Sacramental Thinking

Further Considerations on Anti-Gravity or Ethereal Forces and Related Matters

by Joel Wendt

This article was sourced from : The Journal of Borderland Research Vol. XLVII, No 3. May – June 1991
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A few words might be in order concerning what was written in my previous article.

The ‘work in progress’ of which the Journal is becoming an organ of self awareness, and which investigates ethereal, orgonic, and radionic phenomena appears to be an embryonic manifestation of the latent faculty of the American Soul for experimental work leading to what Rudolf Steiner called “mechanical occultism,” or the invention of devices which can be set in motion merely through a particular gesture.

There seems to be some relation between these forces, the act of thinking and our moral nature.

Given the tendencies and temptations (e.g. spiritual materialism and atavism) which the soul of modem man must face as proper rites of passage leading to new knowledge, how may a true understanding of these forces be gained?

In the way the human being is organized, as a physical and spiritual organism, his experience of the world is of such a nature that his consciousness divides up what in reality is a unity. Man experiences as separate his sense impressions and his thoughts about these impressions. To our consciousness the ‘thing’ and its ‘idea’ are two different experiences.

Rudolf Steiner has taught that this is not so, that the world is not itself ‘split’ in this way, and that the task for modem humanity is to overcome this ‘onlooker separation’ and reunite what first comes to us as divided. Further, he explains, that there is a purpose to this separation. Mankind having previously been in the ‘bosom’ of the Gods could only come to true freedom, real moral freedom, after having lost its connection to the fundamental spiritual reality. The direct experience of the unity of the world, previously a gift to man, had to be lost so that whatever relationship man was to have to the spiritual would be the result of man’s own yearnings, desires and efforts.

Toward this end Steiner wrote The Philosophy of Freedom, which involves acquainting the individual with this split as it appears to his own consciousness, and leading those willing to that understanding which allows us freely to overcome our ‘alienation’ from the ground of the world. In this book Steiner refers to the divided experience we have of the ~(the pure sense experience without any thought content added to it) and the concept (the ‘ideal’ entity which appears as a result of the activity of our thinking).

The understanding, which the study of Steiner’s philosophic material can give of this problem and its resolution, cannot be covered here. Someone who wishes to appreciate this understanding in wholeness needs to take up an activity which might well involve years of
effort (although this really depends somewhat on the moral forces that one brings to bear). Moreover, there are many students of Steiner whose work represents valuable aid. I recommend particularly Owen Barfield and Georg Kuhlewind. More especially I urge the study of projective geometry.

All these activities, study of Steiner, Barfield, Kuhlewind and projective geometry involve us in the activation of our own forces of thinking, the activation of our own ethereal forces. This ‘practice’ gives us a direct experience of something, and thus a knowledge of it which can be gained in no other way. Someone who, for example, is interested in the weather patterns of the Earth, and in particular wants to ‘force’ changes in these fundamentally musical, artistic and moral ‘atmospheric’ themes, might benefit from some direct knowledge in their own life of soul of the real consequences of mechanical, chemical and electrical assaults on this so subtle and beautiful countenance of Nature.

From a very practical viewpoint, the question can be put (in terms I hope will be useful to readers of the Journal): when I am experimenting, when I am in my laboratory (at my altar) how can I carry out my thinking activity so that it finds the true ‘ideas’ which go with the objects of my investigation? How may I unite the percept and the concept, which my given consciousness divides?

My own experience is that in this activity one is not acting alone. It makes a significant difference to the process of this thinking, that I engender a particular mood of soul, a mood acknowledging my limitations, and the need and desire I have for the appearance of Grace;
that the will of the spiritual world would unite with my own will in the conduct of this activity. Rudolf Steiner, in his Knowledge of Higher Worlds, describes the fundamental practical work as the practice of devotion. The anonymous author of the book Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, refers to ”learning to think on our knees.”

Experience has also taught me that my ability to understand the riddles which I wish to investigate (in my case the riddles of human social and political life), involves a process of growth and development. In the beginning I am only capable of a certain limited understanding. There is no immediately going to the ultimate truth, rather one begins a journey in the course of which will be detours, set backs, high and low points, new insights, deeper understandings and so forth.

I support the pursuit of my goal by keeping in mind three factors. First, that what I know at present is a temporary approximation of the fundamental truth; and second, that at each time I begin to think anew on those matters of  utmost interest I need to be willing to ‘sacrifice’ my previous understanding. The most grievous errors I can make are to believe I know the truth, and to hold on to what I know by becoming attached to it, by making my own identity and validity as a human being interdependent with these ideas. These errors then become a ‘dam’ to any further growth in the depth of understanding I may wish to acquire, because I already assume to know.

The third factor is the recognition that my moral intention will be determinative. The ability of ‘Grace’ to work with my thinking activity is dependent upon the moral ‘atmosphere’ of my soul life. For example, if I have become involved in some serious failure or responsibility in life, such that my own conscience is telling me that I should correct this rather then indulge my fascination with the ‘riddle,’ then this darkening of the soul life will interfere with my receptivity. Moreover, the selfishness or selflessness, which colors the pursuit of the ‘riddle’ also effects the degree of ‘light’ in my own soul, which then in turn serves as a barrier or a gateway to those ‘Beings’ who wish to cooperate with me.

Now one final hint. I have found as a practical matter that the Celebration of the Eucharist is the central archetype for the act of Sacramental Thinking. I leave it to the readers own resolute work, to his own free inner and outer deeds, to his discovery of the power of Imagination and Devotion when coupled with the soul faculty of Reason, to all the further adventures of one who wishes to find that ‘thinking is the only way to travel,’ that thinking ‘can awake in its own primal element,’ that thinking is of the light, is ethereal in nature and origin.