Video: The Energy this August

Victor Oddo's clairvoyance is on point. Enjoy.

A Conversation with Myself on Verbitude and Nounitude

A conversation between two differemt aspects of myself in therapy. They're called "verbitude" (right chair) and "nounitude" (left chair). Verbitude is the oneness of things, like how two people in conversation are one as long as it happens. Nounitude is the the "thinghood" of things. In verbitude, I am the conversation, the dance, the dynamic, etc. In nounitude, I am an individual being.

Try to listen to this with your feelings.

The Spiritual Consequences of Hatred, Racial or Otherwise

From considerable experience, it is granted to learn that in the other life they meet with their relatives, friends, companions, and acquaintances, also [those] who were only known to them in life by reputation, and converse with them, and also are at first associated with them: for in the other life distance is of no moment [nihil facit]: those who are separated 1000, or it might be 10,000 miles, are near to them, yea everyone according to his life, so that they can be present next [to them]. Wherefore since it is so that relatives, parents, children, friends, companions and mere acquaintances wherever known [noti quocunque modo] meet each other, [still] it is exceedingly unfortunate for those, who have held any in hatred during the life of the body: these also come together and exercise their hatred, to the very great annoyance and misfortune of those whom they have held in hatred: nor does the multitude of souls cause any hindrance, as was given me to learn from very much experience. Wherefore let them beware of hatred: their life is so similar to their life in the body, that, as regards life, they do not know but they are in the life of the body. - Emanuel Swedenborg, Spiritual Diary 2661

 All racial hatred, for instance, is really also a fight against the spirit. Because this age of ours is so strongly inclined to fight against the spirit, it therefore possesses this talent for racial hatred. Here is one of the deepest secrets of our present spiritual culture; the only way out is through the living grasp of the spirit.Just think how, the moment we fall asleep and our ego and astral body leave behind our physical and etheric bodies, we are in a world where all that leads to sympathy and antipathy simply does not exist. In the moment that follows falling asleep we are united with those whom we look upon from the consciousness of our time with the deepest antipathy. We must pass through their souls in the realm of interpenetrability. We can rage as we will and hurl tirades of hatred against this man or that, but as soon as we fall asleep and enter the realm where all interpenetrates, we must pass through the souls of those we hate. The facts concerning such actual realities must now be made known. What I have just said is elementary, but if one enters more and more into the knowledge of actual reality, then the very entering possesses the force to create the impulse of the good. One only learns to know the real significance of hatred and unfounded antipathy in the world when one sees their effects in the spiritual world. He who knows what hate is in the spiritual world ceases to hate lest he put himself straight into the service of certain evil powers. - Rudolf Steiner, Inner Impulses of Evolution, Lecture IV

The Michael Stream

As to Michael in particular, it is believed from the sense of the letter that he is one of the archangels; but there is no archangel in the heavens. There are, indeed, higher and lower angels, also wiser and less wise; and in the societies of angels there are governors who are set over the rest; but yet there are no archangels in obedience to whom others are held by any authority. There is no such government in the heavens, for no one there acknowledges in heart anyone above himself except the Lord only; this is what is meant by the Lord's words in Matthew: Be not ye called teacher, for one is your Teacher, Christ, but all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for one is your Father, who is in the heavens. Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, Christ. He that is greatest among you shall be your minister (Matt. 23:8-11). But by those angels that are mentioned in the Word, as "Michael" and "Raphael," administrations and functions are meant, and in general, limited and certain departments of the administration and function of all the angels; so here "Michael" means that department of angelic function that has been referred to above, namely, the defense of that part of the doctrine from the Word that teaches that the Lord's Human is Divine, and that man must live a life of love to the Lord and of charity towards the neighbor that he may receive salvation from the Lord, consequently that department of function is meant that is for fighting against those who separate the Divine from the Human of the Lord, and who separate faith from the life of love and charity, and who even profess charity with the lips but not in the life. [3] Moreover, in the Word "angels" do not mean angels in the spiritual sense, but Divine truths from the Lord (see above, n. 130, 302), for the reason that angels are not angels from what is their own [proprium], but from the reception of Divine truth from the Lord. It is the same in respect to archangels, who signify that Divine truth, as has been said above. Angels, moreover, in the heavens do not have such names as men on earth have, but they have names expressive of their functions, and in general, to every angel a name is given according to his quality; this is why "name" signifies in the Word the quality of a thing and state. The name Michael means, from its derivation in the Hebrew, "who is like God;" therefore Michael signifies the Lord in relation to that Divine truth that the Lord is God even as to the Human, and that man must live from Him, that is, in love to Him from Him, and in love towards the neighbor. Michael is mentioned also in Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1, and signifies there like as here the genuine truth from the Word, which will be for those who are of the church to be established by the Lord; for "Michael" means those who will favor the doctrine of the New Jerusalem, the two essentials of which doctrine are, that the Human of the Lord is Divine, and that there must be a life of love and charity. - Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained 735

Verse 16. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of her mouth, signifies that reasonings from falsities in abundance, which the dragonists produce, fall to nothing before the spiritual truths rationally understood, which the Michaels, of whom the New Church consists, bring forward. By "the earth," which helped the woman, is signified the church as to doctrine (n. 285); and because the reasonings from falsities, which the dragonists produce, are treated of, they are truths from the Word, by which "the earth," that is, the church, "helps the woman;" by "opening her mouth," is signified to adduce those truths; by "the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth," are signified reasonings from falsities in abundance (n. 563); by "swallowing up" is signified to make them fall to nothing; by the Michaels are meant the men of the New Church; by "Michael," the wise therein; and by "his angels," the rest. [2] Since in the New Church this dogma is rejected, that the understanding is to be held captive under obedience to faith, and in the place of it, this is received, that the truth of the church should be seen, in order that it may be believed (n. 224); and since truth cannot be seen otherwise than rationally, therefore, it is said, from truths rationally understood. How can any man be led by the Lord, and conjoined with heaven, who shuts up his understanding in such things as relate to salvation and eternal life? Is it not the understanding which will be enlightened and taught? And what is the understanding closed by religion, but thick darkness, and such thick darkness as rejects from itself the illuminating light? Again, who can acknowledge any truth and retain it, unless he sees it? What is truth not seen but a voice not understood, which, with sensual corporeal men, is usually retained in the memory, but cannot be with the wise? The wise, indeed, cast out empty or unmeaning words from the memory, that is, such as have not entered from the understanding; as that one God consists of three Persons, also that the Lord, born from eternity, is not one and the same with the Lord born in time, that is, that one Lord is God and not the other; and again, that the life of charity, which consists in good works, and likewise in repentance from evil works, effects nothing to salvation; a wise man does not understand such things; therefore from his rationality he says, religion does not effect anything. Is not religion to shun evil and do good? Must not the doctrine of the church teach this, as also what a man should believe, that he may do the good works of religion from God? - Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Revealed 564

We know that as we are surrounded here by the three kingdoms of outer Nature, the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms in the physical world of sense, so we are surrounded in the spiritual world by the higher kingdoms of which we have spoken in so many connections as the kingdoms of the Hierarchies. Even as we descend into the kingdoms of Nature, beginning with man and coming down to the animal kingdom, so, as we ascend to the super-sensible, we come to the kingdom of the Angeloi. The Angels have the task of guiding and protecting the individual human being as he passes from earthly life to earthly life. Thus the tasks that fall to the spiritual world in relation to the individual human being, are allotted to the Beings of the kingdom of Angeloi.
We then go on up to the kingdom of Archangeloi, who have the most varied tasks. Now it is one of their tasks to guide and direct the fundamental tendencies of successive ages in relation to man.
Thus for about three centuries before the end of the eighteen-seventies, there was what we may call the dominion of Gabriel. For one who studies the evolution of humanity, not on the surface as is customary today, but in the depths, this dominion of Gabriel is expressed in the fact that the deepest and most important impulses in the process of humanity during that time were implanted in those forces which we may call the forces of heredity. Never were the forces of physical inheritance that work through the generations so important as in the three centuries preceding the last third of the 19th century.
Let us see, my dear friends, how this expresses itself. We know that in the 19th century the problem of heredity became the most pressing and important in the consciousness of men. Man felt how his qualities of soul and spirit are dependent on heredity. It was as though at the last moment he came to feel what had been holding sway in human evolution as a real Law of Nature in the 16th, 17th, and 18th, and in a great part of the 19th century.
During that time it was so indeed: man carried even into his spiritual development the qualities he had inherited from his parents and ancestors. During that time those qualities became especially important which are connected with physical reproduction. Again we find an outward sign of this fact in the great interest which was felt at the end of the 19th century in the question of reproduction and indeed in all sexual questions. In the centuries to which I have just referred, the most important spiritual impulses had approached humanity in this way, they had sought for realisation through physical inheritance.
Now the age in which Michael leads and guides humanity will stand in complete contrast to all this. I mean, therefore, the age that began at the end of the seventies of the last century, — the age in which we are, and the impulses of which are interwoven with what we are also learning to know as the new Age of Light beginning in the 20th century. For the streams of these two impulses work together.
Today we will dwell upon this question: What is the characteristic feature of an Age of Michael? I say, of an Age of Michael. For the spiritual guidance and leadership to which I have just referred is as follows. It is always so: one of the Beings of the kingdom of Archangeloi has the spiritual leadership in human evolution for about three centuries, in that region where civilisation is predominantly taking place.
Gabriel, as I said, had the leadership in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. His place is now taken by Michael. There are seven of these Archangels who lead humanity, and thus the several guidances of the Archangeloi recur in cyclic order. We today, who live in an Age of Michael, have every reason to call to mind the last Age of Michael which happened in the spiritual guidance of mankind.
The last Age of Michael preceded the founding of Christianity, preceded the Mystery of Golgotha. It came to an end in ancient times approximately with the deeds of Alexander and with the founding of the philosophy of Aristotle.
If we follow out all that took place in ancient Greece and the surrounding countries for about three hundred years before the time of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, we find ourselves once more in an Age of Michael. An Age of Michael is characterised by many different conditions, but especially by this, that in such an age the most spiritual interests of humanity (according to the particular disposition of the time) become predominant. In such an age especially, a cosmopolitan, international character will permeate the world. National distinctions cease.
Now it was above all in the Age of Gabriel that the national impulses within European civilisation, with its American appendage, became so firmly rooted. In our Age of Michael, in the course of the next three centuries, these national impulses will be completely overcome. This is the case in every Age of Michael: a common feature runs through all humanity — something of an all-human character, as against the special interests of single groups or nations.
In the last age of Michael's dominion on the earth, before the Mystery of Golgotha, it found the following expression. Out of the conditions that had taken shape in ancient Greece there arose that mighty historic tendency which led eventually to the campaigns of Alexander. In the campaigns of Alexander, Grecian culture and civilisation was carried, with extraordinary genius, right into Asia and Africa, and spread through many nations and peoples who until then had adhered to quite different things. This stupendous deed found its culmination in what was then founded in Alexandria. It was a great cosmopolitan movement, seeking to give to the whole of the then civilised world the spiritual forces that had gathered on the soil of ancient Greece. Such are the things that happen under the impulse of Michael, and that happened then too under his impulse.
Now those who took part in these earthly deeds, done in the service of Michael, were no longer upon the earth during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. All the beings who belonged to the realm of Michael — no matter whether they were disembodied human souls, transplanted by death into the spiritual world when the Michael Age had run its course, or whether they were souls who never incarnated upon the earth — they all were united in a common life within the super-sensible world, in the time when upon the earth the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place.
We must make fully present to our heart and mind the facts that lie before us here. If we choose the aspect of the earth, my dear friends, if this earth is our standpoint, then we say: Humanity on the earth reaches a certain point in earthly evolution. Christ, the lofty Spirit of the Sun, is arriving on the earth, incarnating in the human being Jesus of Nazareth. Those who dwell on the earth experience the fact that Christ, the great Spirit of the Sun, arrives among them. But they have little knowledge that could really cause them to understand the greatness of the stupendous and unique event.
All the more knowledge have those disembodied souls who are gathered around Michael and who are living in the realm of the Sun-existence in worlds above the earth. All the more do they know how to value what is taking place, as they witness it from their different aspect. These souls witnessed what was then taking place for the World, from the Sun. Christ who had hitherto worked within the realm of the Sun, who had only been attainable in the Mysteries when they ascended to the Sun-existence — Christ now departed from the Sun to unite Himself with earthly humanity upon the earth. This was what they witnessed.
It was a mighty and awe-inspiring event, above all for those who belonged to the communion of Michael. For, those who belong to the communion of Michael have a peculiar connection with all that represents the cosmic destinies proceeding from the Sun. They had to take their leave of Christ, who until then had had His dwelling-place in the Sun and was thenceforth to take His place on the earth. This is the other aspect.
But there was another thing connected with it, which we can only rightly understand if we take the following into account. To think — to live in thoughts that spring forth from within — as we do today, was impossible for the men of ancient times. They might be wise, indeed infinitely wiser than modern humanity, but they were not ‘clever’ in the sense of cleverness today. Today we call a man clever who is able to produce thoughts out of himself, who is able to think logically — to bring one thought into connection with another, and so forth. In olden times there was no such thing — no such thing as Thoughts independently produced. The Thoughts were sent down to the earth at one and the same time with the Revelations that came to man from the spiritual world. Man did not think and ponder, but he received the spiritual content by Revelation, and he received it in such a way that the Thoughts came with it. Today we think and ponder about things. In those ancient times the impressions which the souls received brought the Thoughts with them. The Thoughts were inspired, not self-made Thoughts. Now he who ordered the Cosmic Intelligence which thus came to man along with the spiritual Revelations — he who ordered this Cosmic Intelligence, who had, so to speak, dominion over it, — is the same spiritual Being whom we, when we make use of our Christian terminology, call the Archangel Michael. He had to administer the Cosmic Intelligence in the cosmos.
We must make clear to ourselves what this really means. It is a fact that such human beings as Alexander the Great, though in a somewhat different context of ideas, had a distinct consciousness of the fact that their thoughts came to them by way of Michael. True, the spiritual Being whom we mean, was called by a different name. We are making use of the Christian terminology, but it is not the terminology that matters. Such a man as Alexander the Great regarded himself as none other than a Missionary of Michael, an instrument of Michael. He could think in no other way than this: Michael is acting on the earth, and I am the instrument through which he acts. Such was the conception, and this gave him the strength of will in deed and action. Nor did a thinker in that time think differently than thus, that Michael was working in him and giving him the thoughts.

Now this too was connected with the descent of Christ to the earth: Michael and his hosts witnessed not only the departure of Christ from the Sun, but above all they saw how Michael himself was gradually losing his dominion over the Cosmic Intelligence. Quite distinctly they saw from the Sun that revelations would no longer come to men from the spiritual world with the content of Intelligence. They saw that the time must come when man himself must reach his own intelligence on the earth. It was a significant and incisive event to see the Intelligence pouring down, as it were, to the earth. By and by, I if may use this expression, the Intelligence was no longer to be found in the heavens; it was let down to earth.

This was fulfilled especially in the first Christian centuries. In the earliest Christian centuries we still see those human beings who were capable of it, having at least a few glimpses of what was flowing to them with the content of Intelligence as revelations from beyond the earth. This went on even into the 8th or 9th century A.D. Then came the great moment of decision. It came in such a way that Michael and those who belonged to him, no matter whether incarnate or discarnate, must say to themselves: “Men upon earth are beginning to become intelligent themselves — beginning to bring forth their own power of understanding from within them. The Cosmic Intelligence can no longer be administered by Michael.” Michael felt that the dominion over the Cosmic Intelligence was passing from him — falling from his grasp. While down below — looking down on to the earth — they saw this new age of Intelligence, beginning from the 8th or 9th century onwards. Men were beginning to form their own thoughts for themselves.

I have already described, my dear friends, how in certain special Schools — for instance in the great School of Chartres, — they handed down the traditions of what had once been revealed to men, steeped in the Cosmic Intelligence. I described to you how much was achieved in the School of Chartres, especially in the 12th century; and I tried to indicate how the administration of Intelligence on the earth literally passed over to individual members especially of the Dominican Order. We need only look into the works that arose out of Christian Scholasticism — that wonderful spiritual stream which is so entirely misunderstood today, by its supporters no less than by its opponents, because they do not observe its really important feature. We need only look into these Scholastic works and see how they wrestled to understand what is the real and deep significance of Concepts — of the content of Intelligence — for mankind and for the things of the world. The great conflict between Nominalism and Realism was developed especially in the Dominican Order. The ‘Nominalist’ sees no more than names in general concepts. The ‘Realist’ sees in them real spiritual content, made manifest in the things of the world. The whole of Scholasticism is a wrestling of mankind for a clear understanding of the Intelligence that is pouring in. No wonder that the main interest of those around Michael was directed above all to what was unfolding upon the earth in this Christian Scholasticism. In all that St. Thomas Aquinas and his pupils, and many other Schoolmen, were bringing forth, we see the earthly stamp and impress of the Michael stream of that time — the Michael stream, the administration of Intelligence, of the light-filled Spiritual Intelligence.

And now the Intelligence was here on earth. Now man had to strive for clarity as to its meaning. Looking down from the spiritual world, on to the earth, one could see how that which had belonged to the realm of Michael was now unfolding down below, outside of his dominion, for it was unfolding in the beginning of the dominion of Gabriel.

The Wisdom of Initiation — the Rosicrucian wisdom which was going forth at that time — consisted in this, that one had a certain clarity of understanding for these facts.

Especially in that time of history it is important to see how the earthly and the super-sensible are connected. Outwardly the earthly life looks as though it had been loosened, cut off from the super-sensible, — and yet it is connected. You can see how it is connected from what I described in our last lectures.

The super-sensible facts that here follow, can only be described in pictures, in Imaginations. They cannot be put into abstract concepts. They must be livingly described. Therefore I must now describe what happened in the beginning of the age when the Spiritual Soul, and with it the Intelligence, enters in and becomes a part of humanity.

Several centuries had passed since Michael, in the 9th century A.D., had seen arriving on the earth what had hitherto been the Cosmic Intelligence. He now witnessed its further course on earth. He saw it flowing onward now on earth, especially in Scholasticism. This was below. He on the other hand gathered around him those who belonged to his realm in the domain of the Sun. He gathered them all — human souls who happened to be in the life between death and a new birth, and those, also belonging to his realm, who in their own evolution never enter into human bodies yet have a certain connection with mankind. You may imagine, those human souls especially were there, whom I have mentioned as the great teachers of Chartres. Among the greatest who at that time, at the beginning of the 15th century, were in the hosts of Michael and had their deeds to do in the spiritual world, — among the greatest of them was Alanus ab Insulis. But all the others too were there, those whom I have named as belonging to the School of Chartres. United with them were the others who by now had returned to the life between death and a new birth, who had come back again from the Order of the Dominicans. Souls, therefore, belonging to the Platonic stream were intimately united with souls who belonged to the Aristotelian times. All these had experienced and undergone the several impulses of Michael. Many of them lived in such a way as to have witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha, not from the earthly aspect, but from the aspect of the Sun. And at that time, at the beginning of the 15th century, their situations in the spiritual world were fraught with peculiar significance.

Then there arose under the leadership of Michael something which we may call, as we must use earthly expressions, a super-sensible School. What had once been the Michael Mystery — what had been told to the Initiates in the ancient Mysteries of Michael, and must now become different, since the Intelligence had found its way from the cosmos to the earth — all this Michael himself now gathered up, expressing it again with untold significance to those whom he had gathered around him in this School of Michael. For it was a super-sensible School of Michael at the beginning of the 15th century. All that once lived as the Michael Mystery in the Sun Mysteries now became alive again in super-sensible worlds. It was a wonderful summing-up of the Platonism that had been continued in the Aristotelian manner, and of all that Alexander the Great had carried into Asia and down into Egypt. It was expounded how the ancient spirituality still lived in this. In this super-sensible School all the souls took part who had ever been connected with the stream of which I have now been speaking to you in many lectures. I mean the souls who are now predestined to belong to the Anthroposophical Movement, — whose karma, as it takes shape, leads them to the Anthroposophical Movement. For all that was taught in that School was taught from this point of view, that in the evolution of humanity below, the Michael principle must thenceforth be developed in a different way, namely through the Intelligence of the human soul itself.

It was pointed out how at the end of the 19th century (in the last third of this century) Michael himself would once again assume dominion upon the earth. Throughout the intervening time since the age of Alexander, the six other Archangels would have fulfilled their several dominions. Now a new Michael Age would begin. But this new Michael Age must be different from the others. For the other Ages of Michael were such that the Cosmic Intelligence had always expressed itself in the common sphere of humanity. But now, — thus said Michael in super-sensible worlds to his pupils, — now in the new Michael Age something quite different would be required. For what Michael had administered for men through many aeons, pouring it into earthly existence in living inspirations, this had now fallen away from him. But he was to find it again when at the end of the seventies of the 19th century he would begin his new earthly rule. He would find it again at a time when, to begin with, an Intelligence bereft of spirituality had taken root among men. And he would find it in a peculiar condition, — most intensely exposed to the Ahrimanic forces. For in the very time when the Intelligence was descending from the cosmos to the earth, the aspirations of the Ahrimanic powers grew ever greater, striving to wrest the Cosmic Intelligence from Michael as soon as it became earthly Intelligence, striving to make it dominant on earth alone, free of Michael.

Such was the crisis from the beginning of the 15th century until our day — the crisis in the midst of which we are, which expresses itself as the battle of Ahriman and Michael. For Ahriman is using all his power to challenge Michael's dominion over the Intelligence that has now become earthly. And Michael, with all the impulses that are his, though his dominion over the Intelligence has fallen from him, is striving to take hold of it again on earth at the beginning of his new earthly rule, from the year 1879 onwards. Human evolution stood at this decisive point in the last third of the 19th century. The Intelligence, formerly cosmic, had become earthly, and there was Ahriman, wanting to make it altogether earthly. He wants to make it continue in the way that began during the age of Gabriel, making it earthly, making it an affair only of the human communities of blood — an affair of the generations, the forces of reproduction and inheritance. All this Ahriman desires.

Michael came down towards the earth. He could alone desire to find again, on earth, what had had to take its own course in the intervening time in order that man might attain Intelligence and Freedom. He could alone desire to find it again in such a way that he might take hold of it on earth and become, within the earth once more, Lord of the Intelligence that is now working within mankind. Ahriman versus Michael: Michael finding himself obliged to defend against Ahriman what he had ruled through the aeons of time for the benefit of humankind. Mankind stands in the midst of this battle; and among other things, to be an anthroposophist is to understand this battle to a certain extent at least. It shows itself everywhere; in its true form it is there behind the scenes of the historical events, but it shows itself even in the facts that lie manifest before us.

My dear friends, those who were in that super-sensible School of Michael partook in the teachings which I have outlined so very briefly. The teachings they heard were a repetition of what had been taught in the Sun Mysteries since ancient time. They were already a prophecy of what was to be achieved when the new Age of Michael began. They were an inspired call, a solemn challenge to those who are gathered around Michael, to hurl themselves into his stream and take hold of his true impulse, to the end that Intelligence may once again be united to the being of Michael. - Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships Volume 3, Lecture VII

Another Dream About the Church

From all this it is evident what this first description of the ark involves, with its construction of gopher wood, its mansions, and its coating within and without with pitch, namely, that one part, that of the will, was preserved from inundation; and only that part opened which is of the understanding, and is described, in verse 16, by the window, the door, and the lowest, second, and third stories. - Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia 642

The light has sunk into the earth. / The image of darkening of the light. / Thus does the superior man live with the great mass. / He veils his light, yet still shines. - I Ching, Hexagram 36

 My God, I love you as a mother loves the unborn whom she carries in her heart. Grow in the egg of the East, nourish yourself from my love, drink the juice of my life so that you will become a radiant God. We need your light, Oh child. Since we go in darkness, light up our paths. May your light shine before us, may your fire warm the coldness of our life. We do not need your power but life. - Carl Jung's Red Book

So it is not the Earth only which becomes mostly Moon when deep winter prevails; this tendency of the Earth to become Moon occurs again, in like manner, when a woman prepares herself to receive a new human being. And precisely because of this, the Sun-influence on her becomes different, just as it is different in mid-winter, compared with high summer. And the formation in the woman of the new human being stands wholly under the influence of the Sun. Because the woman takes up the Moon-activities, the salt-activities, so strongly into herself, she becomes able to take up the Sun-activities on their own account. In ordinary life the Sun-activities are taken up by the human organism through the heart and from there spread out over the whole organism. But directly a woman prepares herself to bring forth a new human being, the Sun-activities are concentrated on the forming of this new life. Thus we can say schematically: The woman becomes Moon so that she can take up the Sun-activities into herself; and the new human being, existing first as an embryo, is in this sense wholly Sun-activity. The embryo is enabled to come into being through this concentration of Sun-activities. - Rudolf Steiner, Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture II

O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires. Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this raging deep in darkness; but behold these things which I have molten out of the rock. And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea. - Ether 3:2-4

July 30-31, 2017: I am playing Skyrim, and I am led by a guide to an inn that is also a palace for a tyrant. This place is where wendigos are given their last rites before they turn fully inhuman. There, I and my party expect to have my head chopped off, but then the guide says "Sherlock Holmes," which was the key word. The throne opens up like a hidden bookcase, and going down the stairs, it becomes clear that the whole tyrant-palace thing was a facade, an act. It's hiding the base for an underground railroad operation where hidden operatives try to rescue the innocence from the land of darkness where we are. It was run by the Church. There are mysteries and secrets there that I have longed for my whole life, placed on a bookshelf. We lead a final assault, with the innocent children warriors we are training (who are so nimble so as not to be hit), on the evils of the land. There is sadness, but we win. 

The Church is a facade. It is outwardly authoritarian, but that's just an act to conceal an inner light. That inner light is hidden to come forth at the end of this dark time. And that will come sooner than you think.

Autism, Eye-Contact, and Batteries for Heaven

To this new-born Notself, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had momentarily ceased to be, and of other selves, its one-time fellows, seemed not indeed distasteful (for distastefulness was not one of the categories in terms of which I was thinking), but enormously irrelevant. Compelled by the investigator to analyze and report on what I was doing (and how I longed to be left alone with Eternity in a flower, Infinity in four chair legs and the Absolute in the folds of a pair of flannel trousers!), I realized that I was deliberately avoiding the eyes of those who were with me in the room, deliberately refraining from being too much aware of them. One was my wife, the other a man I respected and greatly liked; but both belonged to the world from which, for the moment, mescalin had delivered me the world of selves, of time, of moral judgments and utilitarian considerations, the world (and it was this aspect of human life which I wished, above all else, to forget) of self-assertion, of cocksureness, of overvalued words and idolatrously worshiped notions. - Aldous Huxely, The Doors of Perception 

On what does the perception of the ego of the other man really depend? The theorists of the present day say things that are quite extraordinary. They say: you see the form of the outward man, you hear his voice, and moreover you know that you look human yourself like the other man, and that you have within you a being who thinks and feels and wills, who is thus also a man of soul and spirit. So you conclude by analogy: as there is in me a thinking, feeling and willing being, so is there also in the other man. A conclusion is drawn by analogy from myself to the other. This conclusion by analogy is simply foolishness. The inter-relationship between the one man and the other contains something quite different. When you confront another man something like the following happens. You perceive a man for a short time; he makes an impression on you. This impression disturbs you inwardly; you feel that the man, who is really a similar being to yourself, makes an impression on you like an attack. The result is that you “defend” yourself in your inner being, that you oppose yourself to this attack, that you become inwardly aggressive towards him. This feeling abates and your aggression ceases; hence he can now make another impression upon you. Then your aggressive force has time to rise again, and again you have an aggressive feeling. Once more it abates and the other makes a fresh impression upon you and so on. That is the relationship which exists when one man meets another and perceives his ego: giving yourself up to the other human being — inwardly warding him off; giving yourself up again — warding him off; sympathy — antipathy; sympathy — antipathy. I am not now speaking of the feeling life, but of what takes place in perception when you confront a man. The soul vibrates: sympathy — antipathy; sympathy — antipathy: they vibrate too. (You can read this in the new edition of Philosophy of Freedom.) - Rudolf Steiner, The Study of Man, Lecture VIII

And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. - Matthew 13:10

People with autism typically have a hard time looking other people in the eye. When I was a kid, I was asked why I didn't make eye contact, and I said: "because it feels like my eyes are burning." This is not a bad response. Eyes are the window to the soul, and the soul at its heart is fire. The eyes are places where the fire comes out. Above every pair of eyes, there should be a sign that says: fire hazard. 

You can notice this too, even if you're neurotypical. Try staring at someone in the eye for thirty seconds, or even a minute, or two minutes, or five, and see if you can maintain your gaze without looking away. It'll get too intense. You'll feel naked, exposed, with a desire to wrest your soul away from the other's eyes. Anger flares up. You're done, you implicitly tell the other person. This happens because the soul is a holy of holies that one can only let another into by choice. This privacy is divinely protected; no one in the history of the world has ever been compelled from the inside. In this "holy of holies," you are alone and inviolate. It is not an accident that no one can use the word "I" to describe me but myself. And this is the way of things. 

However, the autistic person's holy of holies, their "I," has not descended to the physical body. You will find that the autistic person does not identify with their body. I am not that, he says while looking in the mirror. As such, when the autistic person looks another person in the eye, he cannot remain disembodied. The eyes are the I-as-body. In the eyes, the I and the body are the same thing. And this terrifies Mr. Autistic. 

You might think that the autistic person can never encounter the "I" of another person. This is only true if you mean "encounter" as it is normally done. True, the eyes are a place for the physical revelation of one I to another. But even in the physical sphere, there are other such places. There are, or at least can be, moments where a person becomes a living, dynamic process, every mannerism, word, and movement an expression of a single, eternal, spiritual reality. I have made this a skill. For instance, I have a friend whose every movement reflects a kind of "forceful smoothness." Her hands and walking style are fluid and continuous, but in each case full of an inner forcefulness perfectly adapted to that smoothness. She is like a river: moving smoothly but with a terrifying force. Likewise, I have another friend whose every movement reflects an "evasiveness": she doesn't sit; she perches, either sitting on her knees or with an abnormal, restless posture, as if she were ready at any moment to "fight or flight." She speaks quickly; she does not flow but darts. In both of these women, what I saw was their "I" reflected in the physical world (namely, through their whole body) but I didn't need to look them in the eyes to see it.And since I am autistic, this is very encouraging. 

The autistic person should also already be quite talented at connecting with people "sideways." What does this mean? It means "dwelling with" the spiritual presence of another being, not connecting with them physically but spirit-to-spirit, so to speak. In her book Autism and Sensing: The Unlost Instinct, autistic author Donna Williams calls this process "sensing." "Sensing" is what happens when you have neither an awareness of self nor of other, but you instead "feel the object as the object, from within, without interpretation or mind, using the body not as a tool of sensory exploration or body as self, but as a tool of resonance." She continues by saying that "one does not need to check, judge, analyse, prioritise. The experience simply happens, not because the mind wants it or thinks about it, but because, quite irrelevant of the dictates o the mind, it is willed." Autistic "sensing" is the "merging" of "I's," what Rudolf Steiner would call "Intuition." It is to dwell as oneself in the being of another person, for me to be Jack as Jack, for me to be Jill as Jill. And this is indeed a high stage of clairvoyance.

The autistic person dwells with their "I" in this nonphysical world of spirit. They do not meet you in the physical world, which is why they seem absent, with dull or vacant eyes. Instead, they are operating it from above, as if they were conscious not of the video game but of the fingers operating the joystick.  But the autistic person is really a time bomb. There is a lot of light in that "I," and guess what it's doing while it's not in the body? Not getting tainted by the darkness of the world. In truth, autistic people are watertight reservoirs of light. They are arks. Why are they rigid and intractable? Why don't they look you in the eye? Because their job is to keep the light inside them safe from anything and everything. The autistic person is afraid of the physical world because their God-given task is to protect light from the darkness that is so prevalent in it. An ark is only as good as its sealing.

However, autistic people can use this light. And, in fact, they do. The autistic person is a kind of energy for higher worlds. As I pointed out in my post How You Feed Angels, the good beings on the other side rely on the good actions we do for sustenance. And autistic people give them a shortcut for this. No matter how depraved the world becomes, autistic people are so innocently clueless that the higher worlds can rely on them for food come hell or high water. They are the what Swedenborg would call "the remnant," a secret treasure goodness and truth that keeps a person or a church from completely dying. If all the autistic people in the world were to die tomorrow, the whole human race would inexplicably perish just as surely as a non-functional heart is a death sentence for the whole body. 

Why don't they look you in the eye? They're protecting heaven. Simple as that.

Why You Can't Have Faith If You Can't Focus (And How to Fix That)

Until then, we walk by whatever faith we have, seeking always to increase our faith. Sometimes this is not an easy quest. Those who are impatient, uncommitted, or careless may find faith to be elusive. Those who are easily discouraged or distracted may hardly experience it. Faith comes to the humble, the diligent, the enduring. - Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Fourth Floor, Last Door, October 2016 General Conference

You cannot have faith unless you have the ability to focus. There. I said it. It seems monumentally unfair, not least to those with ADHD and those like me on the autism spectrum and yet, alas, it is true. To the degree you cannot block out distractions and focus on what you intend, you will be unable to have faith. Faith is a forceful looking-toward, a movement that says: "I'm not looking at this new thing; I'm persisting in what I chose to have faith in." If you are "easily discouraged or distracted," as in the Uchtdorf quote above, you will not have faith. You will get lost in the shiny things of this world and not taste the fruits of the Spirit.

I say this not to be cynical or harsh but to be realistic. I was never told this. I fell into sinful behaviors, again and again, never realizing that I simply did not have the spiritual muscles that would repulse them. I was and am high-functioning autistic, and I have deficits in executive function, defined as an ability to choose and pursue focus. This is a weakness of mine, one that, I'm sure, was intended to humble me.

From an Anthroposophical (Rudolf Steiner) perspective, what we're dealing with is the inability of the "I" to regulate the "etheric body," that which connects the inner and outer, and the physical body itself. If you cannot carry through your intention (from the I) out into the world, the etheric and physical bodies will be swamped by forces that t supposed to be protected from. Describing the similar state an initiate must pass through by withdrawing his higher members from his lower ones, Steiner explains the dangers of being too open to the external world:

It is evident from the foregoing that, through work in a higher world, the soul must withdraw from the body some of its activity ordinarily bestowed upon it with such care. It leaves the body to a certain extent self-dependent, and the body needs a substitute for what the soul had formerly done for it. If it does not obtain such a substitute, it comes in danger of mischief from hurtful forces, for one must in this regard be clear that man is continually subject to the influences of his surroundings. ... There are beings who do not condense into the mineral condition, but who are none the less present and exert their influence upon man ... Man is thus exposed to influences from kingdoms of nature that in a sense must be called invisible. Now, when the soul works upon the body, a considerable part of its activity consists in regulating the influences of the elemental kingdoms in such a way that they are beneficial to man. — The instant the soul withdraws part of its activity from the body, injurious powers from the elemental kingdoms may get hold of it. Herein lies a danger of higher development. Therefore care must be taken that, as soon as the soul is withdrawn from the body, the latter is in itself accessible only to good influences from the elemental world. If this be disregarded, the ordinary man deteriorates, to a certain extent, physically and also morally, in spite of having gained access to higher worlds. While the soul dwells in the higher regions, pernicious forces insinuate themselves into the dense physical body and the etheric body. This is the reason why certain bad qualities, which before the higher development had been held in check by the regulating power of the soul, may now come to the fore for want of caution. Men formerly of good moral nature may, under such circumstances, when they enter higher worlds, reveal all kinds of low inclinations, increased selfishness, untruthfulness, vindictiveness, wrath, and so forth. 

 For the danger of a lack of focus is that the higher members (the spirit) cannot nourish and sustain the lower members (the body), and so the body is infiltrated by a whole host of frankly demonic forces that the higher members were supposed to immunize it against. What does this look like practically? Frankly, it means being buried beneath the world. Never being able to rise above it. It's the state of being lost in a crowded subway station or forever drowning like Tantalus in the River Styx. Indeed, this state is the Underworld (under-world).

Why is this the case? Why are some people born with an inability to focus? While this has surely always been a problem for some, it seems to have become pandemic recently. And I would suggest that it has everything to do with something else Steiner wrote (The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body). He explains that angels are at work in our astral body (the body of consciousness) and that if they remained consciously unrecognized there by the year 2000, they would descend into the etheric body (the body of life; the connector between soul and body) and wreak collateral havoc. The fire of higher worlds would descend prematurely and unconsciously into our lower members and make us explode with all our garbage. I suspect that we did not recognize the work of angels in our astral body before the year 2000 and that the angels are indeed working unconsciously in our etheric bodies while we sleep. We are exploding with heavenly fire from beneath, with all our crap. We are a supervolcano that is asleep even while it erupts.

But! What do about this? Luckily, Steiner is full of a wealth of information on how to counteract this situation. First, I'd suggest looking at my post Why Faith is Important that has a long quote from Rudolf Steiner that prescribes exactly how to counteract the situation I quoted above. To make a long story short, it means learning how to think and say and do exactly what you intend. Don't let distractions get in. But do read it.

More practically, Steiner gives many tools for building the etheric body and the I. The most powerful one is surprising: picture a series of events backward. Try doing this in bed at night: picture your day from end to beginning in reverse, falling out of bed, turning on the light, sucking up toothpaste, stepping dry out of the shower, going reverse all the way to school, etc. Rewind. Doing this forces you to pay attention and use force in your thinking where before you would just let the sequence of time provide the force. This force is the "focus" I mentioned above; this exercise builds the spiritual muscles that you need for faith. As such, this exercise is worth its weight in gold.

And there are others: try to purposefully change your handwriting style, which forces you to pay attention to (focus on) the task at hand; take a vivid snapshot in your head of where you leave a given object like your keys or your phone in order to find it later; be aware of how you look  from the outside when you walk, talk, sit down, etc.; refrain from doing things that you'd like to do but don't have to do, just for the sake of refraining; and many others. Specifically, check out Steiner's famous lecture Overcoming Nervousness, which is entirely about this problem. Also check out the book Strengthening the Will: The Review Exercises, a compilation of all of Steiner's remarks about this subject.

You can do this. You were meant to. You deserve to stand on your own two feet.