Masters of Wisdom & Harmony of Feelings

"In the same way that a higher animal excels a worm, do the Rishis, the Masters, excel humanity... What is highly esteemed in the West - knowing for the sake of knowing - is not what the adepts, the great Masters, of the East strive after. They aspire to knowledge which can help humanity, which can conduct it to the point where the destiny of humanity and the harmony of the world are in agreement with each other."

-Rudolf Steiner

Remember, the Masters are incarnate and speaking to mankind continually; it's just that most aren't listening.

“Today the Mahatmas will have something to say to us today....The three duties of the esoteric pupil are named: overcome pride and vanity, live theosophy practically, represent theosophy to the world.

"Now the Master Morya will speak....The Masters can be regarded by us as Ideal. They have attained what we must attain in the future. We can therefore question them about our future development. There lie within us, but as yet in the form of a germ, the forces which have reached perfection in a Master."

 - Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, July 14, 1904, stenographic notes by Franz Seiler

"Morya - real name is communicated only to the more advanced pupils."

- Rudolf Steiner, The History and Contents of the Esoteric Section

"When in the world outside the modern leaders of men go about in human garb, they are unrecognized in the world. When from the standpoint of Spiritual Science we talk about 'The Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings' people would often be surprised to in what simple, unassuming human form these Masters are to be found in all countries. They are present on the physical plane."

- page 128, Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul, Revelations of the Spirit, Rudolf Steiner.

"The Philosopher's Stone has a specific purpose, which was stated by Cagliostro; it is meant to prolong human life to a span of 5,527 years....In fact, however, it is possible, by means of special training, to prolong life indefinitely by learning to live outside the physical body."

"Physical death is only an apparent occurrence for him who has understood the Philosopher's Stone for himself, and has learnt to separate it."

"He lays aside the physical body in the same way that one takes of a raincoat, and he puts on a new body just as one puts a new raincoat on."

- Rudolf Steiner, pages 103-104 Temple Legend,

Dr. Steiner teaches that as we refine the astral body (establish peace) it "gradually approaches immortality", "an astral form arises which survives, remains living."

"When someone has become a Chela he begins to establish peace in the etheric body. Then the etheric body too survives. The Masters establish peace in the physical body; thus in their case the physical body also survives."

- Rudolf Steiner, Foundations of Esotericism, page 171

Let's make it clear to ourselves what's really brought about by meditation. Streams of spiritual life are always flowing through the world. These streams can't flow into us when we're thinking about everyday things. But our meditation words are like portals that are to lead us into the spiritual world. They have the strength to open up our soul so that the thoughts of our great leaders, the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings can stream into us.

For this to happen the deepest quiet must reign in us. We must realize that meditation is a very intimate soul activity. So we should let the meditation words given to us by our teacher live in our soul right after we wake up and before other thoughts have gone through our soul.

But we shouldn't look upon them as stuff to speculate on and philosophize about; we should think as little as possible about their meaning and significance. We have enough time for reflection the rest of the day. We should hold that off completely while meditating. We shouldn't repeat the words meaninglessly but should be clear that the words open our soul to the instreaming of divine beings, just as a flower opens and lets in sunlight. High spiritual beings whom we call Masters stream down to us. We should realize that it's mainly they who guide us and are near to us in meditation.

We should also know that they walk on earth incarnated in a physical body. Thus we should let the meditation words live in our soul without pondering about them; rather we should try to grasp the words' spiritual content with our feelings and to permeate ourselves completely with it. The power of these words doesn't just lie in the thoughts, but also in their rhythm and sound.

-Rudolf Steiner, Esoteric Lesson

Rudolf Steiner on Alcohol

During the Greco-Latin Cultural Epoch - which began in the 8th century B.C - (Fourth Subrace),  wine began to be treated as a holy substance. In the past, water was considered holy and used in the mysteries. Note that for women of childbearing age in Ancient Greece, wine was still forbidden except during the Bacchanalia.

From some notes on the Origin and Meaning of Wine by Rudolf Steiner:

"In the Persian Race we get the description of the beginning of the vine culture. But still wine was something quite worldly. Gradually it was applied to the Dionysian cult."

Back to the Doctor:

"Wine was that which separated man from everything spiritual. He who takes wine cannot arrive at the spiritual. He can know nothing of Manas, Buddhi, Atma. The whole course of humanity is one of descent and ascent.

"Man had to go own once to the lowest point. That he might thus go down to the lowest point, there arose the Dionysian cult.

Formerly there was a strict rule for priests, forbidding wine. They could experience Atma, Buddhi, Manas. There had to be a religion which could come quite down to the physical plane, one that changed water into wine. Later on the wine will be changed into water. If water had not been changed into wine, man could not have taken with him all that is below in the Vale of Earth."

Caravaggio.
Self-Portrait as Sick Bacchus (Bacchino Malato) (1594)

Apart from the direction alcohol guided us - downwards - there is also the fascinating connection it has with the Self.

Here's the quote from the Gospel of John Lectures 23rd May 1908:

"In future, people will be able to say in the most literal sense that it was the task of alcohol to pull man down into the material world so far that he would become selfish, and that alcohol would lead him to demand the use of his self for his own purpose, so that it would no longer serve the whole nation... Alcohol has removed man's capacity to feel at one with the universe in the higher worlds."

After the Incarnation the use of alcohol became decadent. It was Christ who was to bring the gift of the independent Self:

His mission consisted of bringing man the full power of the Self, the inner independence of soul.
-St John Lectures

"He who seeks initiation must achieve the utmost calm. This includes the avoidance of all stimulants, especially alcohol."

-The Gospel of St. John, Second Lecture, 26th February, 1906

Alcohol prepared the way for the independent Self but now it creates a separate self of its own.

The Self manifests itself on Earth by the agency of the ethereal warmth:

The effect of ethereal heat permeates the total organism...it is the medium through which man's spiritual self can come into contact with the living, physical body.

- Bernard Lievegoed

Alcohol acts like an interior imitation of sunshine. Through this separate warmth organization, it now interferes with the Self - the Self is disrupted:

We may therefore say that to take alcohol is to produce a counter-ego in oneself. For it has the effect of influencing action that should spring freely from the resolution of the ego: alcohol thinks, feels and acts in the ego's place. A person in this situation lets a purely external, material ego dictate to him. Alcohol prevents his own ego from acting, thus making him its slave.

- Bernard Lievegoed

This is "Big Al's" game and purpose now - slave-driver. Rudolf Steiner from The Problems of Nutrition:

It would take too long to explain the spiritual scientific reason showing that alcohol produces physically and in an external way out of the plant, just what a man should develop physically within himself through his ego being centered within him. It is a fact inwardly perceived through Spiritual Science that when a person drinks alcohol, it takes over the specific activity that otherwise belongs wholly to the person's ego. A person who drinks much alcohol needs less food and his body will require less nourishment than is normally required in the process of combustion.

It calls forth forces that otherwise would be called forth by the ego's inner penetration. Thus, a person can externalize the activity of his ego by infusing his body with alcohol.

Consequently, alcohol imitates and copies the activity of the ego, and you can understand why it is that people turn to it. To the extent, however, that a man replaces his inner self with such a substitute, to that extent does he become its slave. If otherwise qualified, a man will be better able to unfold the best forces of his ego when he abstains from alcohol altogether. By drinking alcohol an inner hindrance is created behind which something takes place that actually should and would be accomplished through the activity of the ego itself if the hindrance had not been produced.

Memory of past lives blocked:

"There were ages in the history of man when wine was not known. In the days of the Vedas it was practically unknown.

"In the ages when there was no drinking of alcohol, the idea of previous existences and of many lives was universally held; nobody doubted its truth. As soon as man began to drink wine, however, the knowledge of re-incarnation rapidly faded away, ultimately to disappear entirely from the consciousness of man. It existed only among the Initiates who took no alcohol.

"Alcohol has a peculiarly potent effect on the human organism, especially on the etheric body which is the seat of memory. Alcohol obscures the intimate depths of memory. 'Wine induces forgetfulness' — so the saying goes. The forgetfulness is not only superficial or momentary, but deep and permanent and there is a deadening of the power of memory in the etheric body. That is why, little by little, men lost their instinctive knowledge of reincarnation when they began to drink wine.

-An Esoteric Cosmology, Lecture 7, Dr. Steiner

"Alcohol is something very peculiar in the kingdom of nature, and it turns out to be not only dead weight in the human organism but, in fact, acts directly as a counterforce on it.

"When we observe a plant, we find that it develops its organization up to a certain point. The grapevine is an exception in this regard. It develops beyond this point. Everything that other plants reserve solely for the seed, the vegetative power—that is, all of the vegetal germinating power usually reserved for the seed, which does not enter into the rest of the plant—in the grape, flows into the fruit as well.

"Thus, through what is known as fermentation, the transformation of what in the grape itself has been activated to the maximum, something is produced in the plant that has a power that (in an occult sense) can be compared only to the power of the human I over the blood. In the making of wine and and the production of alcohol, therefore, what the human being must create when the I affects the blood is created in another kingdom of nature.

"We know that there is a close relationship between the I and the blood. This is expressed externally when the I experiences shame and a blush suffuses the human countenance, or when the I experiences fear or anxiety and the person turns pale. This effect of the I on the blood, which is a normal process, is similar to the effect produced when the vegetal process becomes reversed through the process of transforming the fruit of the grape—indeed, whatever arises from the very nature a plant—into alcohol.

"The I creates a process in the blood, as a matter of course—and here I am speaking from occult insight, not from chemistry—that is very similar to the process produced in the grape by reversing the process of organization through the purely chemical action of making alcohol. Consequently, alcohol introduces into the organism something that acts just as the I acts on the blood, but from the outside.’

"In other words, when we consume alcohol, we introduce an anti-I into our being, an I that directly opposes the actions of our spiritual I. We may say that, compared to how the I acts on the blood, alcohol acts on it from the opposite side. Thus, an inner war is unleashed, and when we place the antagonist inherent in alcohol in opposition to the I, we condemn to impotence everything that proceeds from the I. This is the situation from the occult viewpoint.

"The person who abstains from alcohol ensures the possibility that the I can work freely on the blood. An individual who drinks alcohol behaves like someone who, wishing to demolish a wall, hammers on one side, while at the same time placing on the other side people who hammer in opposition. Consuming alcohol eliminates the I's activity on the blood in exactly the same way.

"Those who make anthroposophy the cornerstone of their lives, therefore, experience the action of alcohol in the blood as a direct attack upon the I. It is thus very natural that true spiritual development progresses only when one avoids this conflict. From this example we see how equilibrium, normally present in the physical body, experiences a transformation in the anthroposophist and how that altered equilibrium also becomes perceptible."

  - The Effects of Esoteric Development, Rudolf Steiner, 10 Lectures, the Hague; March 20-29, 1913 (CW 145), Additional lecture, Berlin February 3, 1913

"Even in the Bible it is pointed out that Noah who, in a certain sense was the progenitor of his race in the post-Atlantean period, was the first wine-drinker, the first to experience the effect of alcohol. Then we come to a chapter which may be really very shocking for many people. In the post-Atlantean period an extraordinary cultus arose; this was the worship of Dionysos.

"You all know that this worship was connected with wine. This extraordinary substance was first introduced to human beings in the post-Atlantean period and produced a certain effect upon them. You know that every substance has some effect upon the human creature and alcohol had a very definite action upon the human organism. In fact, in the course of human evolution, it has had a mission.

 "Strange as it may seem, it has had the task, as it were, of preparing the human body so that it might be cut off from connection with the Divine, in order to allow the personal “I AM” to emerge. Alcohol has the effect of severing the connection of the human being with the spirit world in which he previously existed. It still has this effect today.

"It was not without reason that alcohol has had a place in human evolution. In the future of humanity, it will be possible to see in the fullest sense of the word that it was the mission of alcohol to draw men so deeply into materiality that they become egoistic, thus bringing them to the point of claiming the ego for themselves, no longer placing it at the service of the whole folk.

"Alcohol performed a service, the contrary of the one performed by the human group-soul. It deprived men of the capacity to feel themselves at one with the whole in the spirit world. Hence the Dionysian worship which cultivated a living together in a kind of external intoxication, a merging into the whole without observing this whole.

"Evolution in the post-Atlantean period has been connected with the worship of Dionysos, because this worship was a symbol of the function and mission of alcohol. Now, when mankind is again endeavouring to find its way back, when the ego has been so far developed that the human being is again able to find union with the divine spiritual powers, the time has come for a certain reaction, an unconscious one at first, to take place against alcohol. This reaction is now taking place and many persons today already feel that something which once had a very special significance is not forever justified."


"No one should interpret what has been said concerning the mission of alcohol at a special period of time as, perhaps, favoring alcohol, but it should be understood that this has been stated in order to make clear that this alcoholic mission has been fulfilled and that different things are adapted to different periods.

"In the same period in which men were drawn most deeply into egotism through alcohol, there appeared a force stronger than all others which could give to them the greatest impulse for re-finding a union with the spiritual whole. On the one hand men had to descend to the lowest level in order that they might become independent and on the other hand a strong force must come which can give again the impulse for finding the path back to the Universal. The Christ indicated this to be His mission in the first of His signs.

"In the first place He had to point out that the ego must become independent; in the second place, that He was addressing Himself to those who had freed themselves from the blood relationship. He had to turn to a marriage where the physical bodies came under the influence of alcohol, because at this marriage wine would be drunk. And Christ Jesus showed how His mission had to proceed in the different earthly epochs.

"How often we hear extraordinary explanations of the meaning of the changing of water into wine. Even from the pulpit one hears that nothing else is meant than that the insipid water of the Old Testament should be superceded by the strong wine of the New. In all probability it was the wine-lovers who always liked this kind of an explanation, but these symbols are not so simple as that.

"It must be kept constantly in mind that the Christ said: My mission is one that points toward the far distant future when men will be brought to a union with the Godhead — that is to a love of the Godhead as a free gift of the independent ego. This love should bind men in freedom to the Godhead while formerly an inner compelling impulse of the group-soul had made them a part of It."

-The Gospel of St. John, Lecture 5



There is a lot more in From Comets to Cocaine: Answers to Questions.

Some lectures in the above describe alcohol’s effects in relation to human reproduction:

By harming the offspring, all the descendants are thus harmed.

See from page 180. 

See also. See also: Question on Alcohol

Parsis & Electricity

It is a revealing fact that Zarathustris recognize the nature of electricity.
From the page:

"First of all, installing electric wires inside this talismatic structure will break this Karsh and Kat (veil between earth and air atmosphere) by wires. Besides, electricity (which carries outside Drujih-filled thoughts) passes through these wires cause "collusion" with Kat and Pavi, which results in creation of numerous exits in Kat and weakening of Pavi's talism."

I quote more from the page:

"Why are electric lights causing danger to our rituals and ceremonies? So what if the lights are on? "I cannot read prayer book in darkness." Such mildly anxiety-filled questions will arouse curiosity in the minds of people who are sincere to learn about its reasons and wish to practice this scriptural fact."

"Electricity is dangerous for the efficacy of Avesta Manthras and quasi-Pavi (imaginary fortress around the Jashan area following certain Tarikats) 'constructed' by the Priest during Jashan or any ritual or ceremony. The electricity is composed of dangerous wavelengths and vibrations that are far inferior and destructive than of Staota Yasna (Avesta composition) for maintaining PaviKat area for our ceremonies. It is dangerous for people of Burjishi Jhirum (Zarathustris) to make use of electricity in any thing. I know this statement will generate several arguments but we cannot survive without making use of electricity in everyday activities. However, ritual and ceremonies are guided by scriptural facts that are far beyond our understanding or conveniences of day to day life. These are the spiritual exercises that involve sacred composition of Avesta Manthras, which has to practice as per the religious Tarikats without entertaining any exception. An oil lamp (Divo) has capacity to drive-off darkness, evil & Drujih after sunset."

So the wise Zarathustris with their intimate knowledge of Ahriman have understood the implications of electricity just as Rudolf Steiner has explained. The Christians are yet to catch up with this, but they too would find benefit from removing the influence of electricity from their churches and chapels.

Rudolf Steiner's Indications on Electricity

In 1954 Mr. Schiller lectured in New York on Rudolf Steiner's indications on electricity:

Today people use electricity without knowing what it is. Only a knowledge of its real nature can protect man against the destructive forces which assume as Ahrimanic Exusiai- the garment of light gone astray.

Electricity entered the evolution of mankind in Lemuria and entered cosmic evolution upon the Sun with Ahriman. Galvani discovered it, but today we must see through it much more sharply.
 
Natural heat and natural light redeems matter, electricity and magnetism imprison it. In regard to electricity and magnetism we need a moral judgment. Modern science explains the whole world as a product of electricity, i.e. sub-physical forces.
 
Our thoughts concerning nature are in themselves creative forces and upon Jupiter and Venus [future states] they will take on real shape. Even as nature slides down into the sub-sensible, so man must rise to the supersensible. He does it by learning to grasp the nature of the etheric forces in a concrete and specific manner.
End of quote.

Between 1904 and 1909 Rudolf Steiner used the name Asuras for Archai. Later he used this name for counter-beings.

Rudolf Steiner's answers to questions at the end of the Lecture: The Etherisation of the Blood 
Basle, October 1st, 1911

Question: What is electricity?

Answer: Electricity is light in the sub-material state. Light is there compressed to the utmost degree. An inward quality too must be ascribed to light; light is itself at every point in space. Warmth will expand in the three dimensions of space. In light there is a fourth; it is of fourfold extension — it has the quality of inwardness as a fourth dimension.

“By far the greater part of all that is at work through the agency of technical science in the civilization of to-day is not Nature, but Sub-Nature. It is a world which is emancipating itself from Nature, downwards. And as he penetrates into this merely Earthly realm, he encounters the world of Ahriman. He must learn to bring himself and his own human being into right relation with this Ahrimanic element.

"As yet, in the course hitherto taken by the Technical Age, he has not found the way to readjust his human relation rightly to this new civilization of Ahriman. Man must find the strength, the inner faculty of knowledge and discernment, for his human being not to be overwhelmed by Ahriman in the civilization of Technology. Sub-Nature must be understood in this, its character of under Nature. It will only be so understood if man rises at least as high in spiritual knowledge of that super-Nature which lies outside the earthly sphere, as he has descended in technical science below it into Sub-Nature.

"Electricity must be recognized in its own peculiar power to lead down from Nature to Sub-Nature. But man must not glide down with it.

"But in a Science of the Spirit the other sphere is created, from which an Ahrimanic element is altogether absent. It is precisely by taking into his mind that form of spiritual intelligence to which the Ahrimanic Powers have no access, that man gains the strength to meet Ahriman in the world, to encounter him here.”

-Rudolf Steiner, The Michael Mystery, From Nature to Sub-Nature, Chapter 29

“The more we make use of this power the more will the earth tend to become a corpse so that the spiritual part of the earth can be preparing itself for the Jupiter stage. Forces have to be used to destroy the earth so that man may be freed from the earth and the body of the earth can fall away. As long as the earth was developing in a forward direction this did not happen for the great civilizing achievements of electricity can serve only a disintegrating earth. However strange this may sound to-day, it must be gradually made known. There is an even more terrifying force which cannot be kept secret much longer. We can only hope that when this force comes, as it quite certainly will, a force we have to think of as far more powerful than the strongest electrical charges – we must hope that before any inventor bestows this power on mankind, nothing un-moral will be left in human nature!”

-Anthroposophical Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1956

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.