Short update on this blog March 2020

Seven years ago I started this blog, for two reasons. As a way to practice writing and finding a format to pull together investigations on a topic in some readable story form, and also: as a way to leave 'a message in a bottle' about my own study, hoping maybe I could get answers from interaction with other people via the internet (which did not happen).

Today I have 'unpublished' a number of older posts, as a way of cleanup here, and I don't think they add value (some also were temporary placeholders for essays I never published in PDF form).

I just left a few posts from more than five years ago, as these seem to have attracted some readers.
However as my perspective and insights have moved on from the time when I wrote these (see the title of this blog) .. they are not representative of how I now feel this matter should be approached or brought. These writings were just 'trains of thoughts' along the way of my personal study process. 

The good news is that I am working on a new site, which will be in wiki format. It will be easier to browse and also hopefully more effective to present information and knowledge in a didactic and granular way. Another major difference is that, with the first cycle of seven years study behind me, I feel my insight progressed so that I will be able to present things in a better way.

So I figured maybe I can use this as a real blog then to share shorter reflections, because it allows a 'write once, read many' advantage over personal email communication. 

Note: the main reason I stopped publishing via blogger was because of the erratic behaviour of the site, which apparently and unfortunately remains an issue (sorry can't help that, tried different browsers and dozens of edits to get font size and layout right - to no avail).

On Spiral Symbols

1 - Introduction

In my previous post on the etheric I had included some graphical illustrations to cheer up the lengthy text. Because I started with Steiner's description of how the human heart is formed by etheric streams, I had side-jumped in the Appendix to the intriguing form of Babbitts Atom which, purely by its high-level graphical form, inspires people - artists and phantasts alike. And because Babbit is a multi-level spiral structure, one often sees this named in the same breath as Leadbeater's ANU atom.

Now I removed these distractions from the previous post because they just polluted the subject that was being covered. Rather than delete them, I want to use them here as a staging introduction for a new post on the Occult Atom. Consider it a small amuse-bouche before the dish is served.

Before getting into the real Occult Atom by Rudolf Steiner, we start in this post with some forms that various sources have called an Occult Atom before. And remark how these presentations contain something of a conceptual metaphoric symbolism for what we could call a Cosmic Fractal, as they share characteristics such as: a mult-level hierarchical structure, an implicit spiralling nature, and structural properties based on the numbers three and seven.

2 - Let's start with some art

The picture below is by the croation artist Arijana Kajfes living in Sweden, the work is called atomheart and it based on the drawing of an atom by Edwin D. Babbitt in 1878.

'the simple electronics of the piece is just one small opening to the invisible world that affects us. The spiraling coils pick up the surrounding electromagnetic fields. Maybe the work can serve as a reminder of human sensitivity that is slowly fading away in the cumulative noise of information society.

Below we will look into Babbitt's atom and what is known as Leadbeater's ANU or ultimate atom. These are often discussed together, as they both talk about a universal atom with the same form as the human heart, made up of two bipolar flows or vortices.

3 -  Babbitt’s atom and spirillae

Edwin Dwight Babbitt (1828-1905) wrote his book 'The principles of light and color' in 1878. From that book the following drawing of the atom as a result from two spirals from influx and an efflux ethers running through ‘spirillae’.

 

3 – Leadbeater’s ANU

Some 30 years later, Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934) wrote his book 'Occult chemistry' in 1908 together with Annie Besant; an on-line version of the book can be found here and here.

From that book the following drawing of the ‘ultimate atom’ or Anu in its two forms:

• the positive or male (force pours in from the ‘outside’, from fourth-dimensional space, the astral plane, and passing through the Anu, pours into the physical world).

In the second, negative or female, it pours in from the physical world, and out through the Anu into the ‘outside’ again, ie vanishes from the physical world. It will be seen that the Anu is a sphere, slightly flattened, and there is a depression at the point where the force flows in, causing a heart-like form.

4 – Commentary

Now these images were added because they are often linked to the subject of my previous post. However I separated them here for a good reason.
The ultimate atom, Anu, spirillae should not be considered as physical threedimensional images, but - if anything - rather images from a higher type of consciousness (see Imagination - Inspiration - Intuition).
Still we have to face the fact that Steiner never described anything near to Babbitts vision, and his description of the Occult Atom was quite a different story (see next post).

Now though the Babbitt image has something  remarkable and intrigueing, also because his original vision dates back before 1878, these types of visualisations also have something contradictory.

It appears as a possibility that Leadbeater [1] recycled the image 30 years later, mixing/combining it with the concept of the Gunas (see previous post), to come to some pseudo-physical explanatory framework. It's not easy to judge where lies the boundary between fact and fiction in theosophical writings (see eg Leadbeater's clairvoyant explanations about previous Atlantean incarnations of contemporary theosophists ..),
but it appears safe to say that there was some fair amount of charlatanry in the theosophical society [2] in the early 20th century).
With this I say nothing about Theosophy as a movement historically, as for example in the 16-18th century this term was used broadly, and people like Jacob Boehme and Robert Fludd are considered theosophists. If Steiner would not have found it a respectable term or movement, he would not have called his book Theosophy. However with Blavatsky a turning point was reached, and afterwards the teachings got polluted and side-tracked, and Steiner vehemently tried to clarify the process in extenso - on what appened, how and why.

Steiner commented on this, extensively on the broader point [2] as mentioned but also on point [1] specifically, eg 1920-08-28:

• 'As most of you know, a certain Leadbeater is active in the Theosophical Society. This Leadbeater has written all sorts of books, and a great number of people were particularly charmed when he wrote something like an occult chemistry; I even met scholars who were most delighted by this occult chemistry. What really happened? This Mr. Leadbeater has become acquainted with the materialistic chemistry of the present with its molecules and atoms. This materialistic chemistry of today with its molecules and atoms describes oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, fron oxide, sodium acetate, and so on, building them up from these molecules and atoms. Out of such atoms, Leadbeater builds up the spiritual worlds, the Spirits and the angels. He creates a spiritualism out of materialism I have seen people who went about nearly enchanted when, among many things, the so-called "permanent atom" once swam around like a drop of fat on the soup of the Theosophical Society — such drops of fat sometimes did swim about, didn't they? This permanent atom — a remarkable thing! '

And here again on 1923-01-27:

• You see, in regard to all things, Anthroposophy must really find a new way, and if we really wish to enter into Anthroposophy, it is necessary to change the way of thinking and of feeling in respect to most things. In Anthroposophy, it is not enough if anthroposophists consider on the one hand a more or less materialistic world conception, or a world conception based more or less on ancient traditional beliefs, and then pass on to Anthroposophy, because this appeals to them more than other teachings. But they are mistaken. We must not only go from one conception to the other — from the materialistic monistic conception to the anthroposophical one — and then say that the latter is the best. Instead we must realize that what enables us to understand the monistic materialistic conception does not enable us to understand the anthroposophical conception.
  
  You see, theosophists believed that the understanding of the materialistic monistic conception enabled them also to understand the spiritual. For this reason we have the peculiar phenomenon that in the monistic materialistic world conception people argue as follows: — everything is matter; man consists only of matter — the material substance of the blood, of the nerves, etc.

Everything is matter. Theosophists — I mean the members of the Theosophical Society — say instead: — No, this is a materialistic view; there is the spirit. Now they begin to describe man according to the spirit: — the physical body which is dense, then the etheric body somewhat thinner, a kind of mist, a thin mist — these are in reality quite materialistic ideas! Now comes the astral body, again somewhat thinner, yet this is only a somewhat thin material substance, etc. This leads them up a ladder, yet they obtain merely a material substance that grows thinner and thinner. This too is a materialistic view. For the result is always “matter”, even though this grows thinner and thinner. This is materialism, but people call it “spirit”. Materialism at least is honest, and calls the matter “matter”, whereas, in the other case, spiritual names are given to what people conceive materialistically.

When we look at spiritual images, we must realize that we cannot contemplate these in the same way as we contemplate physical images; a new way of thinking must be found.

Things become very interesting at a special point in the history of the Theosophical Society. Materialism speaks of atoms. These atoms were imagined in many ways and strong materialists, who took into consideration the material quality of the body, formed all kinds of ideas about these atoms. One of these materialists built up a Theory of Atoms and imagined the atom in a kind of oscillating condition, as if some fine material substance were spinning round in spirals.

If you study Leadbeater's ideas on atoms, you will find a great resemblance with this theory.

An essay which appeared recently in an English periodical discussed the question of whether Leadbeater's atom was actually “seen”, or whether Leadbeater contented himself with reading the book on the Theory of Atoms and translating it into a “spiritual” language.

These things must be taken seriously. It matters very much that we should examine ourselves, in order to see if we still have materialistic tendencies and merely call them by all kinds of spiritual names. The essential point is to change our ways of thinking and of feeling — otherwise we cannot reach a really spiritual way of looking at things. This gives us an outlook, a perspective, that will help us to achieve the rise from sin as opposed to the fall into sin.

With this we can trust RS and leave it at this. The Babbitt image is nice but there is no telling whether it is not an unvalidated imagination image.

5 – Graphical images for the concept of a cosmic fractal

That being said, before we conclude, the concept of this image has some fun aspects or properties for one who would want to devise or depict a physical, materialistic symbolic image or metaphor for the Cosmic Fractal.

It includes three major spirals or whirls of energy, seven subsidiary spirals, with hierarchical layers with each spiral consisting of sub-whorls or spirillae which are spiralled around the original ones, one level up. And so on, for a total of seven levels.

To share the fun of this thought exercise I add a picture one can find on the internet, that evoques this idea of embedded layers of spirals .. albeit with rings instead of spirals, and upto five spiral levels. 

My personal view of the above 'image idea' is that it is a sort of 'modern times'-mandala, typical of our contemporary material-scientific worldview and techological culture. Maybe a superstring cartoon, with a wink to Edward Witten's M-theory (superstrings). Keep smiling.
 
My guess is that Steiner would have said that this 'image idea' is a true reflection of our deeply materialistic age. Indeed in my humble opinion it is so 'spacy' that it can only be considered seriously by people who have no experience with meditation, and could not even have been conceived by people who have experience meditating beyond Vacancy of Mind (='no thoughts').
Steiner actually comments on this in his lecture of 1922-12-17 (Lecture 6 of Man and the World of the Stars):

• Time plays the most essential role in all these world-pictures. A much less important part is played by Space.
  .. It is not until the age of Galileo, of Copernicus, of Giordano Bruno, that Space actually begins to play its great role in the picture of the universe.
  Even in the Ptolemaic system which admittedly is concerned with Space, Time is a more essential factor than it is in the world-picture familiar to us since the fifteenth century, in which Time actually plays a secondary part. The present distribution of the stars in cosmic space is taken as the start­ing-point and through calculation conclusions are reached as to what the world-picture was like in earlier times. But the conception of Space, the spatial world-picture, becomes of chief importance. And the result is that all human judgments are based on the principle of Space. Modern man has elabo­rated this element of Space in his external world-picture, elaborated it too in all his thinking. And today this thinking in terms of Space has reached its zenith.
  
  Think how difficult it is for a man of the present day to follow an exposition purely of Time. He is happy if Space is brought in at least to the extent of drawing something on the blackboard. But if the feeling of Space is conveyed by means of photographs, then the modern man is verily in his element ! "Illustration"—and by this he means expression in terms of Space—is what man of today strives to achieve in every exposition.Time, inasmuch as it is in perpetual flow, has become something that causes him discomfort. He still attaches value to it in music ; but even there the tendency towards the spatial is quite evident.

• We need only consider something that has become a definite feature of modern life and this mania of modern man to cleave to the spatial is at once apparent. In the cinema he is utterly indifferent to the element of Time in the picture. He is content with the merest fraction of the Time element and is entirely given up to the element of Space.
  This orientation of the soul to the spatial is very charac­teristic of the present time and whoever observes modern culture and civilization with open eyes will find it everywhere.

• On the other hand, in anthroposophical Spiritual Science we are striving, as you know, to get away from the spatial. To be sure, we meet the desire for it in that we too try to give tangible form to the spiritual, and that is justifiable in order to strengthen the faculty of ideation. Only we must always be conscious that this is purely a means of illustration and that what is essential is to strive, at least to strive, to transcend the spatial.

• Space 'devotees' among us often cause difficulties by mak­ing diagrams of the consecutive epochs of Time, writing "First Epoch with Sub-Epochs," and so on. Then follow a great many captions and what is sequential in Time is dragged into a spatial picture.
  Our aim, however, is to transcend the spatial. We are striving to penetrate into the temporal and also into the super-temporal, into the element that leads beyond what is physically perceptible. The physically perceptible exists in its crudest form in the world of Space and there thought is led in a certain direction.   

6 – By the way and on the side

Now we're on the subject, there are other symbolic presentations that evoque something of a Cosmic Fractal nature, even if they don't have anything to do with an Occult Atom.
The example below is by Patrick Mulcahy, an Australian astrologer who studies the Sepher Yetzirah, and who calls this Jacob'sWheel: (PS: as ever, right click image and open in new tab to enlarge)

Note the implicit spiral nature (returning to itself after one cycle) and the structurally embedded threefoldness and seven-phasedness. Patrick Mulcahy regards this a cycle generator.

Now imagine not the green-blue-yellow spiraling form, but instead imagine that the seven spokes each consist of three spheres (with their own dynamic). Such view may convey graphically a threefoldedness (the three triads in the spirial hierarchies that make up our reality) in a seven-phased system. 

7 – The symbol of the Spiral

In fact, we may say that Steiner offered us kind of a graphical symbolic image also.

Below is as how we drew it in his Notebook: 'Man and the world are a spiral movement'

In the lecture of  1921-10-09 he describes it as follows :

• Regarding the human being we can group past, present, and future together symbolically by saying:

- the past (see drawing, blue) comes in this direction, circling into our present spirituality;

- out of our spirituality rays forth our soul element (bright) in thinking, feeling, and willing:

  - the thinking separates, as it were, the physical body from the etheric body;
    the feeling separates the etheric body from the astral body;
    the willing separates the astral body from the I.

- It may be said that everything is developing in a seed-like way for the future in order to form new realms (red).

• We thus can put into our diagram here the various hierarchies who take an interest in us as forming part of this spiral, and we have in the picture this human vortex which as it swirls together in the center, forms the present experiences of the human being in the soul element.

Steiner also describes the spiral as a symbol in other lectures such as 1907-09-16 (seals of the apocalypse of St John)

8 – Conclusion

To conclude this section, so I don't have to say it, let me make my point by quoting someone (RS) who can say it much better and who has, I believe, some authority in these matters:

1923-08-31:

• When in any sphere men are given nothing but pictures, they are hemmed in by them. Persons who practise a wrong kind of occultism do this with a student they are not sure of, and by this means they lead him into what is called “occult imprisonment”.
  He is then encircled by confusing pictures from which there is no escape — a veritable prison of pictures. That is how much occult harm has been practised, and is still practised to-day.
  There are even spiritual beings who drive certain people into this occult captivity; but for the soul the phenomenon is just the same. These spiritual beings are let loose in nature when nature is not understood spiritually, but viewed as though atomic processes were part of nature. The spirit in nature is thus denied. Those spirits who are always striving to work against man — the Ahrimanic spirits — then become active in nature, encompassing man with pictures of every kind, so that in this case, too, human beings are occultly imprisoned.
  A great part of what today is called the scientific outlook — not the facts of science, for they can be relied on — consists of nothing else than pictures of the general occult captivity threatening to overtake mankind. The danger lies in the surrounding of people everywhere with atomistic and molecular pictures. It is impossible, when surrounded by such pictures, to look at those of the free spirit and the stars; for the atomistic picture of the world is like a wall around man's soul — the spiritual wall of a prison house.

With this we want to close and move to what Steiner described as the Occult Atom, as a building block in our explorations on the Cosmic Fractal.

The second lawfulness

The title of this post will and can only become clear after reading the whole story. It could also have been 'Going full circle on the heart .. with double spirals and lambda in the center'. As I already had such strange blogpost titles before I thought .. why not continue' and make it typical here to have a short and a long title. Maybe one way to arouse an interest to read the complete post and discover the story and reason for the title.


0. Introduction

0.1 - Intro

This post has become a little long and not so light (also slow to edit online). Therefore I have created a PDF version which I will append here shortly. The reason this became allmost the length of an essay, is that we will go into not-so-obvious territory: how to conceive what is meant by 'Maya'. In other words, we will take a step back to consider our physical material spacetime reality experience itself, and how it is generated - first of all, that is 'working upwards' from the physical - out of the etheric.

0.2  - Scope

The scope is about the etheric life force and its dynamics. It represents a second chapter of laws, besides classical physics - which only describes the mineral kingdom of physical matter.

The foundational work for this is projective geometry and the concept of counterspace.

This post covers the historical aspect of the scientific developments, a broader context of sources and pointers to this new science, a link to initiation and the human consciousness experience of the etheric, and references to key literature.


0.3 - Keywords

• heart - Maya
• spiral - vortex - gunas
• Maya - etheric - form - formative forces - the element 'water'
• counterspace - projective geometry - lambda
• anthroposophy - Steiner - Yeats - Walter Russell - Harrison
• hermetics - Bardon

0.4 - Flow structure of this blogpost

Given its length, I first want to give an overview of the process and the story flow for this post. The idea is that we start with one puzzle piece, than add others, and lay these out so that at the end the puzzle falls together and you will see the image - in our case an insight - appear.

1. I start by taking a concrete object, namely the human heart. Just as in the previous post, we will consider a Steiner lecture reference which offers a clue, .. a slightly cryptic, intriguing 'key' for us to follow and investigate.
   The lecture is actually the same 1920-05-14 from the Hieroglyph cycle that we referenced in our previous post, whereby he paints an image of how the heart is formed out of two 'colliding spiritual wavefronts' (for lack of a better coined term).
2. Then, I propose to take three other lectures that stand out in some way: all of them are intriguing in some way, and we will see on our journey they will turn out to be  related. So in total we take four lecture extracts into consideration.
   The commonality is that these extracts all talk about how we can envision physical matter to be generated by, and/or related to, the spiritual reality. So their interrelationship is thematic, even though maybe unclear or a bit cryptic .. if we follow these 'keys' we come onto new territory .. and some potential answers.
3. As a third step, we will zoom out and expand our view to broaden the horizon of inspiration. I will introduce extracts from (again) Harrison, but also Walter Russell, and poets such as William Butler Yeats and William Blake.
   Whereas Harrison's six lectures precede Steiner, Russell and Yeats both wrote an intriguing work in 1925 and 1926 after what they called 'visionary enlightement'.
   Russell being more scientific-like, Yeats of course was a poet. The works from which I'll quote have intrigued people for decades.
   To conclude, I will complement this with a fourth source from the Indian esoteric culture, the principle of the gunas (covered by many sources, including Steiner.)
   Again, as in step two, you will see there is a 'commonality of theme' connecting these sources: all talk about of double spirals as somehow underlying our current reality.
4. Only now that you will have been incubated into/with the above, is it time to go back to Steiner and how he covers the relation between spiritual and physical reality. Specifically, we will take a quick snapshot from the second and third scientific courses, Warmth and Astronomy, of 1920 and 1921. We will do so by keeping in mind another quote from the Hieroglyph lecture on 'gegenraum' or 'counterspace'.
5. After this whole journey, we will be ready to connect the dots and see how projective geometry offers the key across all the above.
   The man who puts the puzzle together for us is Lawrence Edwards, who was building on the work of, and could benefit from getting inspired directly by, the brilliant conceptual/mathematical thinker George Adams (who was a contemporary of and well connected to Steiner).
   Adams and Edwards spent decades, and actually their whole life, to do ground breaking work showing how projective geometry offers the key to explaining the form variety in nature, including spirals. Simply put, Edwards was able to show how the planetary influences account for bud formation, and other forms in nature.
   And, and here we come full circle: he also studied the human heart.
   So we will have come full circle: we started with the human heart (clue or cryptic 'key' in Steiner lecture) and we end with the human heart.

Sidenote - suggestion to the reader, on process:

• It is important to appreciate that, as a novice, there is a base understanding one has to build up by digesting these lectures, in order to be able to 'take in' how the themes in the previous posts hang together.
  With 'digesting' I mean it is not just about reading (the extracts in this blogpost).
  It is possible to spent months reading and meditating on what is offered here. So please do not think it is as obvious to just read this web page and thereby take a logical step using normal rational thinking.
  What I mean is if you have a genuine deeper will to try and gain an understanding, you may connect - through these lectures - to influxes of intuitive insight that will happen to you as you launch yourself into the process. But the process is build upon the desire and will for understanding. It is not entertainment by 'just' reading words consisting of characters.
  All this as an aside, the least I can do is try my best to present the material for you as clues .. so here goes.

1. The 'key' about the formation of the human heart 

To introduce the core or central theme of this post, an extract from this Hieroglyph lecture 14 of 1920-05-14, where Steiner describes how the form of the human heart is the result of the interaction of two opposing flows.

Again, we call this a 'key' because it is where we will start our investigation which will take us on a journey on our quest for understanding and progressive insight.

It is advised to read this lecture completely in order to understand the importance of the extract below, as it follows the explanation of the cosmic breathing cycles with which we covered in our previous post on Cosmic Fractal.

• "Here lies the cosmic aspect of something tremendously significant in regard to the understanding of Man and the Universe.  ...  Everywhere the events that happen are explainable through the union of two streams, arising from different sources."

• "Here, let us say, a certain movement occurs (arrow pointing downwards), i.e. a flow takes place with a certain velocity; and the stream then fuses with another stream — it must be assumed that the other flow is going not in the same but in the opposite direction (arrow upwards). The two streams flow therefore into one another. Or .. imagine a wind whirling with a certain velocity from above downwards, and another from below upwards, and they whirl into one another. If we take the difference of velocity between the downward and the upward current, relating the latter to the former in such a way that a difference in velocity results bearing the same relationship as the difference in velocity between the stellar time and the solar time, then through the rotation a condensation arises which receives its own distinct form. One whirls downwards, and because the other whirls upwards driving with a greater velocity, the lesser velocity would be that driving downwards, which gives here (see diagram) through the collision, a condensation, a certain figure. This figure, disregarding imperfections, is a silhouette of the human heart.
• Thus, through the meeting of the Lucifer stream (ed: Sun) and the Jehovah stream (ed: speed of moon and stars), it is possible to construct exactly the figure of the human heart. It is constructed simply out of the revelations of the Universe. The Sun-movement is an expression of a slower movement which meets a quicker movement, and we are so inserted into the two movements that the silhouette of our heart arises; and on to it the rest of the human form is fitted". 

and he continues:

• Here we see the gradual divergence of the solar and the stellar astronomy. As we have seen, if we have one astronomy only, everything falls into confusion. We can only reach a right understanding if, not limited to one astronomy, we say: On the one hand we have the starry system which, in a certain respect, contains within it the Moon; and on the other, the system to which the Sun belongs. They mutually interpenetrate. They work together. But we are wrong if we apply the same law to the two.
• When we realise that we have two quite different astronomies, we shall say: The cosmic happenings in which we are involved have two origins, but we are so placed that these two streams flow together in us. They fuse in us human beings.

PS:
- in lecture 12 of 1920-05-08 the difference is speed between Sun and Moon is covered

So bottom line: Steiner sketches us, for our imagination:

• two whirling flows in opposition, one upward and one downward, with difference velocities .. as the key to condensation of matter or the formation of form
• a key point that Steiner keeps coming back to in many lectures, is the difference in velocity between the different spiritual influences such as in this case the sun, moon and stars. This can be done by using the language of the spheres (Sun, Moon, ..), symbolic spiritual nomenclature (Jehovah, Lucifer, ..), or referring to the influences they represent (streams, or what we called 'wavefronts' - more on this later).
  And also in many lectures he explains how the influence of Sun and Moon is modulated by the planets.

As the above is such a key topic in Steiner's lectures, we add the rephrased version (as the 'Lucifer-Jehovah' topic) from the above lecture 14 of 1920-05-14 where he summarizes as follows:

• it is Jehovah who brings it about that the sun lingers behind the stars and, with the force which the Sun thus kept back, He fashioned the human form, which is His earthly image.
  Thus, mark well, the stars run their course quickly, the Sun more slowly, and so a slight difference arises which, according to these ancient Mysteries, was that which produced the human form.
  Man is born out of time, he is so born that he owes his existence to the difference in velocity between the cosmic day of the stars and the cosmic day of the Sun.

For more background reading on the Lucifer-Jehovah topic, we refer to the lecture of 1912-04-14 which gives a pretty comprehensive explanation; although this topic is so essential that it is covered in very many cycles and lectures, especially early ones of 1905-1908.

2. Three more lectures

In this section I want to concatenate three more lectures with the above. We could denote the commonality of theme to be 'physical matter and its connection to spiritual 'wavefronts', or etheric streams.

These lectures provide building blocks: Steiner offers some keys, some elements of the puzzle, towards seeing how our current physical reality experience fits into the ocean of spiritual consciousness energy which is the cosmos.
  (I) - In his lecture of 1911-12-30, really worth reading, see the section before and after Diagram 3, Steiner describes how we can see physical matter as the final part of a wave that has ran out of spiritual energy, like a wave that crashes at the shore. Once more (my rephrasing, see the image below):

.. a spiritual energy wave breaks down into matter .. like we see on the beach a wave exhausted, break on the shore.

And also, how everything we observe and experience with our senses in the physical world, in 'maya', is but the expression of the spiritual 'behind'.

• "and now we must at the same time bear in mind that not only we ourselves but all outer objects that come to meet us, and of which we are aware in the outer world by means of our senses, are nothing less than an external expression of an inner spiritual. Behind every external material thing in space we have to look for something similar in kind to what lives in our own soul. Only, of course, we do not encounter it with the outer senses; it is behind what the outer senses offer."
• "So wherever we see matter we can say: Behind this matter lies a supersensible, which has come to the limit of its activity and there split up. But before it split up it still had — inwardly and spiritually — form. And when it shattered the spiritual form went on working in the separate scattered ruins. Where it works strongly, then, after the breaking and scattering, the lines of the spiritual forms continue, and in the lines they then describe we can still trace an after-working of the spiritual lines. There you have the origin of crystals. Crystals are reproductions of spiritual forms which through their own impetus still kept their original direction but in the opposite sense." 

As a parenthesis, on elementary particle research: it is interesting for someone like myself, having studied (oa quantum and nuclear) physics, to find the connection with something I sensed and read before, namely that scientists are not discovering elementary particles, but in a way creating them. In the following lecture by Georg Unger in 1978, he discusses the Occult Atom and comments on the above Steiner lecture:

• "The atoms of the 19th century are products of the thought world, but the 20th century provides actual particles. From where do they come? — From the splitting of the spirit, which would become matter; or, as expressed in the lecture “The World of Senses and the World of Spirit” from the tearing asunder of the spirit. There is in this lecture a drawing which shows a ray, a vortex, and there where it tears the spirit asunder, arises matter. Now I would say — and this is my own imagination — that it is also just there that the “future” particles originate.
  I offer a comparison: when you have a piece of glass, and you shatter it with a hammer, then you have splinters. Now comes the question: is the glass, before you hit it, made up of splinters? In a certain sense, yes, — but of course it would be utter nonsense to assert that the glass “consists” of splinters. Yet there are in trains and in some cars, window panes made out of safety glass, and one can see an inner pattern using Polaroid glasses. (They have certain Stresses, which influence the reflection of the light.) You thus see the future particles into which the glass will shatter, so that in the event of an accident there would not be many long and dangerous splinters. One can see the future splinters, the future particles of glass; and in like manner can one see in crystalline matter, through X-rays and the like, the future particles, or atoms. Thus one can proceed as if they were actually there. In this sense we have “naive products of our thought world.”

(II) - This concept is used in his lecture of 1912-04-08 to describe how we have to see the physical planets in our solar system in relationship to the spiritual spheres.

 

Note: This lecture clarifies the notion between planetary symbols connecting a) on the one hand, the spiritual communities at other levels of development than ours, and b) on the other hand, the physical planets. As we first learn about the planetary names and symbols in the context of the physical planets, it may at first be confusing how they relate to spiritual spheres and influences.

 

He explains how the physical planet emerges at the boundary of two opposing spiritual influences.

 

Here's an extract for reference:

• Let us suppose that we had at point S the centre-point of the spiritual Council of the Spirits of Form; the Spirit of Form working upon Saturn would call forth this etheric globe, so that by the agency of this Spirit of Form a flattened globe would arise, as in the diagram. At an outermost point of this etheric globe, in opposition to the Spirit of Form working from the centre of the Sun works the rebel, the Luciferic Spirit of Form. He works from without inwards; opposingly. Thus we have the normal Spirit of Form working outwards from the Sun, centrifugally; he brings about the occult Saturn, which is then to he seen as a mighty etheric globe with its centre-point in the Sun. At the periphery, working inwards from cosmic space, is an abnormal Spirit of Form who has cut himself off from the normal evolution of the others; and at point (a) through the combined working of the forces working inwards from cosmic space, and those others working outwards from the sun, there occurs an “inturning,” which finally becomes detached, and that is the physical planet Saturn.
  Thus we have to imagine that where our physical eyes ace the planet Saturn, there are two forces working together; the one, the, normal force of the Spirit of Form working outward from the Sun; and at a definite point in opposition works the detached Spirit of Form. This produces an “in-turned” structure; the ether is notched, and this notch appears to the physical eye as the physical planet Saturn. 
  Just the same occurs with the physical Jupiter, and with the physical Mars. Hence, by this example you see how in individual cases there actually arises what we call “maya,” the great illusion. Where physical astronomy places a planet, there is in truth a combined working of two forces; and only because, in truth, a great and mighty etheric heavenly body is there, which, through the contact of these opposing forces, is dented in and has a notch formed in one place, does the appearance of the physical planet arise. 
  For in truth here we have actually to do with a turning in, and to be really accurate the matter must in the first place be described as the figure.
  The Spirits of form working from the Sun extended the etheric substance to a certain distance; there worked the abnormal Spirits of Form in opposition, and caved the substance in, so that in reality a hollow was made in the etheric substance. As regards the original etheric substance of the planet, where the physical eye believes it sees the planet — there is really nothing; the actual planet is where the physical eye sees nothing. That is the peculiarity of “maya.” Where the physical planet is seen, there is a hollow. It may perhaps be said: “It is a very strange idea that where the physical planet is to be seen, there is a hollow,” for you will ask about our Earth. In the sense of what has been expounded, our Earth must also be a sort of flattened ball having its central point in the Sun, and it must also be such a notch, such a sort of hollow on the outermost rim. “A fine thing that!” you can say, “We know quite well that we are walking on firm, solid earth. In like manner we might take for granted that where Saturn, Jupiter or Mars are, there would naturally have to be solid filling, not hollow. And nevertheless where you walk about on our Earth — where, in the sense of Maya-perception you believe yourselves to be walking on solid, firm ground — even then, in reality, you are walking about on a hollow. Our Earth itself, in so far as it is an accumulation of matter, is a hollow in cosmic space, something bored into cosmic space. All physical matter comes into being through the meeting together of forces coming from the Spirits of Form. In this case we have the meeting of the forces of the normal Spirits of Form and those of the abnormal Spirits of Form. They collide with one another and in reality an indentation is produced and consequently at this point a simultaneous breaking up of the form, but only of the form. The form breaks up and this hollow space is bored. Now broken spiritual form, crushed form, is in reality matter. In a physical sense matter only exists when spiritual forms are broken up. Thus the planets out there are also broken-up forms.

Interpretation: just consider the picture above once more: we see the spherical form of a physical planetary body, embedded in a broader sphere of spiritual influences. We appreciate this is all just symbolic 'presentation-ware', that is: a simple conceptual drawing to explain a more complex reality.

What strikes us now is that, when we think of the time it takes for a planet to orbit, we are hereby describing a characteristic of the spiritual mechanism, like (to use a metaphor from mathematics) an  eigenvalue or characteristic value for the cyclic pattern. And we are not far or thinking astrological influences of the spheres. 

(III) - The last of the three extra lectures is an early one, in which Steiner describes 'matter disappearing and popping up again'. The following extract is from Steiner's lecture on 1909-04-18. This is the tenth lecture of the series on Spiritual Hierarchies. It is worth reading the ninth and then the tenth, as the quote below comes in the context of that buildup between both lectures.

• "The first observation I have to make is difficult, perhaps even almost impossible of comprehension by the consciousness of the present day; but it is good to know that something of the sort exists. It is the question: in what way do these planetary formations really disappear again. ... Let us now consider this further development of matter, and with this I am touching on what I said will perhaps be impossible for you to understand with the comprehension of the present day.
  It is a fact that the earth is continually contracting, hence matter tends towards the centre from all sides. And now I say — be it understood consciously, not only fully conscious of the law of the conservation of force, but also fully conscious of facts known to every occultist — I say: Matter draws together more and more towards a centre, and the strange thing is that in that centre matter disappears.
  Imagine that you have a piece of something which contracts more and more towards its centre. In its centre it disappears. It does not get pushed over to its other side, it absolutely disappears into nothing in its own central point. So that you can imagine to yourselves that, as the material parts contract towards the centre, the whole of the earth will some day disappear in that central point. But this is not all: in the same measure in which it disappears in the central point, it reappears again in the circumference. Out there in space it is coming back again. At one point in space matter disappears and emerges again at another. Out there it is coming forth anew. The substance disappears in one place and from outside it returns again. But it returns in such a way that it brings back with it all that the beings who have worked on the planets have imprinted on its substance; naturally not in its present form, but in a form which this transformation has given to it.
  ...
  A we said before, all this is extremely difficult for the modern mind to understand, because it is in the habit of considering matter only, and because it is not in the habit of conceiving that outside of three dimensional space matter can disappear and re-appear at another place after it has passed through other dimensions. You cannot grasp this so long as your ideas remain in the space of three dimensions; for this goes beyond the three dimensions. Therefore, it cannot be seen until it returns again from the other side into the space of three dimensions. In the meantime, it is in other dimensions.
  It is a thing which we have to grasp; for the conditions of our world's origin have manifold connections, and something which is to be found in some one place may often have a complicated connection with something else which is in quite a different place outside three dimensional space."

In summary now once more the initial plus three extra lectures integrated into a different sequence, with the key messages freely rephrased in summary:

• (I) - lecture of 1911-12-30:
  physical matter as a wave of spiritual energy, exhausted, crashing on the shore .. is how everything we observe and experience with our senses in the physical world, in 'maya', is but the expression of the spiritual 'behind'

• (II) - lecture of 1912-04-08: physical planets as 'maya', the great illusion, in relationship to the spiritual spheres. The appearance of the physical planet is there due to the collision of two opposing spiritual forces: at the point of collision the spiritual form breaks up and this crushed form is physical matter.
• (III) - lecture of 1920-05-14:
  As two opposing flows collide thet whirl into another, the result created has the form of the human heart. In this case the two flows are the movement of the stars/zodiac, and the sun .. related to the great cosmic breathing rhythms. Everywhere, everything is explainable through the union of two streams, arising from different sources.
• (IV) - lecture of 1909-04-18:To understand the physical material, we have to see it in context that threedimensional space is embedded in higher dimensions. Matter contracts and draws together more and more towards a centre, and in that centre it disappears into its own central point. Then, in the same measure in which it disappears in the central point, it reappears again in the circumference. Some day this will happen for the whole of the earth. Matter can disappear and re-appear at another place after it has passed through other dimensions.

PS: note as an extra maybe add references to 'the sun as negative space' as it links to counterspace and suction.

3. Harrison, Yeats, Russell, and the gunas

On our tour, we will complement Steiner's lectures with an variety of interesting sources from before and after Steiner's time. So we will discuss the double vortices a.o. in the work of C.G. Harrison (lectures, 1893), William Butler Yeats (A Vision, 1925), and Walter Russell (1926, 1947, 1953). As you will see there are good reasons for this section at this point. 

3.1 The amazing Harrison lectures

Before going any further, we want to let the above 'sink in' by going back in time some twenty years before Steiner held the above lectures.

Let's move to the fifth lecture given early 1893 by Charles George Harrison (aged 38 at that time), a series of six (very densely written) lectures bundled and published as 'The Transcendental Universe' in 1894. Although allmost nothing is known of Harrison, his lectures are brought from a level and depth of insight similar of Steiner's.

This fifth lecture connects with Steiner's lectures in which he describes two spiritual wavefronts from which matters emerges. These wavefronts are not material, in fact the process describes how matter comes into existance, or rather: how it is 'held together' in threedimensional space as the outcome of a (higher-dimensional, for sake of a better term) spiritual non-material process. So the term 'wavefronts' is purely meant metaphorically here. 

You will see that Harrison's explanations have something of a mechanical-dynamical flavour, even if all immaterial of course .. as he explains the evolutionary principle, incl maya and the forces of so-called good and evil, in a language of dynamics, with speed of evolution.

Because the way of how the lectures are written, I have included some comments in Italic that hopefully help to make sense of what is meant. Some extracts follow below.

In lecture 2 (page 95) he mentions three key laws, and law number three as: "all phenomena have their origin in vortices" and describes that 'all phenomena are the result of vortical action'.

In Lecture 5 (p. 139-140) he gives the 'law of the double vortex, or lemniscate'

• (extracts from p 139-141) .. the larger curve symbolizing the macrocosm, and the smaller the microcosm. How is this figure produced? It is the result of three forces.
  Each coil is composed of a series spirals, representing - in their turn - the elements in the developing process whereby the noumenal becomes the phenomenal. ... The point of intersection corresponds to the will, or the middle principle between the higher and lower nature,  ... the ascending Dhyanis of the former period complete their evolution under the law of acceleration, whereas the Dhyanis who manifest as the Powers of Light are on the descending arc of their cycle, and are subject to the law of retardation Accordingly, the vortices which respectively represent their actvities are of unequal velocity.

• (page 141) .. "Let us first consider what is called 'torsion of impact', or the effect produced when two vortices meet whose axes impinge at an angle. If the medium of the two be of equal density, and their velocity be also equal, they coalesce and form a paraboic figure .. but if their velocity be not equal, they form two conical spheroids revolving in opposite directions, corresponding to the figure 8 which we have selected as the symbol of man's evolution. "(editor: repeated once more here: when two vortices meet whose axes impinge (collide) at an angle, and whose velocities are not equal, they form two conical spheroids revolving in opposite directions)

and a bit further:

• (p 144) .."The descent into matter is at the time that the vortexes manifested in macrocosmos in the mineral kingdom, causing a projection into space of a portion of the fourth globe"
  

  (editor: the fourth planetary incarnation round. That the vortexes manifested in the mineral kingdom means we are talking about physical matter, as the lowest form of energy)
• (p 144) .. "Let us be very careful to remember that this is a projection in space, and in no way affects the shape of the symbolic lemniscate, for it takes place at the point of intersection. "(editor: implying that the lemniscate is higher-dimensional or spiritual, and space is what manifests at the point of intersection of the vortexes, see below .. the lemniscate is symbolic of a vortex movement of spiritual energy)
• "The centrifugal and centripetal forces which give birth to the spirals of which the figure is composed are not on the physical plane, and only touch it at that point"(editor: this is consistent with Steiner 1909-04-18 saying that matter appears, disappears and reappears via 'higher dimensions')(Note: this seems to say that matter appears at the focal point of both spirals, in the middle of the lemniscate .. interestingly this evoques a parallel with the three Gunas - see below: one spiral creating being the Fire principle, another spiral destruction being the Water principle, and the middle one connecting both as an intermediary medium being the Air principle .. from which the fourth element Earth or physical matter gets created.
  

  When we assume this point of view, it is clear that there are always the four elements in everything we can imagine in physical reality .. as physical reality is really in the focal point, an intrinsic part of a system that gets generated and sustained, which really consists of the three other principles)
• (p144-145) "The spirals which represent his lower principles converge toward, and those which represent his higher diverge from, this point, and are respectively above and below the physical plane, for as above stated, the conical spheroids, resulting from the impact of two vortices of unequal velocity, revolve in opposite direction"(editor: note again unequal velocity) 

and:

• "The faculty by which man comes into relation with the material (or illusory) world and is able to govern in this environment based on his will, is, consequently, itself an illusion. Man's will is free in the sense that the physical world is real, and in no other.
  This descent into matter, or axidal coincidence of the macrocosm and microcosm, when the former had arrived at its fourth, (or mineral) stage, therefore, took place in equilibrio between the two globes - (the earth and the moon) the seperation of which, in the mineral kingdom, resulted from the impact of the two vortices .." (editor:the separation of the moon is described here)

He explains that everything is 'manifesting on the plane of illusion, and that this is due to the axidal opposition of the two vortices and will disappear when their axis coincide'. In other words (-as he wants to in this lecture(s) correct a statement by R.S. Sinnott about the eight sphere -), he homes in on the further evolution of the physical planet Earth:

'the anomaly of the double vortex will disappear under the law of acceleration'.

3.2 A poet's mystical vision

Now it has become clear why we take this journey in step 3, as Harrison is quite obviously talking about the same principle as Steiner in the Hieroglyph lecture .. let's move on to sources from a very different nature.

The first is one of the great poets of recent times, the Irish symbolist poet William Butler Yeats (or in short WBY, 1865-1939). Athough he was  very successfull as in being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and seating in the Senate, he also experimented with automatic writing. For background, WBY married the young (she was 25 and he was 52) Georgie Hyde-Lees (or 'George'), who began automatic writing during their honeymoon. This fascinated WBY and they started experimenting together. As wikipedia mentions:

• 'George contacted spirits and guides they called 'instructors', and these communicated a complex esoteric system .. Yeats devoted much time to preparing this material for publication as 'A vision' in 1925.'

Needless to say this book has intrigued many. An example of such person that I was in touch with is Bob Makransky, who documented his approach to A Vision in his recent book 'The Great Wheel'

The best way to introduce Yeat's concept of the double gyres is to refer to this page.

Besides the double gyre he also introduces the hourglass or diamond.

I will not copy the relevant extract, but please read this linked page before reading further here.

• ".. he pictured reality as a great egg laid by the Phoenix, and that this egg turns inside out perpetually without breaking its shell" (W.B. Yeats. A Vision)

Interestingly, Yeats uses the same concept of double gyres as the base building block to describe cycles of history, see this page for more info on the Great (platonic) Year

and it's twelve phases.

And, actually Yeats is not the only poet who depicts the vortex as a cosmic symbol.

More than a century before, we quote the great William Blake (1757-1827) who, in his world famous work Milton (written in the period 1804-1811), writes as follows:

• The nature of infinity is this: That everything has its Own vortex,
  and when once a traveller thro' Eternity Has pass'd that Vortex,
  he perceives it roll backward behind His path, into a globe itself unfolding like a sun...Thus is the heaven a vortex pass'd already, and the earthA vortex not yet pass'd by the traveller thro' Eternity

It is the multitude of such occurrences that inspired Jill Purce (°1947) to write her book The Mystic Spiral at age 27 in 1974, in which she writes:

• "The spherical vortex, spiralling through its own centre 
  is perpetually turning in on itself, expanding and contracting, 
  and has an interchangeable centre and circumference, 
  it combines the inward and outward direction of movement 
  and has neither beginning or end
  it is the stable form of flow created in water and air.

and:

• Such spiral has some remarkable properties. It both comes from and returns to its source; it is a continuum whose ends are opposite and yet the same; and it demonstrates the cycles of change within the continuum and the alternation of the polarities of each cycle. It embodies the principles of expansion and contraction, through change of velocity, and the potential for simultaneous movement in either direction towards its two extremities. On the spherical vortex these extremities, the center and periphery, flow into each other; essentially they are interchangeable.

And as this is the poetic section of this post, maybe we can throw in some illustrations to the above ideas of Yeats and Purce.

             

3.3 - Alone in the desert .. Walter Russell

The work of Walter Russell (1871-1963, see his wiki page) is known to relatively few people, and hardly understood or appreciated in today's 'scientific' world.

For an introduction to the person, see the nice booklet by Glenn Clark called

'The man who tapped the secrets of the universe'. I would really recommend to go to the wiki page and read this concise but inspiring booklet to gain an appreciation of Russell as a special person and true polymath: he was not just the author of a unified theory of physics and cosmogony but also a painter, sculptor, philosopher, etc.

In 1926 Russell wrote his first major work 'The Universal One' after a period of visionary enlightenment or intuitive insight. Now the book, or his work in general, is not exactly easy to read. Writing style and terminology, but also his particular scientific approach are rather demanding: one has to be willing and able to read over and through all this by true study - intuitive beyond purely intellectual - in order to grasp the theoretical framework that he lays out.

In a later phase of his life he also wrote The Secret of Light (1947) and A New Concept of the Universe (1953), as well as a Home Study Course in the same period (1950-52). 

Note that although Russell refined his language and descriptions over the decades, the framework he lays out is overall very consistent. To ease the entry, several people have written introductions and notes to the work of Walter Russell. (such as this one here)

3.3.1 - In the 1926 work 'The Universal One', in Chapter 8, he talks about the universal pulse, that all motion is oscillatory. The cosmic clock winds itself toward solidity into the appearance of physical form, and then unwinding itself toward nebulosity into dissapearance of form. An orderly and periodic process. 

In Chapter 8 he defines the 'sex principle' as follows:

• "sex is the apparent division of the father mother substance of Mind into apparent opposites" .. "the basic building block of duality .. the active desire of Mind for division into opposites, and its reactive desire for unity" ..

In chapter 13 (p 149 and on, see also p. 153) he expands.

The image below illustrates how .. "mass is accumulated around a vortex, a vortex is formed by the contraction of the axes of two opposing cones of energy, the greater the contraction the greater the acceleration of motion within the vortex"

3.3.2 - If we move on to the 1947 book 'The Secret of Light' (edition 1994)

In Part III, the magneto-electric universe, we read:

• "Two-way sex-conditioned spirals  are the consummate individuals of all Creation."
  (editor: with sex he means 'bipolar', see above)
  

  The figure below (fig. 52-53) illustrate  atomic systems forming.

and:

• "The inside-out outside-in turnings of all creating forms is due to the gradual unfolding-refolding principle of Nature. This process is controlled by spiral pairs which are motivated by still centering shafts of magnetic light. Opposed pairs of spirals gradually expand centrifugally to planes meeting at static equators to complete the unfolding half of a cycle. They then contract as the opposite of what they were to complete the other half. During the entire journey they continue without reversal of direction. A clockwise spiral is always a clockwise spiral during its entire centripetal journey to its apex and its centrifugal journey to its base. The opposed pair which rotate upon the same shaft are anticlockwise, for both are projected through each other.

The characteristic unfolding-refolding inside-out outside-in principle of Nature causes the disintegration at equators. Matter integrates by the contraction of one pair of spirals around the shafts which wind it into spheres by the way of their poles, and disintegrates it by the expansion of the other pair which unwind it by way of equators.The pair of spirals which wind light waves into spheres continue that winding until holes are bored through spheres and rings are formed, aided by the centrifgual force exerted by the expansion of the opposing spirals. Rings are the 'death' half of the cycles of spheres. Rings recondense around points in space and rewind as spheres."

The figure (fig 55) illustrates the shaft of a physical planet such as earth.

• "Two-way sex-conditioned (editor: with sex he means 'bipolar') spirals are the consummate individuals of all Creation. They condition all bodies with the condition of their bodies. They unfold all idea from stillness of Mind-knowing into moving form of Mind-imagining and refold it into the stillness of Mind-knowing. They are the electric workers which fulfull desire of Mind by interweaving threads of light into patterned forms and recording those patterned forms in the still Light which centers every spiral pair, as the axis of a cone centers the cone.
  The one centering axis of both spirals is the shaft upon which the dynamic universe rotates. All motion rotates and revolves upon still centering shafts, and all shafts are two-way extension of points which lead to and through centers of spheres.
  The familiar wave line which records all effects of motion controls these effects."

Fig 60 below: direction of spiral motion never reverses

3.3.3 - In the 1953 book 'A new concept of the universe', In Chapter 13 (p. 38-39)

Here Russell states:

'All motion in this polarized radial universe is curved, and all curvature is spiral.

Every body is the result of the exertion of two opposing strains which thrust away from eachother in oppostie radial directions to condition its attributes and determine its motion

Every body is perpetually in motion until the strains of opposition which keep it in motion void each other in the universal zero of rest, into which all bodies disappear for reappearance in reversed polarity'

And in Chapter 15, page 52-53, XV with the title 'Two as-yet-unknown facts of nature',

Walter Russell comments on Newton's laws and in a polite and friendly manner tries to explains how we are missing the point in our limited interpretation of the full extend of Newton's law. As intuitively divined what he expressed in his first law .. 'in may such ways he gives evidence of the mystic in him'. He then proposes to replace Newton's first law.

• '1. Every simultaneous and sequential action-reaction is in reverse of the other, yet Nature never reverses its direction from the instant polarization begins. It then extends its dividing effects in two opposite directions, each the reverse of the other, until both of those extensions are voided in their zero of origin even though they traverse the universe in so doing.
  The illusion of reversal is so convincing that it seems incredible that it is not factual. The inward thrust of gravity is in the reverse direction of the outward thrust of radiation. Clockwise spirals are the reverse of anti-clockwise spirals, yet each is born out of the other without a reversal of direction, even though the effect seems to be in reverse direction.   
• 2. The other characteristic is the strange effect of polarity which causes all actions-reactions in Nature to forever turn inside-out and outside-in. This illusory effect contributes to the simulation of reversal in Nature, giving to Nature the sequence of solid bodies of incadescendent (glowing) suns, surrounded by vacuous (passive) black holes of space surrounded by tenuous (nebulous) rings of what had been incandescent sun.
  Comprehension of this fact will also clarify the illusion which this cosmic cinema really is, and also make understandable why 'anything happening anywhere happens everywhere' 

He then happily concludes (smile) ..

• 'Further clarification of these secrets of the invisible universe would unnecessarily lengthen this treatise, but before passing I will give a new law which is valid in Nature. This new law is as follows:
  3. Every action-reaction in Nature is voided as it occurs, is recorded as it is voided, and repeated as it is recorded. This is a universe of seeming, its seeming reality is but a mirage extended from two zéros upon the blank screen of space to create the illusion of reality in an unreal universe'

About 'recording' .. compare the striking resemblance to Rama Prasad's description in 'The Science of Breath'. In the chapter called 'The cosmic picture gallery' he quotes from the Upanishads (and explains why he uses the word Recorder for the translation from Sanskrit):

• That these truths have found place in the Upanishad may be seen from the following quotation from the Ishopnishat, mantra 4:
  

  "The Atma does not move, is one, is faster than the mind, the senses reach it not, as it is the foremost in motion. It goes beyond the others in rapid motion while itself at rest, in it the Recorder preserves the actions."

Notes

• It's always a bit dangerous to quote paragraphs out of context. Hereby I am just extracting some simple elements for the sake of this post. However please appreciate these are always only some snippets from books of - in this case - 280, 320, and 200 pages .. together some 800 pages of rather difficult study materials.
• For those who consider or doubt whether they want to delve deeper into the above and for who these quotes, and even the books by Russell, appear to be lacking a bit in what is required to take them seriously, I am attaching here a 70+ work document that may help. This document is by an anonymous source who clearly studied Russell's work ànd has a clear and structured mind and way to communicate .. which is refreshing and valuable to have next to the original books.

By now I hope you will find the line-up of sources either interesting, or you have already long stopped reading.

IIn the beginning I said 'fasten seat belts' because Harrison is not an easy read, pretty esoteric .. and Walter Russel is notorious for not being readable, it only makes sense for people who take a deep dive and commit to full study .. so we have to accept these materials are not exactly didactic or typical material for a blog post. In this case the purpose they served was mainly illustrative, and to raise the attention, to show the links.

And to conclude in a spiral mood after Yeat's gyres and Russel's sketches, here's some beautiful esoteric art:

         

This work is by the Swedish mystic and abstract artist Hilma af Klint, Serie VIII, Nr 5 dated March 1920. af Klint met Steiner in 1908, and then again in Dornach in 1920. She stopped painting and attends many of Steiner's lectures, devoting herself to in depth study of anthroposophy in the period 1921-1930.

3.4 The Gunas

3.4.1/ As an introduction, the following quote:

• Sankhya posits an ultimate metaphysical dualism:
• purusha (spirit), which is conscious but inactive and without content, and
• prakriti (matter), which is unconscious and active.
• Purusha neither produces nor is produced; it does, however, “‘entice’ prakriti into activity by ‘dancing before it,’ with the result that prakriti is induced to go from an unmanifest state of pure potentiality into manifestation, pure activ­ity or evolution; as a result the worlds are brought forth

Rephrased as it is so nicely worded:

•  matter is 'enticed' or induced by spirit 'dancing before it' which brings matter from potentiality into manifestation

Now take the pics above, and the concept of spirals (dancing) .. and we can see in our imagination that this is how matter emerges condensed at the end of that crushing wave.

3.4.2/ On 1912-12-29, Steiner covers the fundamental concepts of the Bhagavad Gita and the Skakhya system: Prakriti and Purusha, and the three gunas .. and 'their resonance in Aristotle and their rebirth in Goethe’s color theory'. He also goes into the gunas on 1913-06-05 (The different application of the concepts sattva, rajas, and tamas at the time of the Bhagavad Gita and the present)

• 'These are the three Gunas, which are quite specially important. We must, therefore, distinguish the characteristic of the separate forms of Prakriti. From the highest principle of the undifferentiated primeval substance down to the coarse physical body is the one characteristic, the characteristic of the mere sheath principle. From this we must distinguish what belongs to the Sankhya philosophy in order to characterise the relation of the soul nature to the sheaths, regardless of what the form of the sheath may be. This characteristic is given through the three states Sattva, Rajas, Tamas.
  ...
• Yes, it is true thou seest the world in its external forms, and if thou art permeated with the knowledge of Sankhya thou wilt see how these forms have developed out of the primeval flow: but thou canst also see how one form changes into another. Thy vision can follow the arising and the disappearing of forms, thine eyes see their birth and their death. But if thou considerest thoroughly how one form replaces another, how form after form arises and vanishes, thou art led to consider what is expressed in all these forms; a thorough inquiry will lead thee to the spiritual principle which expresses itself in all these forms; sometimes more according to the Sattva condition, at other times more after the forms of the other Gunas, but which again liberates itself from these forms.
  A thorough consideration such as this will direct thee to something permanent, which, as compared to form, is everlasting. The material principle is indeed also permanent, it remains; but the forms which thou seest, arise and fade away again, pass through birth and death; but the element of the soul and spirit nature remains.

3.4.3/ However 1 and 2 were just as an introduction. A more interesting description for the context of this post we find with Bruce Berger, in his book Esoteric anatomy: the body as consciousness, where covers the work of Dr. Randolph Stone, the founder of polarity theory. The Digital Dr. Stone has put his work online, specifically here's the page on this topic. Some info on bioresonance and the guna's can be found, together with references, on Bruce's page on the topic. He refers to:

• 'The gunas are the three primary principles of motion as sattva, the neutral Air principle, rajas, the positive Fier principle and tamas, the negative Watery  principle. All creation is woven of a fabric of two spirals—centrifugal (rajas), and centripetal (tamas), radiating out of a neutral center (sattva). This polarity process universally forms the underlying structure of all energy fields on every spiraling level of microcosm and macrocosm. 
• All energy throughout nature moves through the Polarity Cycle of positive, negative, and neutral phases. These three principals are the foundation for all movement in nature. All energy in nature is sustained by its attunement through sympathetic vibration with these three elemental harmonics of force. They correspond to the neutral, positive, and negative phases of the evolutionary cycle.
  In Polarity Therapy the resonant frequency of the sattvic, neutral force is termed the Air principle; the wavelength of the positive vibration, rajasic, is termed the Fire principle; and the negative resonance, tamas, sustains the Water Principle. 

• In the Sanatana Dharma (natural law), all phenomena in nature are understood as manifestations of these three archetypes, or “types of arcs.” The wave fronts of these archetypes make up the holomovement which is the sonic foundation underlying the harmony and integration of all nature. Everything in nature takes on its distinctive qualities through its attunement with one or more of these archetypal forces. The predominant resonance defines the qualities of all phenomena. All matter, emotions, mind substance, and energies move by the three modalities of 0 (neuter), + (positive) and - (negative) polarities, called the three gunas.
  Dr. Stone writes:
• This is the cosmic picture of energy modality, demonstrated by the orbits of planets around a central sun. The microcosmic picture we find in the atom and in the cell: A nucleus or neutron in the center, which is the “satguna” type of energy;
  - the “rajaguna” energy, which is a positive, centrifugal energy of heat and expansion, flying upward and to the right, with a repelling quality in its red fiery Sun-like nature; and
  - the tamas energy, called the “moon energy,” which is the negative, centripetal energy of moisture (like a precipitate of the positive pole), settling downward and to the left. Tamas is the attractive power of the negative pole of energy emanation, the cooling, green rays, the feminine, centralizing toning and quieting principle.
  - The central, sattva guna (or Satguna) neuter pole is the axial around which the other energies revolve.
  The human body is a magnified cell, the expansion of the brain pattern of the Airy, neuter, all-present Life Energy Principle, which has its base in the cerebrospinal fluid- —in the brain and in the spinal chord and throughout the entire nervous system. The cerebrospinal fluid flows between the pia matter and the arachnoid sheets, and follows the nerves all through the body.'

This concludes section 3. By now there are already some elements of the puzzle on the table, and we have passed the most difficult part of our mini Hero's journey.

4. Steiner Part II - scientific courses

In this section we zoom in to how Steiner covers the relation between physical matter and its connection to spiritual 'wavefronts'.

 

Steiner really gets to explain this in his Second and Third scientific lecture courses. 

• The second scientific course of March 1920 - also called the Warmth course -
  consists of 14 lectures,  
• the third scientific course of January 1921 - also called the Astronomy course - consists of 18 lectures.  

Both were held as continuous sequences with daily consecutive courses, taking one full month in total. In my humble opinion: these courses are not so easy. Steiner takes the time for a long approach to build up to the essentials he is trying to explain here. Steiner takes the current scientific notions and invites us to think about them in a different way.. another way of looking at the fundamental principles underlying our view of the cosmos. Specifically: matter and gravity, and the bodies and orbits of the heavenly bodies (such as the sun, the earth, and the planets). 

Below follow the specific lecture references, in a quick overview.

 

4.1 - In the warmth course

 

- lecture 10 of 1920-03-10 for negative pressure, or suction .. and .. leaving space.

 

- lecture 14 of 1920-03-14:

• Now you see here we have the force that fills space with matter (see drawing.) Also, here we still have this force that fills space with matter, but this force is attenuated. Ultimately we come to the condition where there is negative matter. There must be a region between where, so to speak, space is torn apart.          

• We can put the matter in this way. Our space as it surrounds us constitutes a kind of vessel for physical manifestations, and has an inner relationship to these forces. Something in it corresponds to them. But when we go from the ponderable to the imponderable, space is torn apart. And in this tearing apart, something enters that was not there before it happened.        

• Let us assume that we tear apart the three dimensional space. What is it that enters through the rift? When I cut my finger, blood comes out — it is a manifestation in three dimensional space. But when I tear apart space itself that which comes through is something that is otherwise non-spatial.

4.2 In the Astronomy course:
 

- lecture 9: of 1921-01-09:

principle of turning inside-out (see also inside-out metamorphosis man between incarnations)

Steiner develops the curve of Cassini in different variants, figures 4 to 7 from an oval, lemniscate, upto two circles

- lecture 10: how the lemniscate is basis for 

• 'I can-pass over quite continuously to the construction of one form of the Cassini curve after another. And I shall obtain these different forms if, let us say, to the variability of the first order, say between y and x. I add a variability of the second order; that is, if I allow my construction of the curves as they pass over from one to the other continuously, to take its course in such a way that a remains a function of b. What am I doing when I do this? I am constructing curves in such a way that I create a continuous, moving system of Cassini curves passing over via the lemniscate into the discontinuous forms, not at random, but by basing it on a variability of the second order, in that I bring the constants of the curves themselves into relationship with one another so that a is a function of b, a = φ(b). Mathematically, it is of course perfectly feasible. But what do we obtain by it? Just think, by means of it I obtain the condition for the character of a surface such that there is a qualitative difference even mathematically speaking, in all its points. At every point another quality is present. I cannot comprehend the surface obtained like this in the same way as I comprehend some abstract Euclidean plane. I must look upon it as a surface which is differentiated within itself. And if by rotation I create three-dimensional forms then I should obtain bodies differentiated within themselves.'

- lecture 11: open lemniscate
- lecture 15:  a bit of a challenging lecture

 

goes full circle, after 'the point' (see Bardon step 5, re appendix below), and negative space, and relativity of 3D, he writes about 'what disappears here comes out there again', or .. the effect of the infinite in the point:

• 'You would then have to realize: Out there, beyond a certain sphere, something is still existing, it is true, but if I want to see it I must look in here (P), for here it re-appears. The continuation of what is faraway out there make itself felt in here. What I am looking for as I go out into infinite distances, makes its appearance within, and becomes manifest to me from this centre'

 - lecture 17 of 1921-01-17: key for rotating lemniscate

• 'This is essential: You must imagine the plane in which I am drawing the Lemniscate to be rotating about the Lemniscate axis, ie. about the line joining the two foci, — call it what you will. I should therefore have to draw the Lemniscate in space. This figure is the projection of it. Such is the drawing of the Lemniscate which you must have in mind with regard to all that I have been saying, — so for example when you are tracing the bony system or the nervous system in man. Even the blood-circulation can be traced in this way. You must imagine it all, not in a plane but in space. The figure eight — the Lemniscate — is therefore legitimate, but as I said before, you are really dealing with geometrical figures of rotation. This also underlies what I have just been saying. The forms of our inner organisation, in the nerves-and-senses system and in the metabolic and limb-system respectively, are mutually related upon the principle of a lemniscate of rotation. '

- lecture 18: 

• as compared with positive matter negative matter is suctional. Positive matter exerts pressure, negative suction. And if you now conceive the Sun as a collection of suctional force, you need no further explanation of Gravitation. This is the explanation. 

5. Coming full circle

5.1 - Fast forward to 1993

.. and a book by an 80 year old retired Scottish upper school math teacher Lawrence Edwards (1912 -2003) write a remarkable book who brings together the elements of the puzzle. So let's be clear, I am deliberately understating because Edwards is my hero in this piece, as we will see.   

In Chapter 8 of his book 'The Vortex of Life: Nature's Patterns in Space and Time', Edwards summarizes his research on the heart, both the sheep heart and the human heart.

Now we know from Steiner that he described our organs and the condensation of etheric flows. So let us start with the drawings of the anatomist James Bell Pettigrew (1834-1908) and his incredible work Design in Nature. This work in three volumes is filled with drawings and observations from a lifetime of research, indeed often following the approach of Goethean Science. To get a feel, the first volume is available free online here. On the side, amazing that this humble Scot also compiled his lifework to only publish his magnum opus at age 73 in 1908, the year he died. As if his work was accomplished.

Pettigrew's anatomical dissections and research showed that the heart is made up of seven distinct layers of spiraling fibres, see below:

this can be simplified as:

Now to cut a long story short, here is where Edwards came out. For me, having been intrigued by the short cryptic key in the Steiner lecture for quite some time, it has been a wonderful 'Aha' discovery, and actually a fact of beauty, to stumble on the notes below by the late Lawrence Edwards:

• "Some time after I had done the main work on this chapter, a friend drew my attention to a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in the spring of 1920, and with which, until that time, I was unfamiliar".

This is indeed Hieroglyph 14 lecture with which we started above. He continues

• "If we compare what he says with the Figures 21 to 23 (see below), and what was said about them, I think we can have no doubt that he is speaking about the same things. By what particular means of cognition he reached a perception of these things I do not know, but I do know that if I were to attempt to give a purely descriptive, non-mathematical, account, I could do no better.
  ...
  He, as a seer, insisted that it is the difference between the speeds of whirling of the two vortices which imparts to the heart its characteristic form; and I, as a geometrician, know that the contrast between these two speeds gives me that parameter which we designate as lambda (technically speaking it the difference is represented as a quotient)".

  
The drawings above are from Chapter 4, Path curves in three dimensions

• "Spatially the matter is very complex and not easy to hold concretely in one's imagination. Figure 23 (on the right) is an attempt to picture two of such cones, meeting on such a spiral curve, winding in front of, and then behind, the central axis. And now one must enlarge one's picture to include all the points of space, both between the invariant planes and outside them, to be behaving similarly."

And there you go, we have come full circle: Edwards directly connects his experiential-scientific research, founded on projective geometry, to come up with the explanation of what Steiner described and intended. Is it not beautiful?

[PS: what remains is to connect this path curve interpretation to the context of Steiner lectures, ai how does that connect to the two spiritual streams he describes]

Furthermore, the nice thing about this is that, in our computer age, such path curve calculations in projective geometry can be implemented in software. Below is a simple comparison between the calculated form, and the tracing from the fibre streams from photographs.

On the side: to read more about the spiral orientation of the myocardial layers in the heart, please refer to the article by Marinelli (1995): 'The heart is not a pump'

Of course the above is again a bit of a fast track, taking shortcuts, to try a convey the bottom line in a few paragraphs and seduce you to maybe go out and study this more in depth. I will give some more links on introductory works for more in depth reading below.

But now let us step back back and see what happened, and how it is possible that these different pieces of the puzzle fell together as they did.

5.2 What happened? in overview:

Well .. to bridge between Steiner in 1920 and Edwards in his 1982/1993 books, we had:

• 1920-1922: Steiner offers the clues, point of departure
• 1925-1945: work by Adams with E. Vreede and O. Wicher
• 1945-1955: focus by Adams on plants together with Wicher, some books
• then: Adams passing the baton to Edwards: Adams and Edwards working together
• 1960-1980: Edwards studying relation between path curves, resulting in 1982 book 'The field of Form' with five main categories of research: pine cones, plant buds, eggs, human heart, developing embryos. See below, in this period also others such as Michael Kranich and Frits Hendrik Julius were also doing qualitative research.

So what did it take? The above sketches 20+10+20 .. some 50 years by two key people,

but let's say a core group of five. It required a brilliant mathematician and decades of persistence by Edwards to follow the leads offered by Steiner. Leads or lecture excerpts that are kind of 'incomprehensible' if one reads them on their own. And .. there are so many more, this is so typical of Steiner's work .. it is like a goldmine full of puzzle pieces and hints like this.

Note of course Edwards was not alone, there were also other people working on this, for example in parallel we have:

• Ernst Michael Kranich (1929-2007) with his (1976, translated in English in 1984) book 'Planetary influences upon plants', building on the work of
• the Dutch Frits Hendrik Julius (1902-1970) who, in 1971, published (dutch title, translated here in English): 'Trees and planets - contribution to a cosmological botany'
• and then there is the work of the botanist Gerbert Grohmann (1897-1957) with his two volumes on The Plant

We will now look at this in a bit more detail, and zoom in to this process. Starting with:

5.3 Steiner's clues and the 'key'

5.3.1 - Plant and Planet

 

Of course Steiner described the influence of the planets on form in the plant kingdom. Note early on in his career he wrote an introduction to Wolfgang von Goethe's 'The metamorphosis of Plants'.

Here we will mention just two references, an early and a later on. For example in 

1912-04-13:

We may, therefore, say that forces of the Spirits of Motion or their offspring work down upon the astral bodies of the plants from the planets of the planetary system. In every being the astral body is that which gives the impulse to motion. Belonging to the plants we have on the physical plane, their physical and etheric bodies. If any forces whatever were to work upon the plants from the sphere of the Spirits of Motion, these forces would, as the astral body is not in the plants, but around them, bring about movement in the plants, though not movements like those of men and animals, but such as to draw forth the plants from the earth when they first appear. When you see the forces developing in a spiral in a plant from stipule to stipule, you then have the activity of those forces which work down from the planets. And according as the forces of the offspring of the Spirits of Motion work down from this or that planet does this peculiar line which puts forth the leaves vary.

This gives a certain means of studying the actual orbits of the individual planets through their reflection; and when external science has once recognized this fact, it will have to correct a great deal of the former astronomical systems. Certain plants are allotted to the forces of the Spirits of Motion who work from Mars, others to those who are on Venus, others, to those on Mercury. They work in here from their planet and according as they work in from one or the other, they impart to the plant the movement expressed in their spiral coil of leaves; it is the same movement which the corresponding planet makes; the absolute movement it makes in the heavens. If you take an ordinary convolvulus, in which the stalk itself is twisted, you have in the spiral movement of the stalk an imitation of the planetary movements which proceed from the Spirit of Motion. When the stalk is fixed, you have in the stipules images of those forces which proceed from the Spirits of Motion of the planets of the planetary system. These forces work upon the plants in cooperation with the actual group-egos, and these group-egos work in such a way that we can discover the direction of their forces simply by connecting the sun with the center point of the earth; that is to say, together with the forces which come from the Spirits of Motion, other forces work which go in the direction of the stalk of the plant, which is always striving towards the center point of the earth. Thus we have to compose the whole plant out of that which grows towards the sun or towards the center of the earth and that which winds itself round and copies in the stipules the movements of the planets. This corresponds, however, with the real fact that we have to seek the direct impulse of activity for the group-egos of the plants in the direction from earth to sun. That is, if now we do not direct our occult vision to the planet, but to the sun, we shall find the different group-egos of the plants. These group-egos of the plants are the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom, just as the group-egos of the animals are the offspring of the Spirits of Motion. Thus in the group-egos of the plants we have to recognize the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom.

Now in the course of these lectures I have stated that in the nature-spirits we have to see the offspring of the Third Hierarchy, and that in the group-egos we have to see the offspring of the Second Hierarchy. Now we come, in addition, to the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, the rulers or regulators of the epochs. We have now reached a position in which we can allude to the functions of a certain category of such Spirits of the Rotation of Time. At this point we can state that certain Spirits of the Rotation of Time unite the forces of movement coming down from the planets to the plants that work spirally with the forces which come down from the sun. Both these forces are brought together at a definite time by the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, and indeed at that time of the year when the plant progresses towards its fructification. The spiral principle of movement is united with the principle which works in the stalk

Hence in the stamens we have the principle which works spirally, and the principle which is the direct continuation of the stalk, in the ovary, in the center of the plant. When the course of the plant is completed, that is, when the Spirits of the Rotation of Time appointed to the plants unite their activity — the activity of the planetary spirits — with the activity of the Sun-spirit — then in the now completed plant those organs which till then followed the planets spirally are arranged in a neat circle like the stamens, while the stalk itself elongates and terminates in the ovary. These two are then united; the growth of the plant is complete when to the two spiritual activities of the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom and of Motion, is added the activity of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, uniting the two spiritual beings in a sort of marriage. Thus in the plant kingdom we have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom.

We may, therefore, say that forces of the Spirits of Motion or their offspring work down upon the astral bodies of the plants from the planets of the planetary system. In every being the astral body is that which gives the impulse to motion. Belonging to the plants we have on the physical plane, their physical and etheric bodies. If any forces whatever were to work upon the plants from the sphere of the Spirits of Motion, these forces would, as the astral body is not in the plants, but around them, bring about movement in the plants, though not movements like those of men and animals, but such as to draw forth the plants from the earth when they first appear. When you see the forces developing in a spiral in a plant from stipule to stipule, you then have the activity of those forces which work down from the planets. And according as the forces of the offspring of the Spirits of Motion work down from this or that planet does this peculiar line which puts forth the leaves vary. This gives a certain means of studying the actual orbits of the individual planets through their reflection; and when external science has once recognized this fact, it will have to correct a great deal of the former astronomical systems. Certain plants are allotted to the forces of the Spirits of Motion who work from Mars, others to those who are on Venus, others, to those on Mercury. They work in here from their planet and according as they work in from one or the other, they impart to the plant the movement expressed in their spiral coil of leaves; it is the same movement which the corresponding planet makes; the absolute movement it makes in the heavens. If you take an ordinary convolvulus, in which the stalk itself is twisted, you have in the spiral movement of the stalk an imitation of the planetary movements which proceed from the Spirit of Motion. When the stalk is fixed, you have in the stipules images of those forces which proceed from the Spirits of Motion of the planets of the planetary system. These forces work upon the plants in cooperation with the actual group-egos, and these group-egos work in such a way that we can discover the direction of their forces simply by connecting the sun with the center point of the earth; that is to say, together with the forces which come from the Spirits of Motion, other forces work which go in the direction of the stalk of the plant, which is always striving towards the center point of the earth. Thus we have to compose the whole plant out of that which grows towards the sun or towards the center of the earth and that which winds itself round and copies in the stipules the movements of the planets. This corresponds, however, with the real fact that we have to seek the direct impulse of activity for the group-egos of the plants in the direction from earth to sun. That is, if now we do not direct our occult vision to the planet, but to the sun, we shall find the different group-egos of the plants. These group-egos of the plants are the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom, just as the group-egos of the animals are the offspring of the Spirits of Motion. Thus in the group-egos of the plants we have to recognize the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom.

Now in the course of these lectures I have stated that in the nature-spirits we have to see the offspring of the Third Hierarchy, and that in the group-egos we have to see the offspring of the Second Hierarchy. Now we come, in addition, to the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, the rulers or regulators of the epochs. We have now reached a position in which we can allude to the functions of a certain category of such Spirits of the Rotation of Time. At this point we can state that certain Spirits of the Rotation of Time unite the forces of movement coming down from the planets to the plants that work spirally with the forces which come down from the sun. Both these forces are brought together at a definite time by the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, and indeed at that time of the year when the plant progresses towards its fructification. The spiral principle of movement is united with the principle which works in the stalk.

- See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA136/English/SBC1981/19120413p01.html#sthash.jFG43H3G.dpuf

Hence in the stamens we have the principle which works spirally, and the principle which is the direct continuation of the stalk, in the ovary, in the center of the plant. When the course of the plant is completed, that is, when the Spirits of the Rotation of Time appointed to the plants unite their activity — the activity of the planetary spirits — with the activity of the Sun-spirit — then in the now completed plant those organs which till then followed the planets spirally are arranged in a neat circle like the stamens, while the stalk itself elongates and terminates in the ovary. These two are then united; the growth of the plant is complete when to the two spiritual activities of the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom and of Motion, is added the activity of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, uniting the two spiritual beings in a sort of marriage. Thus in the plant kingdom we have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom. - See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA136/English/SBC1981/19120413p01.html#sthash.jFG43H3G.dpuf

and 1912-05-07:

• .. in every plant, if a connecting line is drawn between the points around the stalk where the leaves are attached to it, we get a spiral; it is as if the leaves made their way around the stalk in spirals; and in a plant where the stalk is not rigid it follows this law itself, describing spirals as, for instance, is the case in the bindweed.
  These are everyday phenomena but no attention is paid to them. Some day, however, these things will again be studied and then the striking discovery will be made that these movements of the leaves depend upon forces that are not to be found on the Earth but work down from the planets; and because the planets describe certain spiral movements in the heavens, their forces actually guide the leaves in spirals around the stalk. The stalk grows vertically and the blossom is the culmination. The spiral lines differ in the various species of plants because there are several planets and their effect upon the plants is different in each case.A time will come when it will be known, for example, how Venus moves, and what species of plant corresponds to this movement. Such a plant will then rightly be regarded as a mirror image in miniature of the movement described by Venus. Other plants mirror the movement described by Mercury in the spiral line connecting the points at which the leaves are attached to the stalk; others mirror the movement described by Jupiter, others again that described by Saturn. The planets impress their scripts upon the plants of the Earth, and the Sun's force regulates the whole process in such a way that the effect produced by the planets culminates in the blossom. Some day men will study the connection of the spiral growth of the plants with the movements of the planets and then they will feel the kinship of the kingdoms of the Earth with the kingdoms of Heaven.
  

  Hence in the stamens we have the principle which works spirally, and the principle which is the direct continuation of the stalk, in the ovary, in the center of the plant. When the course of the plant is completed, that is, when the Spirits of the Rotation of Time appointed to the plants unite their activity — the activity of the planetary spirits — with the activity of the Sun-spirit — then in the now completed plant those organs which till then followed the planets spirally are arranged in a neat circle like the stamens, while the stalk itself elongates and terminates in the ovary. These two are then united; the growth of the plant is complete when to the two spiritual activities of the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom and of Motion, is added the activity of the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, uniting the two spiritual beings in a sort of marriage. Thus in the plant kingdom we have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the offspring of the Spirits of Wisdom. - See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA136/English/SBC1981/19120413p01.html#sthash.jFG43H3G.dpuf

  
  

and on 1920-03-26:

• Observe the growth of the plant as it rises upwards out of the earth. You must take note of the spiral sequence in the actual formation of the leaves and of the flower. You might say that the formative forces follow a spiral course around the central stalk. This spiral course cannot be explained by internal forces of tension in the plant. No; its origin is to be sought in the influence that works from the extra-telluric sphere, and chiefly in the influence of the sun's apparent path through the heavens. (Let us say “apparent,” for the respective motions of earth and sun can only be taken relatively.) There are indeed points of view better than the mathematics of Galileo, from which to study the paths of the heavenly bodies; they trace themselves in the sequence of formative processes in the plant. For what the stars do is faithfully copied by the plant. It would be quite mistaken, however, to reckon only with the vertical upward impulse in plants, that depends upon the sun. The stars co-operate in a resultant with movements caused by the sun. If the sun's action were the sole operating force, it would take complete possession, so to speak, and the plant would be drawn upwards into the infinite. The solar force is, however, counteracted to some degree by that of the outer planets, in their spiral courses. For planets as a matter of fact, do not move in an ellipse; their orbits are spiral. It is time today that the whole Copernican system was re-examined and superseded by another. The so-called outer planets are Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The forces of the superior planets deflect the plant's upward tendency, so as to bank up the formative forces which cause the formation of flower and seed.
  So if you consider the plant's upward development, from the region of formation of the foliage, you must ascribe it to the combined action of of the Sun's influence and that of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.There are not only these two elements in co-operation. Marshalled against them are the influences from the Moon and the so-called inferior planets, Mercury, and Venus. The Moon, Mercury and Venus cause the earthward, downward tendency in the plant, which manifests itself most characteristically in the formation of the root. Thus all that seems essentially earthy is really a joint product of the action of the Moon, and that of the inferior planets. So I would say that the plant expresses and bears the imprint of our whole planetary system.
  Until we know this, and learn also how to recognise the planetary manifestations in man as well we cannot thoroughly understand the relationship between the plant structure and the human structure.

In the Agriculture course he goes into the relation between plant and planet in more detail.

Another quote from that period from Elisabeth Vreede in a 1928 lecture:

• This uniformity of the action of the Spirits of Wisdom is most easily to be traced in the plant-world. There is variety of form in the plants; the position of their leaves, tendrils and so forth, reveal different spiral proportions; and in these are reflected the planetary forces emanating either from a Spirit of Form or a Spirit of Movement working from the focus of a particular planet. One thing, however, is common to all plants — the perpendicular direction of the stem, away from the Earth and towards the Sun. Here we have an expression of the uniform working of the Spirits of Wisdom in all plants.

Below an illustration of how the spiral forms in the plant kingdom relate to the planetary movements, taken from Ernst Michael Kranich - Planetary influences upon Plants. Several books go through the families of flowers and trees to relate these to patterns of planetary influences, for example Frits Julius (1902-1970) in Metamorfose, or the books by Kranich (see book picture above).

  

The above are one set of pointers which one can follow. Below is a second set.

5.3.2 - Counterspace, projective geometry, ..

In lecture 11 of the Hieroglyph cycle on 1920-05-02, Steiner mentioned - 'en passant' - the concept of 'counter-earth'. In the next two years

In the Astronomy course he goes into this (lectures 8, 15, 18) and introduces the concept of counter-space in lecture 15 of 1921-01-15:

• Think therefore for a moment that you had to do not only with ordinary space, conceived in its three dimension, but with a "counter-space" or anti-space".

On 1921-03-21 in Lecture 5 of the 'Anthroposophy and Science' cycle, Steiner goes into discussing projective geometry and imagination (as a way to get towards essential meaning).

And then, on 1922-04-09, he finally unveils more in this famous lecture. It is worth reading (what an opportunity for us to now be in the audience almost 100 years later), so I will just quote a teaser:

• 'I touch here on a secret pertaining to our human way of looking at the world — a secret that our present-day perception has, one might almost say, quite lost.
  You will permit me to set out from a way of looking at things that is apparently — but only apparently — quite abstract, theoretical. But this excursion will be brief; it is intended only as an introduction to what will be able to come before our minds' eyes in a much more concrete form.

• When we intend to apply to objects in this world the space of which I spoke yesterday — we apply it, of course, geometrically, using, in the first place, Euclidean geometry — we set out, as you all know, from a point and set up three axes at right angles to one another. But there is another space than this ..The secret of this space is that one cannot set out from one point and relate all else to it. One must set out from the counterpart of this point. And what is its counterpart? .. '

The rest I let you read for yourself. To my knowledge to date, the above are the key lectures, though Steiner does go into the dimensions of space on 1922-06-24, building on the 1905 cycle on the fourth dimension.

5.3.3 - In the human body

For the sake of completeness, we finish with another link, namely that the inner movements in the human bodies are the (etheric) flows that condense in what we know as the physical organs.

Steiner covered this in very many lectures. I just refer here to a single cycle, the early Occult Physiology from 1911. On 1911-03-24 he states:

• Through the depositing of the physical matter in the super-sensible force-system does the organ become a physical thing.

• The reason why a physical-sensible organ is visible at the place where the spleen is located is that, at this point, space is filled in a certain definite manner by force-systems which attract the material substance in such a way that this deposits itself in the form in which we see it in the external organ of the spleen when we study it anatomically.
• So you may think of all the different organs in the human organism as being first planned as super-sensible organs, and then, under the influence of the most varied sorts of super-sensible force-systems, as being filled with physical matter. Hence, in these force-systems which at different points of the organism deposit physical matter within themselves, we must recognise a super-sensible organism which is differentiated within itself and which incorporates physical matter within itself in the most diverse ways. We have thus obtained, not only this one concept of the relation of the super-sensible force-systems to the physical matter deposited in the organs, but also the other concept of the process of nourishing the organism as a whole. For this process of nourishing the entire organism consists in nothing else, after all, than in so preparing the nutritive substances taken in that it is possible to convey them to the different organs, and then in the incorporating of these substances by these organs.

It is the lecture the day before, on 1911-03-23 where he links the organs to the different planets, and specifically:

• in the heart and the blood-system belonging to it something in the human organism which merits the name Sun, just as the sun outside merits this name in the planetary system"

(and similarly so for the other organs and ‘planets’, except the Moon)

In the Cosmosophy Vol 1 of 1920-10-29/30 and 11-04

Parenthesis

 

In the Hieroglyph cycle, on 1920-04-17 and 18, Steiner describes the make-up of the human body and distinguishes the physical body as made up of different influences as follows:

 

 

And as we are so close now to make this connection, and this post is on opposing vortices, it may be worthwhile to mention that, on the topic of ‘Sun and Moon influences’, in the lecture of 1921-09-24 he very nicely summarizes:

 

• Here, in the inner being of man, matter is continuously falling under the moon influence, and just as continuously man absorbs through his senses the radiance of the sun (see drawing, left). Such is the relationship in which we stand to the cosmos, and so one must have the capacity to perceive these two opposite activities in the cosmos: the moon nature directed toward splintering and scattering, and the quickening, life-giving radiance of the sun.

After Steiner, the person who took this up is:

5.4 Adams-Kaufmann

A young man named George Adams-Kaufmann (1894-1963) encountered Steiner's Occult Science in 1914 when he was 18. This triggered him to actively pursue anthroposophy, meeting Steiner, and by 1920-23 he was into the circle often at Dornach, ao translating over 100 lectures (as he was bilingual), and becoming one of the Goetheanum speakers authorized by Steiner. From 1925-33 he worked with Elisabeth Vreede, focusing on projective geometry and thus developing the concept of counter-space as Steiner had mentioned it (see above). From 1935 onwards he worked with Olive Wicher. In 1947 he discovered that the projective counterpart of the infinite plane in Euclidean geometry, the 'infinite midpoint', was to be found in the physical world in every bud. He went on to research this with Wicher and together they published two books in 1949 and 1952 on their investigations in the plant world.

It was around that time that Lawrence Edwards met with him, and they worked together for many years. Edwards writes about Adams'

• ".. his remarkable ability to take the most abstruse mathematical concepts and make imaginative realities of them, without sacrificing the essential precision of thought in which they had been conceived .. and his almost intuitive vision as to how these realities can be conceived and almost be seen at work in the spiritual-physical world around us. "

5.5 Edwards

Lawrence Edwards (1912-2003) was a mathematics teacher who made this his life work. In the quote above, he continues about his own motivation:

".. after his death it was and has always continued to be my aim to follow this work further in every way in which I could, but especially in relation to the forms of living nature."

In his book The Vortex of Life: Nature's patterns in Space and Time, Edwards devotes chapter 8 and some 30-40 pages to the human heart.

5.6 Contemporary research

The work of Adams and Edwards has been pursued by only a few people, such as:

- Nick Thomas, see his website or his books: 'Science between Space and Counterspace : Exploring the Significance of Negative Space' (1999), and especially 'Space and Counterspace: A New Science of Gravity, Time and Light' (2009)

- Graham Calderwood see eg his Bud Workshop website
- John Blackwood, see eg his beautiful book Geometry in Nature

- Oliver Conradt, see his profile here

6. Discussion

We have done the tour on concepts such as 'inside out turning', 'opposing spirals or vortexes', the lemniscate, etc. .. and have put them into a certain context.

Now we want to take a step back and frame it, look into what this brought us, what is the meaning of it all.

We will see that it no less than a major upgrade of the territory of human knowledge, one level up from the current study of the physical Material realm (mineral or Earth), to the second realm of Life (etheric or Water).

We will close the loop with two Steiner lectures where it is put in perspective  for us as The Second Lawfullness. It is really one level up.

6.0 - Introductory positioning note

There are several and different reasons as to why we took our time to cover what we did as we did above. We will now go into these to show the importance of different aspects of the story.

Consider the picture below:

The triangle represents:

- on the left, "A": esoteric metaphysical statements (little directly actionable)

- on the right,

              - a mathematical Framework "B"

              - an experimental science " C"

 

Whereas A is little or not directly actionable, B and C are. B can offer calculation models that can be simulated on computer. However it is C that offers an experimental science to be held against this, and this 'observe and explain feedback loop' is needed to implemented a true science.

Once more: on the one hand side, we have 'A' and a number of Steiner lectures saying that spirals in the plant kingdom are related to the influence and path of the moon and planets.

The work done by Edwards is that an experimental framework 'C' has been created, with data that is positively confirmatory .. thus representing a connection point and the start of a new sort of experimental science.

And through a logical mathematical framework 'B', so called 'mystical spirals' are now coupled with esoteric metaphysics (Harrison, Steiner, ..) and C above.
The mathematical framework 'B' is foundational and supportive of experimental science .. ànd, it provides the coupling with what mystici and esoteric science has told us.

Therefore an important bridge has been built, and it provides a Framework, to give the second type of science and lawfullness in .. a larger frame and perspective. Because this is what A provides, through anthroposophy .. it offers meaning, cosmogenis, it gives an explanation through its worldview including the nonmaterial realms, the evolutionary frame, etc. In all this, the spiritual streams and forces behind the emations and manifestations that we are watching are given an origin and meaning in the larger dynamic and evolutionary sense.

So it's not a naieve awe of "oh how nice a spiral here and a bud there", no: there is a wider frame of meaning connected to it, into which all this fits in.

And also, by being the second lawfullness, water, etheric, life .. it puts the first lawfullness into perspective .. it gives a humbling realization that the whole BoK-C worldview is 'only' the element Earth: physical matter. It all its success and impressive as is the mastery of physical matter by Man today .. we have just re-discovered and scratched the surface of something as big or bigger, the element Water: life.

Hence the story flow in this post can be depicted graphically as:

Note that above, I was using the word 're-discovered', because - as Steiner points out - this knowledge was previously well known.

As an example I want to quickly refer, as an illustration, to Marcilio Ficino. His 'Three Books of Life' were published in 1489, and in these, Ficino wrote up old knowledge for the first time in Latin. In his third Book of Life he covers the same topic as in this post (refer eg to Chapter 6, p 265 PDF p 139) .. as we can tell from the Chapter titles:

• Chapter 6: Concerning our natural power, our vital and our animal, and which planets give them aid, and how they do so through the aspect of the moon to the Sun, to Venus, and especially to Jupiter
• Chapter 7: How parts of our body are fostered through relating the Moon to Signs and to Fixed Stars

It is interesting to see that in the last period of Steiner, not only did he 'sow' these sets of clues (as referenced above), but he also gave courses exactly in the application area of the element 'water':

• (biodynamic) agriculture (plants, moon rhythm, four ethers, ..) and
• (anthroposophical) médicine.

So five-six centuries later, we are back to application areas such as Medicine, again to illustrate with Ficino - as referenced above:

• Chapter 9 - The dignities of planets in the signs which must be observed for the use of medicines
• Chapter 10 - How we should use the planets in medicines

6.1 - The second lawfullness

To people involved in studying this, the importance of all this may all be clear, but to most people it is hardly possible to position this and appreciate what this is really all about. Therefore we zoom out and provide a contextual frame.

1/ In the lectures of 1921-06-24 and 1921-06-26  .. Steiner describes four types of Earthly and Cosmic Laws (see table below), and takes the perspective as if an ancient Greek would converse with a contemporary scientist. The Greek would point out that all our current knowledge is just one type of knowledge or lawfullness, denoted with the element 'earth'.. Similarly, the second lawfullness, denoted with the element 'water', describes the etheric and its formative forces, not only in the plant kingdom but also in the inner movements or streams in the human being (forming the organs). We refer to the table above linking the planets to different types of influences on the human body.

(ps note shows maths - organs -> medical and maths, also in stars cycle)

• ".. an ancient Greek, from the point of view of Imaginative cognition, would have described what we are accustomed to calling the human etheric body in relation to the element of water.
  ... Imaginative cognition reveals a certain relationship of the entire activity of water, that surging and weaving of the water element, the striving toward the periphery, the sinking down toward the earth, a relationship of these forces of unfolding toward the periphery and toward the center with the shapes, with the pictures of the plant element in its individual forms".

Another lecture taking the same perspective of the four elements worldview taught in the ancient Greek mystery centres is the 1923-12-15, from which the following quote illustrative to the topic of the moon forces in plants:

• When the moon was in the constellation of Leo flowers said something quite different to what they did when the moon was in that of Virgo or Scorpio. That which the moon experienced as she went through her orbit round the Zodiac, these experiences were related by the flowers on the earth. The flowers on the earth told the secrets of the cosmos outside. In truth, through all this that was revealed to him the pupil said out of the innermost of his heart: "I look into the flowers; They reveal their relationship with the moon-existence; They are subdued by the earth; for they are water-born"

When the moon was in the constellation of Leo flowers said something quite different to what they did when the moon was in that of Virgo or Scorpio. That which the moon experienced as she went through her orbit round the Zodiac, these experiences were related by the flowers on the earth. The flowers on the earth told the secrets of the cosmos outside. In truth, through all this that was revealed to him the pupil said out of the innermost of his heart:

I look into the flowers;
They reveal their relationship with the moon-existence
They are subdued by the earth; for they are water-born.

- See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA232/English/GC1985/19231215p01.html#sthash.B4GVgjJe.dpuf

When the moon was in the constellation of Leo flowers said something quite different to what they did when the moon was in that of Virgo or Scorpio. That which the moon experienced as she went through her orbit round the Zodiac, these experiences were related by the flowers on the earth. The flowers on the earth told the secrets of the cosmos outside. In truth, through all this that was revealed to him the pupil said out of the innermost of his heart:

I look into the flowers;
They reveal their relationship with the moon-existence
They are subdued by the earth; for they are water-born.

- See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA232/English/GC1985/19231215p01.html#sthash.B4GVgjJe.dpuf

When the moon was in the constellation of Leo flowers said something quite different to what they did when the moon was in that of Virgo or Scorpio. That which the moon experienced as she went through her orbit round the Zodiac, these experiences were related by the flowers on the earth. The flowers on the earth told the secrets of the cosmos outside. In truth, through all this that was revealed to him the pupil said out of the innermost of his heart:

I look into the flowers;
They reveal their relationship with the moon-existence
They are subdued by the earth; for they are water-born.

- See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA232/English/GC1985/19231215p01.html#sthash.B4GVgjJe.dpuf

When the moon was in the constellation of Leo flowers said something quite different to what they did when the moon was in that of Virgo or Scorpio. That which the moon experienced as she went through her orbit round the Zodiac, these experiences were related by the flowers on the earth. The flowers on the earth told the secrets of the cosmos outside. In truth, through all this that was revealed to him the pupil said out of the innermost of his heart:

I look into the flowers;
They reveal their relationship with the moon-existence
They are subdued by the earth; for they are water-born.

- See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA232/English/GC1985/19231215p01.html#sthash.B4GVgjJe.dpuf

6. 2 - meaning

Why do I regard this subject matter, and the story in this post, as important?

Why do I believe we can say it objectively is very important in the evolution of knowledge in the last 500 years?

Well since the so-called enlightenment and the start of rational knowledge based on human thinking since the 15th century, this is no less than a major upgrade of knowledge about the cosmos.

Everything we have learned and studied so far has been about physical matter, and it is indeed very impressive. But this is what is called the mineral or Earth dimension. Our current science knows very little or nothing about the life energy or Water element, it is just plainly out of scope as everything is seen in a physical material context only.

This, as we know, leaves huges holes, as science cannot explain many things, even basic questions children ask. The impact in how we view the world, but also how we invest in medicine or organize health care, is rather dramatic.

To put it in context however, it appears clearly that we are very early in the game, pioneering stage .. the decennia go slow in terms of progress, but then maybe this was also the case in the time of Galileo, Spinoza, Copernicus, Kepler and the like ..

6.3 What lies beyond

to be expanded still

- etheric between physical and astral-mental .. our 'new world', the future

- does not go into how astral-mental imprints into etheric, though Steiner covers this as well (again see clues in the Hieroglyph cycle)

Now we can relate the two opposing spiritual influences and the double vortex .. it also becomes quite clear we have a staircase, one up, to grow our understanding for the projector behind the Maya-cinema, that is: the etheric rendering of the physical reality. However it all still takes place in spacetime. Going up into astral/mental we leave that. So whereas there was still maths, it's not going to be the same further .. see appendix two .. the path of initiation is there

This humble blogpost doesn't want to imply that everything is simple and clear, not at all.
But, we started with a small cryptogram on the human heart by Steiner in 1920, and we followed this 'key' to end up with Edwards closing the circle .. and - importantly - we have found resonance from different sources which add to the field of study, and which can be integrated (for example Russell's work)

maybe note also other applications: Victor Schauberger water, vibratory physics ..

6.4 Side-reflection: anthroposophy .. living .. and under attack

One more reason why I wrote more extensively here, is the reflection in this parenthesis.

This post, I believe, is a speaking example of how anthroposophy is living.
Each lecture extract above, taken separately, may be quite un-grasp-able, and not making sense .. until .. it is put in a contextual frame that brings puzzle pieces together for a more holistic insight dawning. Then it all starts making sense, and it all reads wholly differently. 

Now the reflection is: without 'connecting the dots', it would be very easy to classify any separate extract as rubbish or not making sense.

And this is typically the angle of attack used by the opposing powers to anthroposophy. To make redicule, or reframe Steiner's work so as to stop this higher meaning to ripple through. Some trends worldwide, but also at Dornach, are not going by uncommented (in blogs). For example in an interview with the newly appointed responsible of the Rudolf Steiner archive, David Marc Hoffmann, he comments on the Critical Edition of Steiner's complete works, and defends the argument we should critically review Steiner's work as a philosopher, similarly as this scientific process is applied to the works of Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, .. for if his contribution is really that grand, it will 'stand the test' for sure.

What is not said is that the test is not up to the contents.

Is the process with its evaluators qualified? do they have the level of consciousness and/or insight required to be able to understand what is said?

Such examples causes worry with some people, that this is not very far from the Waldorf-critics tactics: to downplay the Complete Works so it may end up in the little forgotten corner where nobody bothers. This is not always done on purpose, from the perspective and worldview of the people concerned their views make perfect sense. But this is exactly how spiritually opposing forces work through men and in mankind.

This was a parenthesis, completely on the side. Personally I believe there will always be individuals who are guided to take this further, they may be in the minority, not in official positions, but all that ultimately does not matter.

Appendices

To conclude, we add three appendices of topics that thematically belong here, but that did not fit into the above storyline choosen here. As in my previous post, each of them offers enough material to pursue as a study topic on its own. I deliberately do not want to expand on each of those topics, but just want to mention them here with some pointer links for the sake of completeness.



7. Appendix A: everything is made up of the Hierarchies

In this post the theme was the 'opposing spiritual influences or wavefronts' (wavefronts just being a loose physical-inspired metaphor for our imagination) that cause the form of the heart. In another lecture Steiner gives a similar description of this principle in the context of how physical planets are created as from the etheric, as 'indents'.

Now below I want to add another nice and quite similar quote taken from 1909-03-14 (GA266):

• "The physical body doesn't belong to us, it's an optical illusion. It's formed by streams that go out from Thrones. Imagine brooks that flow together; a whirlpool arises where they meet. Likewise the physical body arises where streams from Thrones come together."

RS often stresses this point that our physical body doesn't really belong to us, and how the First Hierarchy lives in and renders the physical reality .. whereas it is the Second Hiearchy that 'fills it with life' in the etheric. See for example the Leading Thoughts (LT) 70 and 71 (for more background on the LT see eg Carl Unger's 'Language of the Consciousness Soul: A guide to Rudolf Steiner's Leading Thoughts')

• The First and strongest Hierarchy reveals itself as the spirit principle active within the physical. It renders the physical realm a cosmos.
• The Second Hierarchy reveals itself as soul and spirit active in the etheric: everything etheric is a manifestation of the Second Hierarchy. This hierarchy, however, does not reveal itself directly in the physical; its power extends only to the etheric processes.

8. Appendix B - The four ethers

A third connected substream with lead by Rudolf Steiner is the one concerning ‘the four ethers’. Although he covered it multiple times, here we will just refer to an early and a later lecture, for example the introduction on 1905-09-30, and more explanation given on 1920-12-17.

But now what became of it, how has this been pursued afterwards?
Well, this was a focus area for Guenther Wachsmuth, who was very close to Steiner. Quite early, in 1924 and 1927, he published two books:

• Vol 1 (1924) was translated in English and published in 1932 as ‘The etheric formative forces in Cosmos, Earth and Man: a path of investigation into the world of the living ‘
• Vol 2 (1927) is less known as it was never translated. I looked into paying or finding sponsorship for the translation a few years ago but didn’t pursue it. For those interested I do have a digital PDF copy: 'Die aetherische welt in wissenschaft, kunst und religion -  vom weg des menschen zur behrrshung der bildekrafte.'

The first book has been renowed and developed a following of people studying it in depth, so it has a bit of a cult status because there is a very little literature on this.

Furthermore we refer to ao

• the 1984 book by Ernst Marti: The Four Ethers, and
• Nick Thomas (see already above) is the one who took this work furthest. He knew Edwards personally but as an engineer he went more into the mathematics. There are two books. First is his 1999 book Science between Space and CounterSpace. The picture below is taken from Chapter 8 of that book where he covers states of matter, the four elements and ethers. See also this page on his website for more info.

• Nick Thomas' second book Space and Counterspace was published ten year later, in 2008. For me this book is special because, after decades of study and contemplation, Thomas gives us in this book an mathematical scientific alternative to the current material-physical worldview. Hence the subtitle 'A new science of gravity, time and light'. It culminates in Chapter 11 with a view on Cosmology .. which connects to the view of the book by Elisabeth Vreede mentioned in my first post in 2013. So for people who want to explore that, these two books are strongly recommended. Mind you though that Thomas' book is only 120 pages but rather densily written and requiring or assuming a decent pre-knowledge (for which I refer to his first book).

        PS update: Nick Thomas passed away in June 2015.

9. Appendix C

Last but not least, let's go into the experiential aspect of consciousness.

When people are covering the concept of 'counterspace', mostly always they come via in- depth study of projective geometry. This leads to the appreciation that indeed we are talking about a different type of consciousness here, like Steiner points out in his famous 1922-04-09 lecture referenced above.

I am not aware that Steiner explictly bridged from there to his coverage of the different levels of consciousness which he calls Imagination > Inspiration > Intuition, other than he mentioned that projective geometry and counterspace is an entry into Imagination.

Let me suggest another puzzle piece here also.

1 - First, consider an evocation image such as the first one on this page on counterspace. Now let's add to that one of many short textual descriptions.

The little booklet ‘The Battle for the Etheric Realm’ contains an interview with Nick Thomas in Q&A format, and the question is asked (last part of first section of Part I):

It is quite difficult to imagine ourselves in the etheric realm. Is there a bridge that can help us find the way to doing so?

As part of the answer, we quote ..".. the next step is to think of our ordinary consciousness as being in a centre from which we can look outwards in all directions, imagining infinity at being infinitely far away. Then we think of ourselves at infinity, and as a result we no longer experience it as infinite. We live with our consciousness in the circumference and look inwards towards the centre."

2 - Rudolf Steiner wrote his book Knowledge of the Higher World, and promised he would write a follow-up work, which he never did. A well known fact on which he is known to have commented more than once. However another initiate, Franz Bardon, wrote the work with the title 'Initiation into Hermetics' (or, in short, 'IIH').

Open Parenthesis:

Hermetics and anthroposophy are not the same, but hermetics is all about the initiation. Whereas anthroposophy is - also - an encompassing worldview, and hence a Body of Knowledge with an earthly focus (thinking, evolution, applications, scientific method, ..), hermetics is a purely experiential, practical branch with as sole focus initiation.

The teachings of Franz Bardon and Rudolf Steiner are fully compatible and consistent with eachother. In fact, the practical exercises show remarkable correlation, and RS's lectures often 'explain' some of the IIH exercises. For background: Bardon wrote three main books:

- Initiation into Hermetics (IIH): a ten step system of exercises, for spiritual development,  preparing for and leading upto, in step 10, the experience of Unity (merge with God).
- Practice of Magical Evocation (PME): how to communicate and interact with the beings of the spheres, from elementary beings and the astral world to the spheres from Venus, Mercury, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.
- Key to True Kabbalah (KTQ): the universal cosmic language of creation

The second and third book are only for people who have reached at least step 8 in the first book. They are training manuals to induce, by conscious training of the will (read: persistance), the abilities that will otherwise unfold naturally in the next epoch and next planetary incarnations after our Earth (which Steiner calls new Jupiter and new Venus).

Close Parenthesis

Now back to IIH: this book focuses on exercises that, if one practices them systematically, warrant a safe spiritual development. It contains 10 steps with mental, astral and physical exercises, and provides a direct path to initiation (also called throughout the ages and mystery schools, 'magical development'). For reasons of safety, one should never attempt an exercise of one step if one did not succeed in the step before. Note that the first two steps are quite like Steiner's six basic exercises.

I introduce this here as I want to invite you to read the 'Step 5 - mental' exercise. Not just in this book (as it is truly very concise and densely written), but also the more elaborate practical notes in the book 'A Bardon Companion' by Rawn Clark (2nd extended edition). As usual I respect copyrights and fully recommend to purchase this book for anybody seriously interested in following the IIH exercise curriculum, but for the sake of being able to follow the thread and logical flow here I did want to add here just a few pages that are relevant in this context and the Step 5 mental exercise.

You may see that Step 5 mental in IIH is the experiential path, through advanced meditation, into what is described in mathematics with projective geometry as counterspace, leading to get into the essential meaning of an object.

Do note though that the exercises are notoriously difficult for most people, and many stop at step 1. To be ready for step 5 can take many years, though some individuals succeed in just a few years. It needs to be stressed that one should not try these exercises without going through the full program as explained in IIH.

PS: one can show how the IIH steps link up to the Tree of Life (see book on the Gra tree by Rawn Clark) and Steiner's description of the different types and levels of consciousness: Imagination -> Inspiration -> Intuition

Hence, our earlier schematic can now be extended as depicted below.

We have an experiential aspect both for the inner work and the outer work, shown above. Both are supported by an explanatory foundation, shown below.

and with this we have really gone full circle, I believe.



10. Postscriptum: invitation to the reader

If you have been reading some of the posts to date, and this fourth one, you might have noticed that I am experimenting here with approaches on how to 'bring' a certain topic. I have long hesitated whether to write, and this blog is still there only to support my personal searching and tweaking in terms of contents and format.

The stats of this blog shows there seem to be some readers. It would make me happy if there would be readers who find this stuff interesting, find it worthwhile that I write this.

Therefore hereby a kind invitation: I am keen on any sort of suggestions you may have, whatever ideas .. or feedback. If this stuff means anything to you, a few words from you, reader, would be warmly welcomed, either via email or response on any post.

Why? The type of 'quest for insight' I am trying to bring here is not the easiest, as it almost assumes a certain level of resonance of the reader's quest and interest with the explorations offered here.

I appreciate the material may be complex, and not approachable for most. My desire however is to first find and then refine ways .. to convey such 'study materials' in ways that may function at different levels .. so as to be useable and interesting, even appealing, to a broader audience. Especially this usefulness is important to me. Hence the request for feedback. Thank you.