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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.
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Descartes, Bacon, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and the Revelation of Modern Rationalism
< French philosopher René Descartes, who had gone searching for the fratres RC, was himself accused in Catholic Paris of being a Rosicrucian, “how could this be?” responded the founder of the mechanistic philosophy “all the world knows they are invisible!” >
-Tobias Churton, The True History of the Rosicrucians (Documentary)
Dr. Steiner, in Riddles of Philosophy, places Descartes at the turning point of what he calls the age of self-consciousness.
The Greek still experienced thought as something perceived, as he perceived the world around him.
The philosophers at the turn of this age no longer do so. Descartes must bring forth thought from his own I, and justify it from within.
It is here that Dr. Steiner classifies the founders of modern thought:
“Contrary to Bacon of Verulam, who pointed toward the bricks of the building, Descartes (Cartesius) and Spinoza turned their attention toward its plan.”
That is, Bacon works with the bricks that he sees, while Descartes struggles to bring forth the plan from within.
In German: Bausteine and Bauplan, “Bausteine” meaning “Building Stones.”
The use of the word “Building Stones” in context with Francis Bacon is particularly interesting.
If you have researched Freemasonry, you should know that there are many Baconian legends surrounding the fraternity, such as the notion that Speculative Masonry was established by Bacon.
Dr. Steiner’s wording might have been intended to remind the reader of Freemasonry.
There is not enough space to go into the history of the fraternity here, but if you research carefully, you should find many curious relations between Masonry and the ushering in of the “Age of Enlightenment”.
And of Descartes in particular Dr. Steiner writes:
“The ego in him conquers the right to recognize its own being through the radical doubt directed against the entire world.”
The German is “erkämpft”, meaning “fought for” and won, through struggle.
In Germany, during the winter of 1619, while Descartes was still searching for the Fratres R.C., he had three dreams in one night, through which he believed the Spirit of Truth had descended upon him.
In his notebook he wrote that on this day, “full of enthusiasm”, he had found “the foundations of a wonderful science”.
The father of Modern Rationalism received the basis of his system not through doubt, but revelation.
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Humans don’t actually have free will in the way you have been taught.
This is the great terror: realizing that your thinking might be free, but your feelings are still dreaming and your will is completely asleep.
Things get much worse when you realize that most men don’t even think clearly. They are completely asleep.
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Does there have to be a reason for one to act?
No.
You choose to act simply because you will it. Not because of some external incentive, or impulse, but through will.
Gradually, you free yourself from being governed by impulses and habitual reactions.
What is true freedom if it is not the freedom to act without needing a reason or justification?
