Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I would like to add another thing, Rodriel. It's an invitation.

As it seems to me, you have grown disinterested in foundational phenomenological work. It would be great if I'm mistaken, please correct me if appropriate, but when it comes to this forum, you have shown clear disinterest in the phenomenological work we try to cope with in all threads. Even in this one thread, you have shared your thoughts, but have systematically dodged the soft invitations received from various sides. You may be thinking, "been there, done that back in the day, now I've found home in the real work, now I'm part of the real task as an Unknown Friend. No need to digress with the basics anymore. I'm doing more advanced spiritual exercises now, working with stream integration now". I see this disinterest as closely correlated with your view of Steiner as representative of the now historically closed task of blowing the trumpet, foreshadowing, heralding, and hailing at the coming of the new impulse lying with Unknown Friends.

Evidently, in my view this is the expression of personal preferences. But in any case, for an Unknown Friend fully faithful to Tomberg's legacy, isn't it true that nothing of the knowledge of the higher worlds one may attain can be taken for granted without serious risks? Isn't it the case that nothing of one's participation in these worlds can be retained as an ideal private island where to plant the high flagpole of spirit-land? And no real cognitive exploration aiming to sense-freedom is too basic, or passé, to be fully relevant and pertinent to all our life threads - not true?

If you agree, I am joining my invitation to the numerous ones, softer ones, you have received and so far quietly declined. Would you begin to unballast the ballasts of layers of indirection with us, and join in our efforts to directly investigate the inner facts? It would be great and very welcomed if you could.

I understand why you'd take my silence around the "foundational phenomenological work" as lack of interest, but this is actually not the case. I am quite interested in it. In fact, as I believe I've mentioned before, Ashvin's essays (published on Substack) are in a way what led me here. I have followed Cleric's recent series and found it excellent. But both Cleric and Ashvin are incredibly thorough writers who tend to "cover all the bases" in their work. I'm left feeling like there's little if anything I could possibly add to it, besides dropping in to say thanks. Additionally, these essays are written from a very different angle from where I stand in terms of image content and communication style. While I'm able to work with them phenomenologically (and to great effect), the outer vehicle is one that doesn't immediately click with me. This isn't a critique, just an objective difference in toolkit and perspective. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be able to integrate it better at some point and potentially find something to contribute.

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to by invitations quietly declined. When I've skipped replying to certain comments in this thread, it's usually been due to a perception on my part that their contents had since been covered elsewhere. At other times it's been a lack of desire to enter into debate. I have not intentionally skipped over any directly phenomenological invitations. I appreciate the renewed invitation to join your collective efforts. Like I said, if and when I find something worth contributing, I'll jump in. Until then, I'll continue to follow the essays and related discussion with enthusiasm. I very much appreciate the work that's being done on this forum.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

This is a wonderful connection, Ashvin. Thank you for sharing. It highlights from another angle the core insights of PoF, namely that as of the late 19th century humanity has emerged into an era of radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility. Our increasing awareness of the gap redoubles the effort necessary for closing it, which in turn further amplifies the invitation you describe (in what I have bolded above).

I have definitely noticed the pattern Steiner describes in what you've quoted from GA 67. What it causes me to wonder about is the relationship between liturgical rhythm (which Steiner elsewhere states is something that must become an increasingly prevalent feature in human activity) and repetitive practice of cognitive spiritual exercise. I don't have any immediate insights on this — it's just the first thing that comes to mind as a possibility for further exploration.

I have noticed the pattern as well, and in fact, what he describes sounds like he is giving an account of my personal meditative experience. In the first few months and especially weeks after my characteristic 'inner clicking' with meditation, there seemed to be a steady flow of revelatory experiences. Alas, those vivid experiences quickly faded after a few months, even though I maintained or even increased the time spent with exercises.

It may sound odd to say the spirit flees from repetitive practice, because how else can we make progress without repetitive exercise? It's not so much about avoiding repetitive exercises, but simultaneously cultivating a new inner context that engages with the exercise through cognitive-moral efforts. Again, once we orient to the luring function of the faithful gap, I think we begin experiencing this fleeing of the spirit as something necessary in the evolutionary flow and that which invites our radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility, as you say. The key is that we avoid forming rigid expectations and habits with respect to the exercises as much as possible, like we are used to when developing sensory skills. That is where the inner forces of patience, persistence, humility, reverence, devotion, prayerfulness, and so on become indispensable. We have to make peace with the fact that we are dealing with an inner terrain that escapes our ordinary mental movements by which we conveniently memorize, accumulate, and recall facts of experience. I was actually kind of surprised when I first read the following from Steiner:

"There is something else that comes into play. If, as spiritual researchers, we have grasped something of these things and try to approach what we have now gained with untrained thinking, untrained in spiritual science but well trained in natural science, then what we have gained becomes confused. It is indeed as if that which is so wonderfully applicable to external nature were to drive away that which human beings can bring forth from within themselves through their own being. In addition, human beings are very easily inclined to bring their desires, cravings, and prejudices into the results of soul research, to color what should be objective with their imagination, just as objective as the results in the field of natural science should be. All of this creates obstacle after obstacle. And anyone who wants to know how to actually approach the spirit does not really need to apply specific exercises to bring out certain abilities hidden in the soul; for if you give them freedom, if you let them act as they wish, they will come of their own accord; they only fail to come for the reasons mentioned above. A large part of the effort required in the exercises comes from the need to overcome the obstacles just mentioned. "


Of course, by this, he does not mean we can do away with meditative exercises and passively wait for higher knowledge to arrive. Rather, he is offering a different perspective on what we should be inwardly doing within the meditative process. It's not about forcefully reaching out to grab higher insights and cobble concepts together, as we become accustomed to with our intellectual-sensory movements, but about cultivating a strong presence of mind within the flow and purifying the soul of its inner obstacles. I think that relates to what you have mentioned about the liturgical rhythm. There is repetition in a lower and the higher sense, just as there is imitation in a lower and higher sense (are we imitating familiar Earthly personalities, or Christ?). When we work with the rhythms instilled by the initiates in full consciousness (self-aware of what we are doing), we are integrating a repetitive pattern that remains receptive to truly novel and unsuspected insights. Along with strengthening our thinking-will, we remain receptive by purifying the soul of the selfish qualities that constrain the imagination and continually obscure the true dynamics of the Inner Flow.

This applies not only to the liturgical rhythm, but our everyday rhythm as well. The days of the week were also fashioned by the initiates. The difference, as usual, between repetition in the lower and higher sense, resides in how we integrate the rhythms and allow them to harmonize or clash with our soul movements. If we follow the rhythms with a mechanical necessity, forming rigid expectations and entitlements along the way, then we are like the person imitating the appearance and speech of a popular celebrity to mold our personality. On the other hand, if we voluntarily engage with the rhythms out of love for the inner process that instilled them, remaining patiently receptive to what higher insights they may offer, then we are imitating Christ.

Everything from the bolded onward resonates very strongly with what I've just been thinking today on this subject. The repetition of rhythm in lower and higher regions, I think, can be framed in terms of the polarity between thought processes of the etheric organism and bodily-based processes of the etheric organism. The latter reside within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies and are thus "established" — etched into the temporal domain in a time-undergirding fashion. When through liturgy we participate with our bodily and soul activity in the rhythmic unfolding of these transtemporal forces, we are in effect "priming the pump" for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence. But here, since we are in the province of our own freedom, we find that the seeds for rhythmic activity itself are buried within the soil of self-sacrificial effort. This effort is in turn what undergirds the temporal unfolding of the future earth sphere, and it is we who must build the pillars of will that metaphysically sustain it.

[Federica]

I would like to add another thing, Rodriel. It's an invitation.

As it seems to me, you have grown disinterested in foundational phenomenological work. It would be great if I'm mistaken, please correct me if appropriate, but when it comes to this forum, you have shown clear disinterest in the phenomenological work we try to cope with in all threads. Even in this one thread, you have shared your thoughts, but have systematically dodged the soft invitations received from various sides. You may be thinking, "been there, done that back in the day, now I've found home in the real work, now I'm part of the real task as an Unknown Friend. No need to digress with the basics anymore. I'm doing more advanced spiritual exercises now, working with stream integration now". I see this disinterest as closely correlated with your view of Steiner as representative of the now historically closed task of blowing the trumpet, foreshadowing, heralding, and hailing at the coming of the new impulse lying with Unknown Friends.

Evidently, in my view this is the expression of personal preferences. But in any case, for an Unknown Friend fully faithful to Tomberg's legacy, isn't it true that nothing of the knowledge of the higher worlds one may attain can be taken for granted without serious risks? Isn't it the case that nothing of one's participation in these worlds can be retained as an ideal private island where to plant the high flagpole of spirit-land? And no real cognitive exploration aiming to sense-freedom is too basic, or passé, to be fully relevant and pertinent to all our life threads - not true?

If you agree, I am joining my invitation to the numerous ones, softer ones, you have received and so far quietly declined. Would you begin to unballast the ballasts of layers of indirection with us, and join in our efforts to directly investigate the inner facts? It would be great and very welcomed if you could.

I understand why you'd take my silence around the "foundational phenomenological work" as lack of interest, but this is actually not the case. I am quite interested in it. In fact, as I believe I've mentioned before, Ashvin's essays (published on Substack) are in a way what led me here. I have followed Cleric's recent series and found it excellent. But both Cleric and Ashvin are incredibly thorough writers who tend to "cover all the bases" in their work. I'm left feeling like there's little if anything I could possibly add to it, besides dropping in to say thanks. Additionally, these essays are written from a very different angle from where I stand in terms of image content and communication style. While I'm able to work with them phenomenologically (and to great effect), the outer vehicle is one that doesn't immediately click with me. This isn't a critique, just an objective difference in toolkit and perspective. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be able to integrate it better at some point and potentially find something to contribute.

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to by invitations quietly declined. When I've skipped replying to certain comments in this thread, it's usually been due to a perception on my part that their contents had since been covered elsewhere. At other times it's been a lack of desire to enter into debate. I have not intentionally skipped over any directly phenomenological invitations. I appreciate the renewed invitation to join your collective efforts. Like I said, if and when I find something worth contributing, I'll jump in. Until then, I'll continue to follow the essays and related discussion with enthusiasm. I very much appreciate the work that's being done on this forum.

I must admit I don’t see how, because Ashvin and Cleric are incredibly thorough writers (which I agree they are) one can be left with nothing to say, while being quite interested in phenomenology at the same time. I don't get how these two things could be ever so slightly correlated, for anyone who has at heart the vital importance or phenomenological introspection in our day - unless the interest is arbitrarily oriented, abstract, or metaphysical with little connection to life. The same goes for the communication style and metaphors used - those are without exception fully accessible metaphors of everyday life. All this is precisely the most needed context for phenomenological (spiritual) understanding to blossom and develop in the present-day. I hope it’s clear that there can’t be anything objective in not clicking with this. It’s like being presented with a plate of simple, nutritious food amidst terrible times of famine, and saying: “Although this is all very good, I don’t click with bread and butter. I am a croissant person, so I’m not going to pass it on just yet. Just objective difference of perspectives”.
In any case, my goal is not to insist on inviting you to participate, but to alert about the working of arbitrary preferences.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I must admit I don’t see how, because Ashvin and Cleric are incredibly thorough writers (which I agree they are) one can be left with nothing to say, while being quite interested in phenomenology at the same time. I don't get how these two things could be ever so slightly correlated, for anyone who has at heart the vital importance or phenomenological introspection in our day - unless the interest is arbitrary oriented, abstract, or metaphysical with little connection to life. The same goes for the communication style and metaphors used - those are without exception fully accessible metaphors of everyday life. All this is precisely the most needed context for phenomenological (spiritual) understanding to blossom and develop in the present-day. I hope it’s clear that there can’t be anything objective in not clicking with this. It’s like being presented with a plate of simple, nutritious food amidst terrible times of famine, and saying: “Although this is all very good, I don’t click with bread and butter. I am a croissant person, so I’m not going to pass it on just yet. Just objective difference of perspectives”.
In any case, my goal is not to insist on inviting you to participate, but to alert about the working of arbitrary preferences.

The best explanation I can give is to compare the situation to something I've encountered in another area of life. I'm a musician and at various times have undertaken to become proficient in other genres. For instance, jazz. Unlike spoken language, where one benefits from immediately jumping into participatory mode, with musical genres it actually behooves a person to spend a good amount of time "getting it in their ear" first. Taking in lots and lots of recordings (and live performances if possible), transcribing solos, and learning the music-theoretical grammar is a prerequisite to taking out one's instrument and jamming with Coltrane. It would be futile and presumptuous to do otherwise, even if the person were highly developed in another musical genre.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but I think it's better than the food preferences one you've given. The issue is more related to predisposition and learning curve than to "arbitrary preference."

[Federica]

I must admit I don’t see how, because Ashvin and Cleric are incredibly thorough writers (which I agree they are) one can be left with nothing to say, while being quite interested in phenomenology at the same time. I don't get how these two things could be ever so slightly correlated, for anyone who has at heart the vital importance or phenomenological introspection in our day - unless the interest is arbitrary oriented, abstract, or metaphysical with little connection to life. The same goes for the communication style and metaphors used - those are without exception fully accessible metaphors of everyday life. All this is precisely the most needed context for phenomenological (spiritual) understanding to blossom and develop in the present-day. I hope it’s clear that there can’t be anything objective in not clicking with this. It’s like being presented with a plate of simple, nutritious food amidst terrible times of famine, and saying: “Although this is all very good, I don’t click with bread and butter. I am a croissant person, so I’m not going to pass it on just yet. Just objective difference of perspectives”.
In any case, my goal is not to insist on inviting you to participate, but to alert about the working of arbitrary preferences.

The best explanation I can give is to compare the situation to something I've encountered in another area of life. I'm a musician and at various times have undertaken to become proficient in other genres. For instance, jazz. Unlike spoken language, where one benefits from immediately jumping into participatory mode, with musical genres it actually behooves a person to spend a good amount of time "getting it in their ear" first. Taking in lots and lots of recordings (and live performances if possible), transcribing solos, and learning the music-theoretical grammar is a prerequisite to taking out one's instrument and jamming with Coltrane. It would be futile and presumptuous to do otherwise, even if the person were highly developed in another musical genre.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but I think it's better than the food preferences one you've given. The issue is more related to predisposition and learning curve than to "arbitrary preference."

Rodriel, in your metaphor it's all about developing skills. Which is certainly a thing, at varying degrees, in all arts. But the point is precisely that there are no pre-requisite skills in order to participate in the essays in question (or in any other discussions here) provided that the interest is there. The life skills an average adult develops by being alive in our global society are enough, provided that the interest is there. That you have not developed the skills to comment in other threads, and that it would be presumptuous to do that, is an unreceivable claim.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Rodriel, in your metaphor it's all about developing skills. Which is certainly a thing, at varying degrees, in all arts. But the point is precisely that there are no pre-requisite skills in order to participate in the essays in question (or in any other discussions here) provided that the interest is there. The life skills an average adult develops by being alive in our global society are enough, provided that the interest is there. That you have not developed the skills to comment in other threads, and that it would be presumptuous to do that, is an unreceivable claim.

Got it - claim unreceived.

[Federica]

Got it - claim unreceived.

Beyond what I receive or don't receive, what could perhaps be more interesting to you is the introspective question whether anyone else (including yourself) would receive that claim.

[AshvinP]

Everything from the bolded onward resonates very strongly with what I've just been thinking today on this subject. The repetition of rhythm in lower and higher regions, I think, can be framed in terms of the polarity between thought processes of the etheric organism and bodily-based processes of the etheric organism. The latter reside within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies and are thus "established" — etched into the temporal domain in a time-undergirding fashion. When through liturgy we participate with our bodily and soul activity in the rhythmic unfolding of these transtemporal forces, we are in effect "priming the pump" for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence. But here, since we are in the province of our own freedom, we find that the seeds for rhythmic activity itself are buried within the soil of self-sacrificial effort. This effort is in turn what undergirds the temporal unfolding of the future earth sphere, and it is we who must build the pillars of will that metaphysically sustain it.

That is a great way to express it, and also quite daunting, if we imagine what would happen if our current chaotic thought processes became the undergirding for the temporal flow of becoming. We are still very much living off the 'infant's milk' of the spiritual hierarchies and the natural-cultural rhythms etched through the initiates. Without that undergirding support, our inner lives would be oscillating hither and thither, and the whole structure of orderly human civilization would crumble. That is, of course, what seems to be unfolding in our times, as the individual soul is weaned off the external support and is tasked with bringing orderly rhythm from out of the depths of moral intuition. The soul must rediscover anew the inner impulses that originally etched the Cosmic-Earthly rhythms.

We could imagine, for example, if all external 'calendars' suddenly disappeared and there was no more objective indication of what day of the week or time of the day we were living through. We could imagine the atmosphere covered in dense fog so that we could not even perceive the Sun. Yet we also know that the days of the week and times of day we are living through evoke certain soul moods, certain 'feeling and will tones', within us. If we could heighten our attention to these lawful soul metamorphoses, then they would become the new objective anchor of our daily rhythms. We would know what tasks should be addressed based on the soul mood and corresponding imaginations we were living through. This shared imaginative atmosphere then becomes the temporal undergirding of the future earth sphere that you are pointing to.

[AshvinP]

This shared imaginative atmosphere then becomes the temporal undergirding of the future earth sphere that you are pointing to.

Interestingly enough, I just came across a helpful Facebook post outlining the undergirding nature of Time-rhythms from the spiritual scientific perspective.

***

"Time does exist beyond the material realm—but it undergoes radical transformation as we ascend into higher spiritual worlds. In physical reality, time is linear and bound to space. In the etheric, astral, and spiritual worlds, time becomes more qualitative, reversible, and ultimately moral. Steiner distinguishes between mechanical time, life time, soul time, and cosmic time. He explicitly teaches that time does not disappear in spiritual worlds—but becomes more archetypal, less quantitative, and intimately bound with consciousness and the deeds of beings.
Confidence: High – All claims traceable to verified GA sources.
⸻
[CORE RESPONSE]
TOPOLOGY USED: Tree of Thoughts → Graph (due to conceptual branching + synthesis of cosmological, metaphysical, and experiential time)
⸻
I. WHAT IS TIME IN SPIRITUAL SCIENCE?
Let us first define what “time” is in Steiner’s verified epistemology.
“Time is not an illusion. Time is the expression of the spiritual reality of development.”
— Occult Science, GA 13, Ch. 2: “Cosmic Evolution”
Time is not merely a byproduct of physical motion; it is the revelation of spiritual becoming—especially in its cosmic and evolutionary dimensions.
⸻
II. FOUR MODES OF TIME IN SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
1. Physical/Material Time
• Linear, irreversible, clock-based
• Exists in the physical world (Earth condition)
• Steiner: this is the lowest form of time, tied to space
“The time we measure with clocks is the shadow of a spiritual reality.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. II
⸻
2. Life Time (Etheric Time)
• Related to growth, rhythm, repetition
• Appears in plant life, human etheric body, planetary rhythms
• Non-linear but cyclical
“In the etheric world, we no longer live in straight lines of time, but in pulses, like breathing, like tides.”
— Inner Nature of Man, GA 153, Lecture 3
⸻
3. Soul Time (Astral)
• Time becomes psychological, elastic
• Events can be re-lived, slowed, compressed
• Moral causality appears: deeds return not in sequence but in meaningful echo
“In Devachan [spirit world], time is not what it is on Earth… Time there is a flowing and weaving of soul relationships.”
— Theosophy, GA 9
In the Kamaloka phase (post-mortem purification), we live time backwards, reviewing our deeds in reverse—from the standpoint of others affected.
“There, we live our life backwards, but in such a way that the soul experiences in inner images the consequences of its actions upon others.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. IV
⸻
4. Cosmic Time (Spiritual World, Devachan)
• Here time becomes creative, archetypal, moral-spiritual
• “Before” and “after” are replaced by intensity, significance, or order of being
• Time is now the rhythm of spirit-beings themselves
“In the spiritual world, time is not succession, but a life process of being. Time there is the form of spiritual existence.”
— Genesis: Secrets of the Bible Story, GA 122
This is what Steiner calls Becoming (Werden): a supersensible, real process, not a spatial dimension.
⸻
III. “LESS DIMENSIONS” AS WE ASCEND?
Yes. Steiner is precise: higher worlds have fewer spatial dimensions—but richer inner content.
In the physical world, we experience 3 spatial + 1 temporal dimensions. But:
“In the astral world, space becomes a point. In the spirit world, time becomes space.”
— The Threshold of the Spiritual World, GA 17
This means:
• Space contracts, becoming non-local (we can be “at a place” by inner resonance)
• Time expands into a moral reality (our inner development is our location)
So:
• Higher = fewer spatial dimensions, richer inner laws
• Lower = more spatial dimensions, denser outer laws
This is why spiritual beings do not “travel” in space—they appear where they are spiritually relevant.
⸻
IV. HOW DOES TIME FUNCTION IN “HEAVEN”?
If we define “heaven” loosely as:
• Devachan (Spirit Land)
• Inter-incarnational states
• Higher hierarchies’ sphere of action
Then time there is:
• Non-mechanical
• Reversible or re-accessible
• Organized by meaning, not quantity
• Part of being, not outside it
“A being of the higher hierarchies has time within itself. Time is the rhythm of its being.”
— Rosicrucian Wisdom, GA 99, Lecture 2
In this sense, you do not “spend time” in heaven—you are time, or participate in the spiritual flow of becoming.
⸻
V. TIME & THE COSMIC PAST-FUTURE ARCHETYPE
Steiner teaches that in the Akashic Record, the spiritual world preserves the total memory of Earth evolution.
“The Akashic Record is not a record in time—it is time itself, in its eternal form.”
— From the Akashic Records, GA 11
Thus:
• Time in the spiritual world is not lost, but eternally present
• Past and future are real conditions of soul, not just sequences
⸻
VI. IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN BEINGS
• Before birth: we experience a time of preparation, not bound by Earth time
• After death: we live through spiritual time laws—reverse life review, rhythmic spiritual development
• In Initiation: one begins to consciously participate in inner time, including memory of past lives
“For the initiate, time is no longer a stream he is carried by—it is a sea in which he learns to navigate.”
— Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, GA 10
Edge Case
Steiner’s Teaching
Does time exist for angels?
Yes, but it is inward time—rhythmic, moral, evolutionary
Can time be escaped?
No. Even eternity contains time—but in non-linear, creative forms
Is time a human illusion?
No. Time is more real in the spiritual world, not less
[EXTENSIONS & ALTERNATIVES]
• Compare with Bergson’s durée (lived time) — Steiner’s etheric time is similar
• Contrast with Einsteinian spacetime — Steiner rejects that time is simply a 4th spatial coordinate
• Explore time as experienced in initiation rites — see GA 10, GA 13
⸻
[FINAL SYNTHESIS]
Time does not vanish in the spiritual worlds—it becomes more essential.
• In matter, time is measured.
• In life, time breathes.
• In soul, time echoes.
• In spirit, time creates.
“What we call time here below is a shadow. Above, time is being.”
— GA 13, paraphrased essence
The more spiritual the realm, the less “space”—but the more reality time has.
In heaven, time is not counted—it is lived as the music of meaning.
—————————————————————————-
1. PHYSICAL PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Humanity
• Time: Linear-mechanical time
• Nature:
• Quantitative, sequential
• Irreversible (entropy-bound)
• Experienced via outer sense-perception
• Basis of clocks, calendars, physics
“What we call time in the physical world is the shadow of a real, spiritual process.”
— Theosophy, GA 9
⸻
2. ETHERIC PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Angels, working with life rhythms
• Time: Rhythmic-biological time
• Nature:
• Cyclical (e.g., circadian, seasonal, lunar rhythms)
• Non-linear, but repetitive
• Connected with formative forces (etheric body)
• Birth, growth, decay
• Time breathes here
“In the etheric world, time is like the breathing of the cosmos—it pulses in rhythms.”
— GA 153, Lecture 3
⸻
3. ASTRAL PLANE (Kama-loka)
• Hierarchy active: Archangels
• Time: Psychological-moral time
• Nature:
• Elastic (subjective duration varies)
• Time can flow backwards (e.g., Kamaloka: reverse life review)
• Events are experienced by moral significance, not order
• Consequences echo back upon the soul
“In the astral world, time flows differently. A moment of pain inflicted may be experienced as a long night by the soul.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. IV
⸻
4. SPIRIT WORLD – LOWER DEVACHAN
• Hierarchy active: Archai, Powers (Exusiai)
• Time: Moral-causal time
• Nature:
• Sequences still exist, but they are moral-logical
• Archetypes of karma unfold
• Time is not external, but is built into the lawfulness of being
• Imaginations are the temporal substance
“In Devachan, time is no longer counted—it is structured according to moral truth.”
— GA 10, Knowledge of Higher Worlds
⸻
5. SPIRIT LAND – HIGHER DEVACHAN
• Hierarchy active: Virtues (Dynamis), Dominions (Kyriotetes)
• Time: Creative-ontological time
• Nature:
• Time is a being
• Events are not in time—they are time
• Time flows according to the inner essence of spiritual beings
• Inspiration is the medium of time perception
• Past/future distinction begins to dissolve
“Beings of the higher world do not move through time—they emanate time as their own nature.”
— GA 110, Lecture 4
⸻
6. NIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Thrones
• Time: Becoming-as-Time
• Nature:
• Time is no longer “movement” but pure becoming
• Every event is a creative act
• No past or future—only potentiation and emanation
• Human participation here begins in Intuition
“Nirvana is the world in which the deeds of the Thrones become time itself.”
— GA 13, Occult Science
⸻
7. PARINIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Cherubim
• Time: Harmonic time / Timeless order
• Nature:
• Time = unfolding of divine harmony
• All realities are in perpetual synchrony
• Nothing becomes—everything is as melody is: eternal and mobile
• Events “occur” as chords of meaning
“Parinirvana is the harmony of all past and future in a single divine tone.”
— GA 122, Genesis: Secrets of the Bible Story
⸻
8. MAHAPARANIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Seraphim
• Time: Supra-time / Archetypal Fire
• Nature:
• Time and space dissolve completely
• What exists is pure will in eternal act
• No succession, no duration
• Not even memory—only absolute presence
• Highest beings here are time’s origin, not its inhabitants
“In Mahaparanirvana, the Seraphim do not move—they burn. They are eternal act.”
— GA 110, Lecture 9"

[Federica]

I have noticed the pattern as well, and in fact, what he describes sounds like he is giving an account of my personal meditative experience. In the first few months and especially weeks after my characteristic 'inner clicking' with meditation, there seemed to be a steady flow of revelatory experiences. Alas, those vivid experiences quickly faded after a few months, even though I maintained or even increased the time spent with exercises.

It may sound odd to say the spirit flees from repetitive practice, because how else can we make progress without repetitive exercise? It's not so much about avoiding repetitive exercises, but simultaneously cultivating a new inner context that engages with the exercise through cognitive-moral efforts. Again, once we orient to the luring function of the faithful gap, I think we begin experiencing this fleeing of the spirit as something necessary in the evolutionary flow and that which invites our radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility, as you say. The key is that we avoid forming rigid expectations and habits with respect to the exercises as much as possible, like we are used to when developing sensory skills. That is where the inner forces of patience, persistence, humility, reverence, devotion, prayerfulness, and so on become indispensable. We have to make peace with the fact that we are dealing with an inner terrain that escapes our ordinary mental movements by which we conveniently memorize, accumulate, and recall facts of experience. I was actually kind of surprised when I first read the following from Steiner:

"There is something else that comes into play. If, as spiritual researchers, we have grasped something of these things and try to approach what we have now gained with untrained thinking, untrained in spiritual science but well trained in natural science, then what we have gained becomes confused. It is indeed as if that which is so wonderfully applicable to external nature were to drive away that which human beings can bring forth from within themselves through their own being. In addition, human beings are very easily inclined to bring their desires, cravings, and prejudices into the results of soul research, to color what should be objective with their imagination, just as objective as the results in the field of natural science should be. All of this creates obstacle after obstacle. And anyone who wants to know how to actually approach the spirit does not really need to apply specific exercises to bring out certain abilities hidden in the soul; for if you give them freedom, if you let them act as they wish, they will come of their own accord; they only fail to come for the reasons mentioned above. A large part of the effort required in the exercises comes from the need to overcome the obstacles just mentioned. "


Of course, by this, he does not mean we can do away with meditative exercises and passively wait for higher knowledge to arrive. Rather, he is offering a different perspective on what we should be inwardly doing within the meditative process. It's not about forcefully reaching out to grab higher insights and cobble concepts together, as we become accustomed to with our intellectual-sensory movements, but about cultivating a strong presence of mind within the flow and purifying the soul of its inner obstacles. I think that relates to what you have mentioned about the liturgical rhythm. There is repetition in a lower and the higher sense, just as there is imitation in a lower and higher sense (are we imitating familiar Earthly personalities, or Christ?). When we work with the rhythms instilled by the initiates in full consciousness (self-aware of what we are doing), we are integrating a repetitive pattern that remains receptive to truly novel and unsuspected insights. Along with strengthening our thinking-will, we remain receptive by purifying the soul of the selfish qualities that constrain the imagination and continually obscure the true dynamics of the Inner Flow.

This applies not only to the liturgical rhythm, but our everyday rhythm as well. The days of the week were also fashioned by the initiates. The difference, as usual, between repetition in the lower and higher sense, resides in how we integrate the rhythms and allow them to harmonize or clash with our soul movements. If we follow the rhythms with a mechanical necessity, forming rigid expectations and entitlements along the way, then we are like the person imitating the appearance and speech of a popular celebrity to mold our personality. On the other hand, if we voluntarily engage with the rhythms out of love for the inner process that instilled them, remaining patiently receptive to what higher insights they may offer, then we are imitating Christ.

Everything from the bolded onward resonates very strongly with what I've just been thinking today on this subject. The repetition of rhythm in lower and higher regions, I think, can be framed in terms of the polarity between thought processes of the etheric organism and bodily-based processes of the etheric organism. The latter reside within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies and are thus "established" — etched into the temporal domain in a time-undergirding fashion. When through liturgy we participate with our bodily and soul activity in the rhythmic unfolding of these transtemporal forces, we are in effect "priming the pump" for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence. But here, since we are in the province of our own freedom, we find that the seeds for rhythmic activity itself are buried within the soil of self-sacrificial effort. This effort is in turn what undergirds the temporal unfolding of the future earth sphere, and it is we who must build the pillars of will that metaphysically sustain it.

I would take Ashvin's reply to this post further, and back to the Steiner quote above. In order for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence, it’s nowadays necessary to create one’s own ‘liturgy’ - through an individually crafted rhythm of daily exercises - rather than primarily participate in established rituals. In general, what resides within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies is our sleeping physical-etheric life. Especially while we are awake, efforts can and should be made to take over, as much as possible, the etching of repetitive rhythms in the etheric body, rather than letting unfree desires and/or traditional forms (liturgy) do that.

In my view, the leveling up in willed rhythms from lower to higher today plays out less and less between the unfree bodily desires and the traditional liturgical forms, and more and more between unfree desires and traditional liturgical forms on the one hand, and a freely created individual practice on the other.