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There is a phase on the spiritual path that no one talks about.
The phase where nothing seems to happen.
No visions.
No inspiration.
No revelations.
Only disciplined effort.
Most people expect spiritual development to feel rewarding.
They expect signs of progress, confirmation that the work is paying off.
But often the opposite happens.
The old sources of satisfaction begin to lose their power, while higher perception has not yet awakened.
The student finds himself between 2 worlds.
No longer fully nourished by the old life.
Not yet able to perceive the new.
The ego immediately begins asking:
Am I progressing?
Is this working?
Why am I experiencing nothing?
Yet this is often where the deepest work begins.
Dr Steiner repeatedly warns that impatience has a deadening effect on higher development.
Why?
Because impatience always demands.
It wants results.
It wants certainty.
It wants the spiritual world to reveal itself according to its own timetable.
But the student can prepare himself without being able to command the result.
Like a farmer preparing the soil and planting seeds, he can create the conditions for growth, but he cannot force the seed to sprout.
Spiritual development follows the same law.
The task is to study, meditate, observe, and refine oneself without constantly asking what will be received in return.
Eventually even the motivation must change.
The desire for experiences must give way to a genuine Love of truth itself.
Patience is not simply waiting.
Patience is remaining inwardly awake when nothing appears to be happening.
It is continuing the work when life feels completely ordinary.
Many abandon the path here because they mistake the absence of stimulation for the absence of growth.
But a seed underground appears inactive.
A tree in winter appears lifeless.
Yet both are undergoing invisible preparation.
The soul is not different.
The silence is not necessarily the absence of development.
The absence of reward does not mean the work is without value.
Higher faculties cannot be forced into existence.
They emerge gradually as the soul becomes capable of bearing them.
Do not mistake the desert for failure.
Sometimes the most important work is the work you cannot yet perceive.
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"Individuation always finds itself in opposition to the collective norm, since it means a separation and differentiation from the general, and a building up of the particular...
But the individual way is never a norm. A norm arises out of the totality of individual ways, which from time to time have a need to orient to a norm.
A norm arises out of the totality of individual ways, and can have a right to existence, and a beneficial effect, only when individual ways...are already in existence.
[E]xtreme individualism...is, of course, pathological and entirely opposed to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with individuation....
The more completely a man's life is shaped by the collective norm, the greater is his individual immorality"
--(Carl G. Jung, Psychological Types, CW6:563, 1921)
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Nutrition is extremely important for spiritual development for example the consumption of meat binds you closer to earthly existence whilst plant foods take you higher this is not to say quit meat right now but changing your diet slowly with age is huge for spiritual development
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Steiner on Plant Observation: the Potato
Potatoes are tricksters.
A trick then also introduced them to Europe.
Destined for the poor, they were branded as a delicacy for the rich.
This made them appealing.
Although ingesting potatoes, makes the poor poorer, you could say.
The potato is therefore an interesting plant to study, as anomalies always reveal certain essential principles.
As a guide to this study, it is good to know the correspondance of certain foods to the human being in his threefold aspect:
Roots ——> Nerve-Sense-Brain organization
Leaves ——> Rhythmic system of heart and lung
Seed, flower, fruit ——> Metabolic abdominal system
Now, Steiner suggests the potatoes were developed in their current form in the Mexican Taotle Mysteries.
Steiner describes these Taotle Mysteries as "dark mystery centers" collectively, as part of a highly powerful, localized stream of western Atlantean black magic centered in Mexico and Mesoamerica (found in Inner Impulses of Evolution, GA 171).
In his Agriculture Course then, Steiner points out a bizarre botanical anomaly in the potato which mirrors the Taotl impulse: it refuses the light.
Unlike most plants that process their highest reproductive and cosmic forces in the flower and seed, the potato concentrates everything into its tuber.
It is a stem that plunges back into the dark soil, forming "eyes" in the dark.
Steiner states that the potato bypasses the cosmic, sun-infused flowering process and remains "held back" in the earthly, material realm.
Potatoes indeed are not sown; a single tuber is replanted, forming a new set of potatoes.
As we have seen, in anthroposophical physiology, different parts of a plant correspond to different parts of the human being.
True Roots (like radishes or beets) have already been thoroughly processed by the mineral forces of the earth. When eaten, they dissolve easily in the intestines, releasing pure mineral salts that rise up to nourish the brain, naturally stimulating crisp, independent thought.
The Potato is a tuberous stem, not a true root. It has bypassed the full cosmic refinement process of flowering and fruiting but remains dense and full of complex, unrefined carbohydrates.
Because the potato is structurally "half-formed" plant matter, the human digestive tract cannot completely break it down.
As a result, its complex, raw carbohydrate forces pass undigested straight into the head. The physical brain is then forced to divert its energetic resources to finish the chemical digestion process that should have happened in the gut.
This mechanical overworking leaves the brain exhausted.
Steiner explicitly notes that the potato targets a very specific area:
"The potato... reaches the head, but only... the lower head, not the upper head. It does go into the lower head, where one thinks and exercises critical faculties."
Because the lower physical brain is constantly reacting to and dealing with the potato's unrefined carbohydrate forces, a potato-eater experiences a specific kind of intellectualism.
Steiner famously argued that the mass adoption of the potato in Europe forced people into an exhausting loop of constant, unnecessary, restless analytical thinking that is completely disconnected from spiritual intuition or deep wisdom.
While the lower brain is locked in analytical overdrive, the higher, spiritual capacities of the "upper head" are neglected.
Steiner observed that a heavy potato diet fundamentally changes a person's inner vitality.
For instance:
Loss of Mental Capability: He noted that since the potato became a staple in Europe, people's heads "became less capable" of original spiritual perception.
Heavy Dreams and Fatigue: Steiner states that a heavy potato eater will lack strong, vibrant thoughts. Instead, their sleep is impacted: "his dreams will make him heavier... you will find yourself constantly tired and always wanting to sleep and dream."
Embryonic Underdevelopment: In his most extreme warning regarding its physiological impact, Steiner suggested that if a pregnant mother survives almost exclusively on potatoes, the heavy, unrefined carbohydrate forces can overtax the forming brain of the embryo, failing to guide proper structural organization and potentially contributing to slight defects, even to the spine.
The esoteric paradox of the potato is that it is a brain stimulant that ultimately dulls the mind. It gives the physical brain the dense, heavy framework required to see the world as a purely physical machine (the exact mindset cultivated in the old Central American mystery centers) while simultaneously cutting the cords to the spiritual cosmos.
In Short
Normally, unlike the root, the upper part of plants elevates itself along the stem while growing freely into the sun-filled sphere of light, air, and warmth.
Because the potato itself is a tuberous stem which
pulls away from the Christ-filled light, and plunges into the dark soil, it is a stem behaving like a root.
It is thus a stem remaining locked in into the purely earthly forces.
And as all roots-plants relate to the mineral-like nerve-sense system in the human organism, the potato behaves like a root within the digestive system, tricking the organism to treat it as a root.
It is as if the potato tells the organism: I am a root.
Yet in fact it is a stem that fled the light.
Namely a stem that became a tuber, emanating roots as if it were branches or leaves.
Branches and leaves are organs of perception of light.
All these processes are now packed into the potato tuber.
These then invade the brain, flooding it as if with mud.
This closes off the brain, in its upper part, there where it should remain open to the cosmos.
It becomes than very difficult to think cosmic, living, spiritual thoughts.
Unseen and unnoticed, thoughts remain earth-bound.
Unlike the potato, true roots like radishes, carrots, red beets, etc, stimulate a living, cosmic, and perceptive thinking.
ALT Radishes
ALT Carot
ALT Red beet
ALT Potato
“ In the human being,however,a hierarchy will mature that carries out its own tasks.”
-Rudolf Steiner
Humanity is still developing toward the tenth spiritual Hierarchy.This will happen through the gradual development of independent spiritual action,freedom and love.
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G.I. Gurdjieff on Magnetism, Healing, and the Astral
According to Gurdjieff, man carries two substances: 1. the active elements of the physical body and 2. the active elements of astral matter. When the two blend, they create a third, mixed substance. This is 3. magnetism.
It forms in certain parts of the body and creates an atmosphere around you (the way a planet is wrapped in its own atmosphere). Planets constantly gain and lose substance because of the planets around them, and as above, so below: the same is true of PEOPLE. Man is surrounded by other men, and through them he can either gain or lose this substance. When two sympathetic atmospheres meet, a connection forms and something flows between them. The total amount stays the same, but the quality changes, so what you walk away with depends on who you’ve been around.
Like electricity, magnetism has positive and negative poles. In man these may be his wishes and non-wishes. Astral matter always opposes physical matter. With control, one side can be strengthened and directed like a current.
That’s how ancient priests healed. They had a lot of this substance and could pass it on. The sick and weak simply had too little. Halos and auras were real. According to Gurdjieff, Franz Anton Mesmer only rediscovered what the ancients already knew.
But you can’t give what you don’t have. Like attention, magnetism is acquired only through conscious labor and intentional suffering, by doing small things voluntarily, against habit. Gurdjieff called this struggle with oneself. A key part of his Work is fighting your likes and dislikes, which strengthens the will.
His instruction was simple: “Make some small aim your God.”
What does this mean? It sounds controversial, but the point is that whatever you focus on throughout your day is YOUR RELIGION. If you aren’t focused toward spirit during a big % of your day, then your bills, your job and your worst habits are what you worship... that is your god.
Pick one small thing you’ll do on purpose every day, like waking at a set time or sitting still for five minutes. Treat it as sacred and never skip it. Each time you choose effort over comfort, you build will and attention. That effort is what creates what we call “magnetism.”
Gurdjieff himself was highly magnetic, highly concentrated, charismatic and full of power. That strength comes from effort. In most people the will is asleep, and only through conscious effort does it awaken. In this way, man becomes master not only of himself, but of everything else. Beyond ordinary effort, Gurdjieff taught super-efforts: pushing past the point where you feel you have nothing left.
That’s where most people go wrong. They truly believe they’ve hit their breaking point, but they haven’t. The real limit is wayyyy further than they think, but they are afraid to keep going.
That is where real transformation begins. Real magnetism.
What is the will to power without first a will to will?
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A Deep Dive Into the Underworld and Machines!
According to Gurdjieff, man is a machine until he fully awakens. He operates automatically, following spiritually dead and meaningless societal impulses rather than listening to his own conscience.
This robotic, unrealized condition is also a defining quality of the underworld, or the subnatural world. The beings there operate like automatons: soulless shells separated from their higher selves, wandering the abyss and mindlessly repeating the unconscious patterns that dominated their earthly lives.
Today, we are building machines that embody this same quality. They, too, are soulless things, animated by a collective mind. Their creation becomes a kind of sympathetic magic, their deathly nature drawing forth the corresponding forces of the subnatural world!
Join me tonight at 6pm CT!
gigiyoung.com/premium/
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Carl Jung on viewing life as a Myth
Decades after finishing the book that ended his friendship with Freud, Jung wrote what he had realized after reflecting on this time:
"Hardly had I finished the manuscript when it struck me what it means to live with a myth, and what it means to live without one…. The man who thinks he can live without myth, or outside it, is an exception. He is like one uprooted, having no true link either with the past, or with the ancestral life which continues within him, or yet with contemporary human society. He does not live in a house like other men, does not eat and drink like other men, but lives a life of his own, sunk in a subjective mania of his devising, which he believes to be a newly discovered truth. This plaything of his reason never grips his vitals."
By viewing every moment as if you were living in a myth, you begin to feel the real, enchanting beauty of life. You gain meaning.
“Meaninglessness. Man cannot stand a meaningless life… They all seek their own existence, and to assure their existence.”
-Carl Jung
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“The balance between knowledge and being is even more important than a seperate development of one or the other”
-G.I Gurdjieff
A lot of people interested in esoteric development tend to over-consume information (I would call it “mental masturbation”) rather than face themselves. We can explain everything and live none of it. Gurdjieff said that kind of knowledge is useless, because the person knows but has no power to do.
- “The weak yogi”
However, there are others who work on themselves through discipline and devotion but lack understanding of what they are doing.
- “The stupid saint”
The gap between these two is where people get stuck. Every bit of knowledge you take in has to be lived, digested and allowed to work within you until it changes you, and every change in you has to be met with deeper understanding. Understanding itself, Gurdjieff said, is what comes from the meeting of the two.
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Rudolf Steiner was so correct when he warned that humanity’s “shadowy thoughts” would one day creep over the Earth like a spider’s web: a brood of half-mineral, spider-like creatures, interconnected in a network with “an overwhelming power of intellect.”
“And from the Earth there will spring forth a terrible brood of beings, a brood of automata of an order of existence lying between the mineral and the plant kingdoms and possessed of an overwhelming power of intellect. This swarm will seize upon the Earth, will spread over the Earth like a network of ghastly, spider-like creatures… These spidery creatures will be all interlocked with one another, and in their outward movements they will imitate the thoughts that men have spun out of the shadowy intellect… All the thoughts that lack substance and reality will then be endowed with being.”
- Rudolf Steiner, GA 204 (Dornach, May 13, 1921)
In today’s world (2026), the Internet is that connective web, running through electricity, wires and power, and reaching further into transhumanism, where the web begins to entrap us. AI, which some fear will become a superintelligence (theory of Singularity), a digital god, or even the Antichrist, works through the same things: powered by electricity, the decaying light of sub-nature, bound to sub-earthly forces of darkness.
Perhaps that is the secret of the “World Wide Web.”
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"The revival of spiritual knowledge will enable man to accomplish what he needs, a link between later phases of evolution and its pure, instinctive origin. Then he will know what is needed for the healing of humanity - harmony between science, art, religion, and morality." -R.S.
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As an electronics engineer and Steiner fan it’s unbelievable how far Steiner could see. The transistor hadn’t even been invented when he died. Robert Chamberlains book has this quote relevant to this post
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The human being must learn to stand between Lucifer and Ahriman.
Both forces are necessary for human evolution.
The danger begins when either one gains too much influence and disrupts the balance.
Lucifer draws us upward, away from earthly reality.
He inspires: enthusiasm, idealism, creativity, imagination and spiritual yearning.
Without Luciferic influence, we would lack the impulses that fire our will.
But when Lucifer becomes dominant, we risk becoming detached from reality and lost in our own ideals.
Example:
- Dreaming of great achievements but never taking practical steps toward them.
- Seeking spiritual experiences while neglecting everyday responsibilities.
- Falling in love with an idealized image of ourselves.
Ahriman draws us downward into earthly existence.
He brings precision, logic, calculation, memory and intellectual clarity.
Without Ahrimanic influence, we could not develop the capacity for clear, conscious thinking.
But when Ahriman dominates, we risk becoming mechanical, cold, materialistic and spiritually blind.
For example:
- Accumulating wealth while forgetting its purpose.
- Analyzing everything while feeling nothing.
- Clinging so tightly to security that all growth becomes impossible.
Human development depends on learning to balance and transform these forces.
We need Ahrimanic clarity in our thinking, but our thinking must not become cold.
It needs warmth and imagination.
We need Luciferic inspiration in our willing, but our impulses must be grounded in reality and clarified through objective thought.
How can we recognize which force is gaining the upper hand?
Look at your relationship to duty.
When we fulfil our duties through mere submission, without love or inner warmth, we risk becoming cold, mechanical and enslaved by obligation.
Learn to Love your duties.
Discipline remains, but we bring warmth and inner devotion to what we recognise as our responsibility.
Now consider rights.
Rights become Luciferic when they turn into endless personal demands.
A person becomes preoccupied with what they deserve, what others owe them, and how they have been wronged.
Bring objectivity, understanding, and calm judgment into questions of rights.
The goal is not to eliminate Lucifer or Ahriman.
The human being is called neither to serve Lucifer nor Ahriman, but to stand consciously between them.
This is where the Christ Impulse becomes central:
it provides the possibility of overcoming their one-sided influence and developing a higher harmony between them.
Spiritual development is not about escaping these influences.
It is about becoming conscious enough to transform our relationship to them.
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Rudolf Steiner on the three faculties of the Human Being: Thinking, Feeling and Willing, and their correspondence to the three states of consciousness.
Steiner teaches that the human being operates through three fundamental faculties, each corresponding to a different state of consciousness.
Thinking: Awake (Head)
Thinking is the faculty in which we are most consciously aware. We can direct our attention, examine ideas, form concepts and deliberately recall memories. By bringing Will into Thinking, we can consciously strengthen this faculty through concentration, repetition and effort.
The typical expression associated with this faculty is: “I think that...”
Feeling: Dreaming (Heart)
Our feeling life operates more like a dream. We experience emotions, sympathy and antipathy, but are not always fully conscious of how they arise or influence us. For example, when listening to someone speak, we may experience what they say emotionally without properly engaging with or retaining the information.
The typical expression associated with this faculty is: “I feel that...”
Willing: Sleeping (Metabolic System)
Our Will, which is connected to our limbs and metabolic system, operates largely unconsciously. We are aware of what we intend to do, but not always of the processes behind our actions. Consider the instinctive reaction of closing your eyes when someone suddenly moves their finger towards them, or how our digestive system operates without conscious direction. These are examples of how deeply unconscious our Will is within the body.
The typical expressions associated with this faculty are: “I will...” or “I intend to...”
These are the different degrees of consciousness operating within us, even while we are awake.
Steiner also connects these three faculties with the activity of the spiritual hierarchies:
Thinking (Angels)
Feeling (Archangels)
Willing (Archai)
Something many may not know is that there is another interesting way to approach Steiner’s cosmology through these three faculties, particularly when studying three of his works. Within Anthroposophical study, these three works can be understood through the following faculties:
Thinking: “An Outline of Esoteric Science” (1909)
Developing a mental conception and understanding of spiritual cosmology. This makes sense, as the work is very precise and complex.
Feeling: “Theosophy” (1904)
Developing an understanding of the soul’s inner life, and how we relate to the spiritual world through our feelings, emotions and inner experiences. It focuses on the soul’s subjective experience rather than a mental construct of cosmology built through thinking.
Willing: “Life Between Death and Rebirth” (1913)
Exploring how our earthly actions and experiences continue to work beyond death, how karma unfolds through the spiritual and planetary worlds, and how the soul prepares for its next incarnation.
We can also understand this teaching simply: Thinking builds the scaffolding, Feeling gives it meaning, and Willing brings it into action.
Consider an artist:
Thinking conceives the idea.
Feeling develops the desire to bring it to life.
Willing carries it into action through the act of drawing.
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Electricity Is Dying Light
At the turn of the 20th century, as the world became increasingly enamored with electricity, Rudolf Steiner warned that electricity was not simply a technological marvel, but light in a state of decay, a force emerging from the subnatural world.
He cautioned against the unconscious use of such forces, emphasizing that if humanity was to descend into the subnatural realm through technology, it must rise equally high into spiritual life to maintain balance.
Steiner warned that a purely materialistic approach to technology, divorced from spiritual understanding, would create profound imbalances in both humanity and the natural world. It is precisely this imbalance that we are witnessing today.
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Rudolf Steiner on the threefold nature of life after death, and the consequences of our actions.
The number 3 holds particular significance in esoteric teachings. However, when examined in relation to the astral body, we see how these forces operate.
Sympathy and Antipathy represent two fundamental forces of astral consciousness: Attraction and Repulsion. Equanimity, meanwhile, represents the ability to observe these forces without being governed by them.
To put it simply, not identifying with one's likes or dislikes, but instead learning to observe them without attachment.
Even after death, this threefold principle continues. Dr. Steiner describes the etheric life review as lasting approximately three days, followed by Kamaloca, associated with the lunar-sphere and sometimes compared to Purgatory. Here, one's life is reviewed backwards, from the moment of death to birth in 3x speed.
This process is traditionally said to last one-third (1/3) of one's earthly lifespan. (Akin to the time in earthly life you spend asleep)
This is somewhat similar to the life-review commonly reported in near-death experiences, where individuals describe their entire lives flashing before their eyes.
During this review, one experiences the consequences of one's actions through the perspective of those one affected. This includes the positive and negative things you did, through other's pov.
You reap what you sow.
The Golden Rule - "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matt. 7:12)
One eventually comes to experience what one has done unto others.
