]

Now these times are long gone, and spiritual scientific movements such as ours should attempt to do away with such constraints. However, the spiritual realm must still be kept totally free of the other sphere I mentioned; these two realms are not to be mixed.

What we have seen recently is a case of the worst possible mingling of spheres, a case in which sexual drives were at work but were interpreted as something quite different. They were interpreted as all kinds of mystical things, but in reality they were sexual drives. It is important to face this fact squarely and to understand it from the inside, out of the inner nature of the cosmic order. Only our recognition of the very great dignity and solemnity of spiritual life can guard us against egotism in spiritual activity. Once egotistical mysticism enters, nothing can save us from mixing the two abovementioned spheres in the worst possible way.

-Rudolf Steiner

Causal Body

At each death, at the end of each incarnation, this memory-picture has appeared before his soul and left behind what I have called a concentrated essence of forces. So with each life a picture is added. After his first incarnation a man had his first memory-picture when he died; then came the second, richer than the first, and so on. The sum-total of these pictures produces a kind of new element in man. 

Before his first death a man consists of four bodies, but when he dies for the first time he takes the first memory-picture with him. Thus on reincarnating for the first time he has not only his four bodies but also this product of his former life. This is the “causal” body. So now he has five bodies: physical, etheric, astral, ego and causal. Once this causal body has made its appearance, it remains, though it was first constituted from the products of previous lives. 

Now we can understand the difference between individuals. Some of them have lived through many lives and so have added many pages to their Book of Life. They have developed to a high level and possess a rich causal body. Others have been through only a few lives; hence they have gathered fewer fruits and have a less developed causal body.

-Rudolf Steiner 

Kāraṇa-Śarīra:

A Sanskrit term which literally translates as “causal body” and is equivalent to the theosophical use of the term CAUSAL BODY. An alternative term, sometimes used, is kāraṇopādhi (i.e., kāraṇa + upādhi). It is one of three such bodies identified in the Vedānta literature.

It is the reincarnating soul or jīva, retaining within itself the essence of one’s life experiences which cause the conditions of one’s future incarnations.
Since the kāraṇa-śarīra or Causal Body is the receptacle of the essences of a life’s experiences and tendencies, and since in the normal process of REINCARNATION the vehicles which would normally store specific memories and behavioral tendencies are shed, it is only in unusual cases of rapid reincarnation that one would recall a former life. Furthermore, the distilled experiences of a human incarnation could never result in the rebirth in an animal form, so theosophical theory does not admit of the popular Hindu notion of transmigration. Only in cases of the most extreme cruelty or debauchery could future incarnations be considered even a human retrogression. Evolution of consciousness and conscience may be slow for the majority of people, but it is steady.

It is stated in theosophical literature that the kāraṇa-śarīra or Causal Body is formed at the time of Individualization, that is, at the transition from animal to human consciousness.

-Richard W. Brooks 

https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/karana-sarira

A Fresh Look at Health & Illness- extract

THERE are two causes of sickness and two types of death which we may discern, one which brings the ultimate blessing, healing and life, and that which only answers with cessation.

Pneumonia brings the rains within, where the patient is awash with such fluids as would drown him. As the fevers rise to dispel the cold, as the tremulous changes challenge the life within, they also in their own way, bring blessings. With both congestion and with heat there are effects upon the nature of the individual which exceed the physical condition and all that that implies. 

As far as the body is wakefully concerned it has not the consciousness of death or an understanding of the threat of death. It is true that it may be labored under certain conditions - that the pulse will quicken and the astral body may be inflamed in accordance with the infliction - but it does not factor its own dissolution to be had in a permanent fashion. The body cannot and does not concede to cessation, or for that matter, to rest (totally at rest i.e. of the internal organs)........

The miracle of the healings of Christ, was that through His Intervention an individual not only received a respite from his physical aggravation but also was afforded the full power of virtue which he spiritually required. Physical healers there have been before and after Him who could effect their cures but take the soul no further. In point of fact, the results of many 'healings' have been deleterious because the spiritual connection was disturbed and the fellow concerned made paralyzed in that important area. In this way it was correctly said that we die a little death when we take antibiotics also. 'Spiritual' healers can cause such deathly processes as well, because the correspondence between the inflowing forces and the physical condition are no longer allowed to operate as the determining consciousness would have it. There is a predetermining and an interruption to what would have invoked much virtuous benefit.

However, when Christ confronted the sufferer, the sin and the disease, He came with a choice which was accepted by the day-consciousness of the man for betterment, which his star-consciousness would have enforced upon him. When the choice was brought into the day-consciousness and that day-consciousness embraced the goodness with clarity, that decisiveness in the being of that individual transformed the physical, restoring it accordingly, releasing also the starry-consciousness of its imposing and infill.

The Resurrected Body brought about a likeness which was unlike the previous likeness, didn't it? When Christ Himself had drawn the powers into His Physical Form during the Crucifixion, He did so in a way which affected the process to follow in Man further on. He took the day-consciousness of Man through to death, and brought the star-consciousness into his egoic reckoning. Bringing two realms together, the physical existence was to be blended through the divine insights of Man, that in his conscious abilities he could retain a power which he hitherto had not had within the spiritual worlds before. 

This mystery has not been seen or realized in Man as yet. We are at the very beginnings of this transformation which is given to us in possibility, that we may negotiate two worlds with the powers enabled from both. For those who are the 'runners' for Humanity certain talents in this regard have been won, and yet the true transaction as is possible through Christ has not occurred at this time.

When He was seen in His resurrected Glory, the body which became visible (to many) actually resembled in truth that of their own form spiritually. It shall not be said that the form 'mirrored' that of the individual for a mirror is something of the reverse (in this world). It was that this form was the form that they knew within their star-consciousness. Although a woman may well have perceived a man, what is meant here is that the impression given to the new form of Christ was first and foremostly impressioned by the soul who stood before Him. This is another secret which suggests to us that the physical body is not as it appears and can be remarkably different.

At first the Christ when received was always unrecognized [John 20:14-15]… this of course may be understandable. But what was outstandingly remarkable was that His body shared substance with others, that when the day-night consciousness has become transcended into the one body, the physical properties become respecters to the desire and will of the one God within. 

Christ's Will was to provoke the men into examining themselves consciously through Him and to find the possibility of this, however the nature of the physical world and its propensity is to corrupt over time. The willing of the spiritual star-consciousness in its call to the higher powers was given to remain prevailing during this period of physical uncertainty and corruption:

Truly, truly, I say to you, When you were young, you gird yourself, and walked where you would: but when you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your hands, and another shall gird you, and carry you where you would not.
-John 21:18 [American KJV]

This 'other' still calls within us dividedly, yet with the difference now being that Christ Himself has proved the glory of Death and will eventually assist the two in conjoining concurrently in Man. 

To 'feed' within the world is to honor the world. We give to Life and all that it requires and the spiritual worlds will reward us. If there is to be a healing, we pray that Christ's presence be there for us at that time, so that the powers may still enter into us with a wholesome constancy and the spiritual consciousness may converse within us freely.

-B.Hive 

The Appearance of the Etheric Christ

A number of individuals will see the Etheric Christ and will themselves experience the event that took place at Damascus. But this will depend upon such men learning to be alert to the moment when Christ draws near to them. In only a few decades from now it will happen, particularly to those who are young — already preparation is being made for this — that some individual here or there has certain experiences. 

If he has sharpened his vision through having assimilated Anthroposophy, he may become aware that suddenly someone has come near to help him, to make him alert to this or that. The truth is that Christ has come to him, although he believes that what he saw is a physical man. He will come to realise that what he saw was a super-sensible being, because it immediately vanishes. 

Many a human being will have this experience when sitting silent in his room, heavy-hearted and oppressed, not knowing which way to turn. The door will open, and the etheric Christ will appear and speak words of consolation to him. The Christ will become a living Comforter to men.

However strange it may as yet seem, it is true nevertheless that many a time when people — even in considerable numbers — are sitting together, not knowing what to do, and waiting, they will see the Etheric Christ. He will Himself be there, will confer with them, will make His voice heard in such gatherings. These times are approaching, and the positive, constructive element now described will take real effect in the evolution of mankind."

-Rudolf Steiner

The Etherisation of the Blood


Rudolf Steiner explained that the Etheric Christ has the only etheric body that can appear as a physical body. Moreover, He can appear simultaneously to 10, 100, 1000 people all around the globe. “[Christ has] the only etheric body able to work in the physical world as a human physical body works. It will differ from a physical body in this respect only, that it can be in two, three, even a hundred, a thousand places at the same time.”

Great Ideals

Napier Waller

If a man strives for sublimely great ideals, it is because they are the content of his own being, and their realization will bring him a joy compared to which the pleasure that a limited outlook gets from the gratification of commonplace desires is a mere triviality. Idealists revel, spiritually, in the translation of their ideals into reality.

Anyone who would eradicate the pleasure brought by the fulfillment of human desires will first have to make man a slave who acts not because he wants to but only because he must. For the achievement of what one wanted to do gives pleasure. 

What we call good is not what a man must do but what he will want to do if he develops the true nature of man to the full. Anyone who does not acknowledge this must first drive out of man all that man himself wants to do, and then, from outside, prescribe the content he is to give to his will.

Man values the fulfillment of a desire because the desire springs from his own being. What is achieved has its value because it has been wanted. If we deny any value to what man himself wants, then aims that do have value will have to be found in something that man does not want.

- Rudolf Steiner – GA 4

Magnetic Healing

There are people who are, by nature, magnetic healers — certainly there are. But the important thing is this, that the faculty is, as a rule, of limited duration. The natural magnetic healers have this magnetism, as it is called. When they begin to apply it, it may work very well; after a time it begins to wane, and later on it often happens that magnetic healers, after this faculty has died down in them, go on acting as if they still had it, and then charlatanism begins.

This is the precarious element when magnetic healing becomes a profession. This kind of healing really cannot be made into a profession. That is what must be said about it. The process of magnetic healing — when a person has the faculty for it — is only unconditionally effective when it is carried out with genuine compassion for the patient, a compassion that goes right down into one's organism. If you practice magnetic healing with a real love for the patient, then it cannot be done as a profession. If real love exists it will always be able to lead to something good, if no trouble arises from another side. But it can only be done on occasions, when karma leads us to a person whom we are able, out of love, to help; then the outer sign may be a laying on of the hand, or a stroking and then what is happening is that the astral body is passing on its forces to the etheric body which then works upon the ether body of the other person.

Something must still be said from another aspect about what goes on here. The healing always proceeds from the astral body, either from the patient's own astral body or from the astral body of the magnetizer. The reverse is the case in therapy where medicaments are used. When you give medicaments you introduce into the physical body substances which then work partly upon the inner forces and partly upon the rhythm of the physical body in such a way that the etheric body of the patient is influenced. The healing always proceeds from the etheric body. If you influence the etheric body from the astral body — which is a psychical healing — this lies in the realm of magnetic healing and is somewhat problematic, having a humanitarian, social element in it, something to do with the relations of one human being to another.

Rational therapy must proceed from intervention by means of medicaments which proceed from the physical body and pass into to the etheric body. Always, however, the healing proceeds from the etheric body. It is a complete illusion that the physical body, when it has become ill, can itself bring about any healing. The physical body has, precisely, the basis of illness within it, and the cause of healing must always come from the etheric body.

-Rudolf Steiner  

“Suffered under Pontius Pilate”

Antonio Ciseri

The saga of the Trojan War is a representation of the spread of Hellenism; it is the mythical presentation of an esoteric truth: the efflorescence of the fourth sub-race of the fifth root-race, and the replacement of the priestly rulership, now in its last stage, by the purely worldly rulership.

That is very subtly indicated at the beginning of the Trojan saga. You probably know that matter is always represented by water. I need only call attention to the familiar Nicene Creed, which says “suffered under Pontius Pilate”.

As the esotericist knows, this is an incorrect rendering. What it really says is “suffered in pontoi pilatoi”, which means merely “in compressed water” and signifies “descended in order to suffer in matter.” This sentence in the Creed which is said all over Christendom has come about through the word “pontoi” having become “Pontius.” 

When Thales states that everything has originated from water, he is referring to the comprehensive physical matter of which alone we can treat when we would speak of physical things. He is using the term ‘water’ for physical matter. Physical matter is to be the all-important thing for those who now take over guidance. The predominance of physical matter then led to there being worldly kings. 

Previously there had only been kings who stood in relationship with the Divine. Peleus is the king who is to rule on the physical plane, deriving his strength from the physical plane. This is represented by his marriage with the goddess Thetis — the marriage of the leader of mankind with the matter of the physical plane, with the goddess of water, the goddess of the sea.

And from this union sprang Achilles. He is the first initiate of this kind. Hence he is invulnerable except in the heel. All those who were initiated in the fourth sub-race were vulnerable in some spot. It is only in the fifth sub-race that there will be initiates so advanced as not to be vulnerable anywhere. Achilles is plunged into the Styx. That means to be dead to the earthly and withdrawn to a higher plane of vision.

-Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, October 28, 1904:

Greek and Germanic Mythology in the Light of Esotericism, Lecture 4

Gratifications in Life

Jules Chéret

Someone who takes great pleasure in nightly visits to the girlie shows or enjoys downing his eight glasses of beer, may encounter people who take joy in something of a higher level and remark how they punish themselves. What he does not realise is that their true punishment would be to sit with him in the music hall. Whoever enjoys the girlie shows and such belongs there, and it would be absurd to deprive him of the enjoyment. It is healthy only to take away his taste for it.

One should work to ennoble one’s pleasures, one’s gratifications in life. It is not so that anthroposophists come together because they suffer when talking about higher worlds, but rather because it is their heart’s deepest enjoyment. It would be the most terrible deprivation for them to sit down and play poker. They are completely full of the joy of life in every fiber of their beings.

- Rudolf Steiner, Munich, 5th December 1907

Prophecy- The Definitive Decision- 1999

Globally there are tensions everywhere. These tensions currently are not the usual 'hold in place', 'in relation to' tensions, they are the kind which act as precursors to change. Some people are sensitive to the enormity of their influence about us, and it can be psychically painful to feel this 'building up' occurring all around us. Although folk express this in terms of physical cataclysms, it comes primarily out from the wrestling influences straining our spiritual environments moreover. We may translate this into an idea that a volcano will erupt or an earthquake split the earth, but it is indicative of much more than just evacuative responses. This is a time of confrontation, of choice, and of definite decision.

Gates open and gates close. Men are offered gifts, and some will have them. This is an exciting period, but one which requires a wakefulness, an earnestness, a virility and an intent. The next four centuries to come are going to ingest every soul who has ever incarnated formerly within mainstream humanity. The traffic therefore will be much greater than is usual (approximately seven times in number) (this also is accounting for the souls which are held back and those which rarely incarnate as well). It also means that there may be a concurrence of brief spans (born and dying again - only capable of shorter lives).

Those of you who have connected directly with us at present will probably not be called back again during this crucial time. The definitive decision shall be made this lifetime and will carry you on from that. Others who are vague or inconstant may represent themselves again in the next four hundred-year session, however very soon (within the next twenty years) [2020] this opportunity for return shall not be open. So for many, the quality of their spiritual lives and commitment to humanity is vital at this point from now on.

What of this decision to which we refer? The decision is a formal statement of soul that will qualify the individual for future residence amongst his global community. Literally speaking it is the decision to receive Christ (and therefore receive the whole world) into their being, wholeheartedly, unreservedly and with dedication. (Dedicating your life back to Father God requires that you acknowledge that it is His Life in you, firstly.)

Preparing for this decision has taken most all of their known humanhood. The acceleration of time as it presses upon the individuals, is awkward because there are those who are not ready. On the other hand there are associated beings (from the animal kingdom and devic kingdom) who already are given to this love and work for the world and have won their Christhood thereby. It is not a matter of brightness, naming Christ by name (rather naming Him in heart), or of evolutionary development alone ... there are magicians on the dark path who have advanced to extraordinary lengths but know not the qualifying humors to bring them into the next Round ... for these times ahead are now to be selective, and communities will be divided therefrom.

So this is the 'busy time' for our detail, and we are too occupied to be awash with a sentimental melancholy for those who will depart from us ... instead we choose to project an optimistic gravity amongst our greatest of concerns.

We work in many ways with as many styles as there are available (providing they are useful of course) and privately address people all over. We have never viewed our criteria to be made generalized, i.e. given to public comment or display, yet fully support the individuals whose given work has been to do so. (Yes, my Dear, there are borders to Faerie Land.)

No, we do not assume the role of stewards on the Titanic as far as this forthcoming apocalypse implies! For when viewed in the spiritual context, of its true reality within these tensions and changes, men are becoming opened to virtue like never before. The past is moving out. The former self strains but will not resist the glorifying presence which it will become.

The 'clearing reaction' which will take place within the world is really very important to the souls who will remain. It is necessary that for a time (a very long time actually), that one community may advance out without the waylaying of the other. This significant period of review shall occur over one hundred and forty-four thousand revolutions ... 144,000 days and nights for the influx and uptake of every soul to be received (approximately the four centuries just up ahead of us, as aforementioned). There are four divisions to this time period, each consisting of thirty-six thousand days collectively (three lots of 12,000, times 4) in which representatives of humanity from all four sectors will be given their respective times for appeal.

All of the 'tribes' (signatories to particular ages) are thus sealed into this number and recalled into incarnation. They denote men from various evolutionary beginnings, whose predominant characteristics still caveat them. In a roundabout way this can be interpreted in degrees upon the Zodiac in its complete aspect traveled also. After the last day a new era upon this Earth shall then begin.

There are one hundred and forty-four thousand Bodhisattvas who stand guardian over each day and each night (one a piece), who have been luminaries for that sector of souls past-karmicly. Watchers and contributors to the evolution of Man, they now welcome each in with their presence hugging close to the Globe, and being apparently accessible for the length of the incarnation throughout. As the choir of Bodhisattvas assembles, until the culmination of the last and final elated luminary, there amassed amongst the peoples is also our Christ most fully adorned.

This spectacular may be viewed by any man from wherever he is in the Cosmos. As the Great Ones gather and the nebulae of joy accumulates in the Shining Ones, men will be drawn in heart and in consciousness to their World with its grand assembly. 

Although this reply appears to have little or no bearing on the question just asked, it is considerable to the activities in which we are involved in. Any collection of men who would work for the betterment of the spiritual condition of Mankind, without pride or favor, are immediately in resonance with the elders of their humanity. The network lives from heart to heart, conjoining each dear soul within the Great Heart from which all Life streams forth and indwells eternally.

The inner creed to love one another is supportive to each who subscribe. Each, who consciously admit the Light of the World within themselves have championed a place within that world to come.

-The Brothers