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Is it possible to make Intelligent Machines?

May 4, 2009 by Kim Graae Munch

Intelligent Machines

I have had some discussions with engineers who had Intelligent Machines as their religion, and the most interesting part was that it was the Atheists who dreamed of the thinking machine.

I will analyze the feasibility of intelligent machines, with the computers we have now, from three different scientific approaches: The Mathematical, the Physical, and the Biological.

It is interesting that the believers in Intelligent Machines ignores the evidence, especially the Mathematical evidence which is the most definitive and stringent, this is also the reason I call them believers as they ignore facts, dreaming of a future with machines a lot wiser and knowledgeable than man, replacing God.

Mathematical Evidence

Kurt Gödel made the Incompleteness Theorems:

It is possible to have a complete and consistent list of axioms that cannot be produced by a computer program (that is, the list is not Computably Enumerable).

And

The incompleteness theorems also implies that not all mathematical questions are computable.

It states simply that there are problems which man can solve and machines can’t.

The BBC program `Dangerous Knowledge (part 9/9)’ looks at this Mathematical Prof.

Other documentation

Roger Penrose shows with examples why they cant think in: “The Large, the Small and the Human Mind“.

In this Hard Talk interview about the recurring big bang Roger Penrose touches the problem.

Physical Limitations

When you look out into the room, you are sitting in, you have a picture or really a video of everything at once and constantly. It means that this view of your surroundings, and your thoughts about it, are in your Consciousness. Seen from a computational view it is really fantastic, and Computer Science today can only dream of something that seems to be Conscious! Even with future technologies as Quantum Computing is it a question if we can make Conscious Computers at all.

Computers are something called Von Neumann Machines, which again is defined through the theoretical Turing Machine, and Turing Machines can only work on one bit at a time, which is only a small part of the information necessary to make a single point on a computer or television screen.

The consequence is that Computers can only have a part of a point of a picture in what we can call their ‘Consciousness’ at a time, and that is not enough to even contain the color information of a point. What they have calculated in one instance is forgotten in the next. It’s only when we see the result on the screen or on paper that it becomes Conscious through our consciousness, that is, we see the  screen as a whole, extracts the relevant information in all its complexity, and understands it’s implications.

A computer cannot be Intelligent however big and speedy it is.

Brain Science

Erich Harth in ’Windows on the Mind’,  1982:

The brain presents two seemingly irreconcilable aspects: It is a material body, exhibiting all the physical properties of matter, and it possesses a set of faculties and attributes, collectively called mind, that are not found in any other physical system.

In his book “The Creative Loop,..” he elaborates further on how the physical mind functions, and why it’s superior to any known devices.

Literature

The book by Erich Harth’s “The Creative Loop, How the Brain Makes a Mind” gives an intelligent description of the physical working of our brain.

The book Stairways to the Mind by Alwyn Scott gives a broader overview of the area.

No Theory of a Conscious Machine yet

There have been talked about thinking machines for forty years, but there have not been a single theory for building one yet. There have been made a lot of programs running on super computers which can simulate some aspects of the mind, but the programs have nothing to do with real intelligence.

Computers are good at those things where we are bad, that is remembering and calculations, but they can’t think.

With the knowledge we have to day, if it had been possible to program consciousness into our current computers, we would have done it by now.

Future possibilities

It may be possible to make thinking computers if its build on Quantum Computing, as the numbers of entangled bits in the computers processing unit can be increased considerable above the one bit we have today, but I am not sure that it is enough to create consciousness.

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The Ahrimanian Deception

April 20, 2009 by Kim Graae Munch

There is nothing magical about the Ahrimanian Deception, it’s a fully natural development path, that we might see as inevitable. In the following paragraphs I will look at it’s implications, which will be seen through greater aggressiveness, less social skills, and decreasing possibilities to control our future, less possibility to take decisions both in grand scale and in our lives.

The Deception works through various mechanisms, as

  • Materialism, a purely physical view of the universe,
  • Pervasive Politics, proliferation of the political system in daily life,
  • Groupings, emphasis on group, race, and ethnicity,
  • Orthodoxy, literal and “simple” interpretation of the Gospels,
  • Superstition, esoteric beliefs without foundation in thinking skills,
  • Abstract Thinking, cultivating abstract theorization,
  • Quantitative Thinking, purely quantitative (statistical) observation.

These combined with a Dualistic world view, where everything is seen in Black or White, will increase the strife between people all over the world.

The word Ahriman is not used in the following description as it is not necessary for the understanding of the implications.

Dualism sees everything in opposites,

and this is one of the greatest dangers today: If you are not with me, you are against me. That is a widespread sickness, especially on the Internet where you can hide under anonymity, but orthodoxy of any kind: religious, atheistic or political moves our future in a dangerous direction. What makes it so dangerous are that both sides believe that they fight on the side of good, but the reality is that they both fight for extremism, truth is always somewhere in between.

The Deception is not to see the full picture, to Understand!

The Challenge is to find the Golden Mean between the Extremes.

The following paragraphs will look into different areas where Dualism endangers our society.

Materialism

Science is seen as the absolute truth against black superstition represented by religion. It’s not seen as different and complementing views on the same reality. It has started the religion of Atheism, and you see them everywhere on the net, turning every discussion, independent of content, to an attack on Christianity, but they don’t attack other religions, which is curious, as Atheism should be against religion as such. Darwin is their prime god, but most don’t really understand what they are preaching.

Pervasive Politics

You see Dualism in politics, especially in two party systems, where there is no space for other views. Politics dominates today everybody’s life, in contrast to forty years ago, where politics was talked about at the elections every fourth year. The laws gave then rules for the relation between the citizens, today the laws regulate the relation between state and citizens.

The invasion of politics in the private sphere destroys the natural equilibrium of the society. The economic system today is an example of this, the equilibrium of that system ends regularly in chaos as the system is made for the speculators, not for the companies, nor for the country and its citizens. Today the decisions are taken by regulations or laws on behalf of groups, where prior the decisions was taken by those who knew about the concrete cases on behalf of persons. Wrong decisions had only small consequences then, where wrong decisions today have far heavier consequences as more people are dependent on these decisions.

One of the biggest lies of today: We need more regulations as a result of the society’s complexity. Wrong, it’s more complex as a result of all those regulations. Computers takes the complexity out of the complex tasks, and prefabricates takes the complexity out of manual work, so what is complex today, except the laws?

Groupings

There is a tendency to split up in groups, in stead of seeing mankind as one; people split up after race, religion, language, land, locality, sex, or whatever. There are lots of hate in this, not least on the Internet.

Orthodoxy

There is a tendency to read religious text’s to narrowly, as Jehovah Witnesses, and other religious groups who take their holy books too literally. Durban Two, where the Islamic countries tries to prohibit any critic of  religion, is a typical example showing that discussions of religious content are unwanted. New religious movements like Scientology, the Moonies, and so on are also too rigid.

Superstition

Another trap is to accept the words of religious, esoteric, and scientific literature without thoughts. Rudolf Steiner stresses particularly that esoteric students are in danger of reading esoteric literature without conscious understanding.

Abstract Thinking

in contrast to real understanding. It’s seen everywhere, and is also part of the previous areas. Man is seen as a thing not as a being. The reality is not abstract, and every decision based on abstract thinking is wrong, especially if living beings are involved.

Quantitative Thinking

and Statistics without understanding. Let’s say a politician want to make a law, and it will make 0.123% of all families go bankrupt, but as the percent is low nobody sees it as a problem. Nobody understands that there are real people behind those figures. Quantitative thinking always works through abstractions.

Big Mother

The development moves in a direction where we can expect that our individual ‘I’ is assimilated by the masses, the collective. In the western world we are talking about freedom, that nobody shall tell us what to do, and we are fighting (Duality problem) against conspiracies, against CO2, against many many other things, but we don’t define and work consistently for a world worth living in. At the same time our capabilities to decide our own destiny are diminishing, regulated by law, organizations, computers, and infrastructure. The result may be that everybody just follow the route with least resistance, which are build through directives, regulations, computer capabilities, ending in a situation where nobody thinks or makes decisions any more. And it’s all made for the good of the citizens by the Big Mother.

Many of the restrictions and laws are made because of lacking parenting, children no longer learn to live in a community, they are each and all small kings and princesses, who don’t understand that others don’t see them as such. Their understanding of scientific, historic or creative endeavors is as small as it has ever been. The children learned more at the camp fire than the children of today. As they don’t know how to behave, more and more laws are created to remedy the lacking parenting.

No revolution helps here, it’s hard evolutionary work which is necessary, starting with your Consciousness and your kids upbringing.

Complicated Structures

You can’t make tax-systems as complicated as they are today without computers, and you can’t control the many citizens or employees, as we can today, without computers; the amount of data are enormous. They make it possible to create structures which are difficult to manage without using computers, and computers don’t know HR.

GM and the American Automobile Industry are good examples of these gigantic Companies, who would be impossible to manage without stiff administrative structures and computers, and it’s extremely difficult to change these structures if needed. But modern software organizations have the same problems, with their software base, as Microsoft with their operating system, and their Office System, Yahoo with it’s big software base and reductions in labor have their problems, and new organizations as Google with it’s extreme growth will quickly get into the same problems, the only way out are to regularly rebuild old systems from the ground without any application reuse, and keeping different applications separated on application level, and using methods who makes the programming as simple and cost effective as possible.

These big organizations are extremely susceptible to the Peters Principle:

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

I believe the computers can be a boon to mankind, but we have to control how and what they are used for, not letting their possibilities decide our future, as their strength can be used both for the good and the bad.

Degrading Man

You can use computers to many many things, they can plan routes for transport to minimize energy consumption, and many other useful things. This sounds good, but if we don’t take care, it could mean that it makes the knowledge and experience of man superfluous or even dangerous; man’s role degraded to a machine. The need for knowledge is diminishing everywhere in the society, except within the computer world. Many jobs who needed educated Craftsmen can now be done by unskilled labor, as building materials don’t need special skills any more, and the computer has taken over a lot of paper work and decision making. This makes everybody to secretaries except the secretaries, even executives writes their own letters and calculating sheets on their computers, instead of using secretaries for it, so they could do what they were hired and paid for: manage.

Automated Decisions

Buying and selling on the stock market are for a great part based on automated decisions on computers, but as we have seen, it can go terrible wrong when some unanticipated events shows up.

As fewer and fewer managers can make decisions, these decisions will be automated as rules in computers, and it will be impossible to make decisions based on individual concerns.

Decreasing Social Intercourse

Computers are exceptional for entertainment, you can live your life on the Internet, without any direct social contact. You can play games, make your work through the net if necessary, discuss, hunt sex/books/programs/random data on the net (can be like drugs,) book your food from a local pizzeria, book escort girls, men, and boys, eventually finding mates on the net if you really want to live together with another being:). The film Matrix is a plausible destiny, not by force, but semi freely. It’s not Big Brother, it’s Big Mama.

Less Social Skills

In the old days, children, teenagers, and adults learned by living in a community, and there was room for everybody, also the village idiot. These and other unusual persons were educated by their surrounding who were mostly normal. We are today living more and more on the Internet, learning our social skills through social applications and computer games, the old community’s influence are replaced by the influence of the Internet comrades, and as like seeks likes, they can only increase their phobias or other disorders. Examples are numerous: pedophilia, school killings, terrorists, all kind of surrealistic interests, and so forth. The Law of Sayre’s are relevant in many of these cases:

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.

No Privacy

Children and teenagers can be reached by mobile and GPS always and everywhere, followed on the Internet through Twitter or Facebook by their parents. No privacy. The same goes for the adults, no privacy, open for state officials, economic institutions, and employers. Password protection, pseudonyms, and like precautions is no hindrance, Cyber-Investigators will find everything, relevant or not. You can not even go to the North Pole or to Himalaya in peace, they can always reach you, and you them.

Where’s the remotest place on Earth?

In our hyperconnected world, getting away from it all is easier said than done. Click the link in the main text to see more of the connectivity maps

In our hyperconnected world, getting away from it all is easier said than done.
New Scientist.

No Competent Leaders

What makes it so frustratingly absurd is that we are giving our independence to a system, a network of directives and conventions, without any persons being in charge. There is nowhere you can go saying that it’s wrong and it should be otherwise, everybody will tell you, that’s how it is and it has always been that way, and it can’t be in any other way, as it’s to costly to change the computers programming just because of you! Of cause, we have leaders in the top of the state or the corporate companies, but as the decision making moves up through the hierarchy (following automatic rules,) it becomes more and more difficult to manage the big organizations, as everything becomes dependent on one decision maker alone, and few know how to or can change the course. It’s more difficult to change the direction of a State, Organization, or a  Company than a Super Tanker. The organizations becomes automatons, and the companies go down in case of unanticipated events which craves structural changes.

GM and the American Automobile Industry are good examples of this inability to change, they have known for decades that they should change their models to compete with Japanese and European manufacturers, but they couldn’t.

The incompetence of these organizations will give rise to Conspiracy Theories as Hanlon’s Law warns about:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

But what do we do?

The frustrations has to go somewhere, and while there are no one responsible for our situation, and no one with enough insight, determination, and power to change the situation, we invent some god-like powerful conspirators who in all secrecy, with hundreds of employees, stands behind all the bad in this world. The truth is, that most leaders are so incompetent that it hurts. Just look at Iraq. The military invasion was well thought out, but the rest was incompetence par excellence. And that is not an exception, it’s the rule. Of cause there are conspiracies and secret operations, but if more than one participant knowing about the conspiracy are alive a year later, it’s just a question of time before the world know. Another reason to use few people are that really competent people are difficult to find, and the more people involved the bigger the risks for failure, and the bigger the consequences of a failure, the less interesting the project becomes. The best way to check if a conspiracy theory is viable or not, isn’t the technical evidence but the psychology and the necessary resources behind, how big is the risk, who gains, what’s their gain, how many participate, and what expertise are necessary.

What’s the mechanism behind the development?

Literature

The Ahrimanian Deception by Rudolf Steiner.

Inkarnation Ahriman’s (German) by Rudolf Steiner.

List of Eponymous Laws WikiPedia.

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The Eightfold Path

March 18, 2009 by Kim Graae Munch

I have made a presentation of Buddhas Eightfold Path from Rudolf Steiners lectures on The Gospel of Luke.

The Eightfold Path

The Wheel of Dharma

1. Right View -

I view things from what appears to me outwardly.

Man attains this kind of knowledge about the world when he acquires a right view of things, a view that has nothing to do with sympathy or antipathy or preference of any sort. He must strive as best he can to acquire the right view of each thing, purely according to what presents itself to him outwardly. That is the first principle: the Right View of things.

Lotus
2. Right Intent -

I judge in accordance with my right view.

Secondly, man must become independent of what has remained from earlier incarnations; he must also endeavor to judge in accordance with his right view of a thing and not be swayed by any other influences. Thus Right Judgment is the second principle.

Lotus
3. Right Speech -

I give true expression of my right view and judgment.

The third is that he must strive to give true expression to what he desires to communicate to the world, having first acquired the right view and right judgment of it; not only his words but every manifestation of his being must express his own right view, that and that alone. This is Right Speech.

Lotus
4. Right Focus -

I let my right view, judgment, and speech become deed.

The fourth principle is that man must strive to act, not according to his sympathies and antipathies, not according to the dark forces of Samskara within him, but in such a way that he lets his right view, right judgment and right speech become deed. This is Right Action.

Lotus
5. Right Alertness -

I act in my highest and best line of work.

The fifth principle, enabling a man to liberate himself from what is within him, is that he should acquire the right vocation and station in the world. We may best understand what Buddha meant by this, if we remember how many people are dissatisfied with the tasks devolving upon them, believing that some other position would be more advantageous. But a man should be able to derive from the situation into which he is born or into which fate has placed him, the best that is possible, i.e. to acquire the right `occupation’ or `vocation’. Whoever finds no satisfaction in the situation in which he is placed, will not be able to derive from it the power to unfold right activity in the world. This is what Buddha called Right Vocation.

Lotus
6. Right Purpose -

I work steadily till right action becomes a habit in me.

The sixth principle is that a man should make increasing efforts to ensure that what he acquires through right views, right judgment and so forth, shall become habit in him. He is born into the world with certain habits. A child gives evidence of this or that inclination or habit. But man’s endeavors should be directed, not towards retaining the habits, proceeding from Samskara but towards acquiring those that gradually become his own as the result of right views, right judgment, right speech, and so on. These are the Right Habits.

Lotus
7. Right Effort -

I link the present with the past and thus account for what I have already learnt in previous lives.

The seventh principle is that a man should bring order into his life through not invariably forgetting yesterday when he has to act to-day. He would never accomplish anything if he had to learn his skills anew each time. He must strive to develop recollectedness, mindfulness, regarding everything in his life. He must always turn to account what he has already learnt, he must link the present with the past. Thus along the Eightfold Path man must acquire Right Mindfulness in the sense of Buddha’s teaching.

Lotus
8. Right Motivation -

I let the things of the world speak directly to me without partiality to views of other humans or my former incarnations.

The eighth quality is acquired when, without partiality for one view or another and without being influenced by any element remaining in him from former incarnations, he surrenders himself with pure devotion to the things of the world, immerses himself in them and lets them alone speak to him. This is Right Contemplation.

This is the Eightfold Path, of which Buddha said to his disciples that if followed it would gradually lead to the extinction of the thirst for existence with its attendant suffering, and impart to the soul something that brings liberation from elements enslaving it from past lives.

lotusflower1x2

Throat Chakra, the Sixteen Petaled Lotus

The Eightfold Path is connected to the Vishuddha, the throat Chakra or the Sixteen Petaled Lotus as Rudolf Steiner Calls the astral organ.

In “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds And Its Attainment” [GA 10] Rudolf Steiner goes more in depth with the Eightfold Path. The Initial words from the text about the Sixteen Petaled Lotus:

The organ in the vicinity of the larynx has sixteen petals or spokes; the one in the region of the heart twelve, and the one in the pit of the stomach ten.

Now certain activities of the soul are connected with the development of these organs, and anyone devoting himself to them in a certain definite way contributes something to the development of the corresponding organs. In the sixteen-petaled lotus, eight of its sixteen petals were developed in the remote past during an earlier stage of human evolution. Man himself contributed nothing to this development; he received them as a gift from nature, at a time when his consciousness was in a dull, dreamy condition. At that stage of human evolution they were in active use, but the manner of their activity was only compatible with that dull state of consciousness. As consciousness became clearer and brighter, the petals became obscured and ceased their activity. Man himself can now develop the remaining eight petals by means of conscious exercises, and thereby the whole lotus flower becomes luminous and mobile. The acquisition of certain faculties depends on the development of each one of the sixteen petals. Yet, as already shown, only eight can be consciously developed; the remainder then appear of their own accord.

The development proceeds in the following manner. The student must first apply himself with care and attention to certain functions of the soul hitherto exercised by him in a careless and inattentive manner.   There are eight such functions …

Throat Chakra

References

The References I have used in this presentation are in my Notes .

Se also the Twelf Petaled Lotus, Ahanhata, The Heart Chakra:

Heart Chakra

And the Six Petaled Lotus, Svadhistana, The Sacral Chakra:

Sakral Chakra

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What are the feminine and masculine sides we all talk about?

January 17, 2009 by Kim Graae Munch

We all talk about our feminine and masculine sides without really knowing what we talk about.

I read Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucian literature, Jung, Fromm, and other psychoanalysts, adding to my intuitive understanding, but I still didn’t grasp it fully.

Many interesting, partly frustrating, experiences gave finally a long searched result. I will not describe precisely what Animus and Anima are, as it is explained better by others, but I will show where they fit into the seven layer model of man, and how they fit into the Steiner and Aristotle model.

I will take it a little further by explaining a few but basic rules around Dream Interpretation and the Roles of the participating figures.

borromeanrings_a

Jung and the Aristotelian model of the Soul

The model of Steiner/Aristotle split in three groups, the Body, the Soul, and the Spirit. Each part can again be split in three, the body as Physical, Ether, and Sentient body, and the soul as Sentient, Intellectual, and Consciousness soul, and the Spirit as Spirit self, Life spirit, and Spirit body. The model is described in The Essential Nature of Man.

Age contains the periods where each body and relating chakra is developed. (7) signifies change of teeth and (14) start of puberty. The Crown with 49 is by grace not through work. Following the Hebrew’s a person was first adult at 50.

The layers of Man Steiner
Aristotle

Age
From – To
Chakra

 Feminine associations Usage In Dreams
Man Woman
1 Physical Physical Body

0 – (7)
Root
2 Etheric Ether or Life body
 Threptikon		 (7) – (14)
Generative		 Lilith Anima Animus
Sentient body
 Aesthetikon		 (14) – 21
Solar Plexus
3 Astral
Sentient soul
Orektikon		 21 – 28
Heart		 Maria Magdalene

Lower I
The Persona
4 Ego
Nous		 Intellectual or Mind soul
Kinetikon		 28 – 35
Throat		 Maria, Cleophas wife
Consciousness soul
Dianoetikon		 35 – 42
Brow		 Virgin Sophia Higher I
The Divine Child
5 Manas Transformed astral body Spirit self 42 – 49
Crown		 The Teacher
The Wise Man or Woman
6 Buddhi Transformed etherbody Life spirit The World Mother
7 Atma Transformed physical body Spirit body

In relation to Dream Interpretation

The three Soul components:

  • Sentient soul represents Anima for men and Animus for woman,
  • Intellectual soul represents the Lower ‘I’/Persona/Ego, and
  • Consciousness soul represents the Higher ‘I’.

Anima/Animus

Anima/Animus represents the base unconscious Feelings and the Etherbody, and are represented by female actors in mens dreams and male actors in womens dreams. It can be your husband/wife, friends, colleagues, classmates, old girlfriends/boyfriends, or an unknown person.

As it concerns feelings, you seldom speak with your Anima/Animus, it’s mostly some kind of action, Love or some affection, or the opposite to that, showing the state between your feminine and masculine side.

Animus/Anima can in real seldom situations represent your physical body, if there is something which should be taken care of. And remember, it’s the opposite of your own gender.

Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’

The Ego, the Lower ‘I’ represents Thinking, and is represented by the dreamer in the dream. One of the goals is to unify the Lower ‘I’ with the corresponding Anima/Animus, that is Feeling and Thinking. The relation is connected with the Chymical Wedding.

Shadows or False Ego’s

There can also be other actors (Shadows), playing the role of False Ego’s . Typically friends, classmates, colleagues, or less common, typically in groups, unknown players. These persons sometimes characterize traits which tells what the dream is about, but in all circumstances it’s easier for the “dreaming facility” to use an existing person than to create a new personality.

The Shadow’s I see as debris flowing around in the unconscious mind blocking the Chakras. They are the background for the plot of the dreams.

The False Ego’s are the persona’s we set up when relating to other people to hide us behind, protect our selves, or to impress other persons. Their role in the dreams are to show that they are there and to remove them you have to recognize them. There can of course be persons in the dream which is only extras just to give the background, but then they will be out of focus, they will be difficult to remember.

Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child

The Higher ‘I’ represents the Willing, and is usually represented by a child, or teenager in the dream. Whatever happens to the child is a result of your life. The more the child prosper the better. The goal is to become the Divine Child.

The Wise Teacher

One more role is the Teacher, which I presumes represents the Spirit self, and in dreams usually shown as your Father, Mother, a Teacher, or Chief from your real life, who you have some respect for. They can in the dream be connected with the next floor upstairs. Can be both sexes, but I think it’s mostly of the opposite gender.

Dream Symbols

Three other symbols which are paramount in dreams are your House, various Schools, and Transport Vehicles:

In dreams the House usually represents your physical and psychical state of development. Is it clean, is it in chaos, are you building on your second or third floor, is it finished?

The schools tells a little about how it is going, are you in a kindergarten, school, High School, or the University? Are there room for you, have you forgotten your books, and so forth.

In dreams transport vehicles tells about how your journey is progressing. If you are riding a bicycle you are not doing especially well. Your car can go out of gasoline, you may have lost your ticket for the bus,  come late for the train, or you got a first class ticket for the airplane.

Numbers

It is extremely seldom that numbers in dreams are remembered, as they normally have no meaning. It’s like reading a book in a dream, where the reading is remembered not the text. If you remember a number it’s important to write it down quickly. What the number signifies depends on the context, it could be the number of days, time of day, number of hours, a specific date, and so forth.

Names

It’s also seldom to hear Noun’s in dreams, so when your hear one, try to find out what it stands for. Some of these names can be quite humorous.

Anonymous dream persons

Actual people from the real world will in dreams be played by anonymous players, you have to use the context to decipher the real world implication.

Here and Now

Most dreams are rather concrete, and they accentuate specific problems from the day before, and these problems are typically waves of underlying currents, life themes, which should be handled.

What makes dreams difficult to understand are that we live in the middle of our problems, that we cant overview our own situation; but our dreams can, and if we learn to interpret our dreams it will help us to understand our own situation.

borromeanrings_b

Examples

The Tin Drum

A friend of mine had a dream where she was going in front of a group of girls in a concentration camp playing on a tin drum.

The group of girls were her false ego’s, she put up whenever she met any of her friends, family, and so forth. She was trapped like in a concentration camp by that behavior. She understood the dream herself.

To met a person again.

I walked on the platform going to get a train. I met a young girl, but walked on. I then sat down between to girls, where one of them was the same I passed earlier, but older.

Or

I were in a discoteque and met a girl, I then continued walking around before i ran into her again.

Both dreams was preparing the same meeting with an old acquaintance, and contained in the small group of dreams about the future.

A real short dream

Saw a Trampoline.

The person has done a lot of work without coming anywhere, the previous day; if the dream theme is recurring a change in the theme of life is needed.

constru.gif

Literature

Dreams

Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding

Af Herman Riffel

Many believers read the scriptural accounts of dreams and never think it could happen to them. Today, though, many are realizing that God has never ceased using dreams and visions to guide, instruct, and warn. This book will give you a biblical understanding of dreams that you never had before!

A Step-By-Step Approach

I find that a very useful guideline for dream interpretation, especially at first, is to take everything in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer.

For example, if the dream involves the person travelling in a car with their uncle, then the car represents some aspect of the person’s life, and the uncle also represents a part of the person. This isn’t the only way to interpret dreams, but it’s a very good starting point, I think.

Here’s the step-by-step approach that I use.
I hope that by going through the example and then trying the exercise you’ll start to get a feel for what’s involved in trying to interpret a dream, whether it’s your own or someone else’s.

This Step by Step Approach contains a description of Dream Interpretation which is quite usable with my terminology. It also contains descriptions of how to combine the I Ching with Dream Interpretation.

Dream Encyclopedia

Example: The House in Your Dream
…..
Each dream image holds enormous data, emotional response, and created patterns of behaviour. So in considering the house in your dream you need to remember you are in touch with a full surround databank of fantastic information about you, your past and your possibilities. You can interact with this information by exploring it in the right way. And to help with this let us look at and question some of the possibilities your dream house might hold.

…..

Contains many interesting and usable entries about the Archetypes used in dreams.

Dream Dictionary

Example with House:

Seeing a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity. If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. Dreaming that you are cleaning your house means your need to clear out your thoughts and getting rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement. Seeing an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. Dreaming that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied. Dreaming of a haunted house means unfinished emotional business, related to your childhood family, dead relatives, or repressed memories and feelings. Dreaming that a house disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.

This entry looks quite ok, I havent checked other entries.

Dreams and Dreaming

Dreams as not really nonsensical, but a lot of them are crypted somehow. Major psychologists have studied how dreams work and why they appear, and whether they occur according to patterns, and which patterns. Carl Jung, Medard Boss, Calvin Hall, Montague Ullman and others have decreed that dreams do carry meanings, but you need to understand how dreaming functions. Dreams functions on their own terms. Through the basics of dream interpretations to get a hold on many of them.

Some dreams reflect mind content that pertains to tasks and problems and other issues the mind gets deeply involved in. And parts of the jumbled “video clips” within may just present “left-overs” from days before. Dream interpretations need to be tentative, perhaps open-ended too. Consider the deep feelings and messages involved in the recurrent and most impressive dreams you have had.

Decode and interpret the flows of various icons, images, scenes, actors, happenings, concomitant feelings so as to arrive at tentative or putative postulates about what impressive dreams could mean. In such work there is help in mulling over single, outstanding ideas or episodes inside the stream or flow of a single dream. Take notes of them and learn to draw special illustrations that serve you in a log book. all of it could help, but it may be time-consuming work that had better be done for the whole life. In short, you have to learn to assess well.

Carl Gustav Jung on Dreams

Here we come upon something of the utmost importance for the applicability of dream-analysis: the dream describes the inner situation of the dreamer, but the conscious mind denies its truth and reality, or admits it only grudgingly.

More on Carl Jung’s Archetypes.

Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice

Comprehensive guide to an understanding of dreams in light of the basic principles of analytical psychology. Particular attention to common motifs, the role of complexes, and the goal and purpose of dreams.

Catching the Thread:

Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology

By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Irina Tweedie

Aristotle

In  Greek Sculpture and the Four Elements J.L.Benson references Steiner on Aristotle’s description of the soul of man:

Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul.

J.L.Benson writes in Greek Color Theorie and the Four Elements :

To my knowledge Steiner, working closely with concepts from Goethe’s scientific work, is the only modern thinker to give full weight to the macrocosmic aspect of the microcosmic foursome. Above the physical body (which Aristotle dealt with en passant : de An. 411a he uses the term etheric body for Aristotle’s threptikon or nutritive soul, astral or sentient body for the aesthetikon or sensitive soul and ego for nous .

Steiner

The Essential Nature of Man from Theosophy.

borromeanrings_e

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Anthropos and Sophia

November 29, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

Christ and Maria flanked by the Esoteric Christianity represented by Sct. John, and Exoteric Christianity, represented by the Church.

Maria and Christ

Madonna and Child (or The Ansidei Altarpiece) painted by Raphael.

In the center column of this picture by Raphael we have Christ as the Son of Man, known as Anthropos the second Adam, and Maria also known as Sophia. Together they are known as Anthroposophia by the Anthroposophists.

They follow here the setup of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, Where the Exoteric Christianity is placed to the Right representing Sct. Peter and Salomon, and Esoteric Christianity are placed to the Left representing Sct. John, and Hiram Abiff the builder of Salomon’s Temple, and Christian Rosencreutz. Se The Temple Legend and The Masonic Legend for the legends behind Rosicrucianism and Masonry.

When Christ Gave John and Peter their Missions

Jesus Speaks with Peter

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Peter said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus told him, “Feed my lambs.”

Then he asked him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus told him, “Take care of my sheep.”

He asked him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was deeply hurt that he had asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” So he said to him, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you!”

Jesus told him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, I tell you with certainty, when you were young, you would fasten your belt and go wherever you liked. But when you get old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten your belt and take you where you don’t want to go.” Now he said this to show by what kind of death he would glorify God.

After saying this, Jesus told him, “Keep following me.”

Jesus and the Beloved Disciple

Peter turned around and noticed the disciple whom Jesus kept loving following them. He was the one who had put his head on Jesus’ chest at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is the one who is going to betray you?”

When Peter saw him, he said, “Lord, what about him?”

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will for him to remain until I come back, how does that concern you? You must keep following me!” So the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple wasn’t going to die. Yet Jesus didn’t say to Peter that he wasn’t going to die, but, “If it is my will for him to remain until I come back, how does that concern you?”

What it meant was that John would die physically, but not mentally, when he incarnated again he would remember, from life to life, who he was. Text taken from International Standard Version.

triple-spiral-spiral-of-life

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Changing Hierarchies through Time

October 26, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

Why does the Kabbalah Tree of Life look as it does,
and has it always looked that way?

odinstriangle2

In the Rosicrusian Cross I had a picture of the Kabbalah Sephirots as they are placed today:

christianrosencreutz2

Kabbalah Sephirots as they are placed today.

Many thinks that it always has looked like this since the day man was created for many planetary cycles ago. But, as God emanates down through his creations, his emanations three aspects (Son, Mother, and Father), ascends up through the Sephirots leading their creations up, and the placements of the Sephirots changes therefore on the pillars, after which aspect occupies a given Sephira. That is, Sephirots with the Mother aspect are placed on the Left Pillar, Sephirots with the Son aspect are placed on the Middle Pillar, and Sephirots with the Father aspect are placed on the Right Pillar.

odinstriangle2

A complicated example, which also explains the background for Daat:

Binah, Chokmah, and Kether are placed the way they are because Binah contains The Mother, the Creator of Man (Thrones.) The Creator has to be just above the Abyss, as she is above any of our spiritual bodies. The Mother should have been in Chokmah which is a feminine Sephira, and  Binah should have contained the Son, and Kether should have contained The Father aspect.

While The Mother is in Binah, The Son is hidden in one of the other Sephirots, so there is missing a Son-Sephira below Kether, where Binah in reality should have been placed, and where the knowledgeable have placed an imaginary Sephira called Daat instead, symbolizing the hidden Son.

Short after the time of Christ (The Second Adam) with Elohim, The Father or Osiris, The Mother or Shekinah/Sophia/Isis, and The Son or Horus/Anthropos:

rosicrusian-bc1Micro cosmos, Lower Part of Tree of Life

We come from here to the Kabbalah of today by shifting the Æon’s one up, the Mother/Elohim moved from Tiphareth to Geburah, thereby Geburah was placed in the Left Pillar and Tiphareth moved from the Left Pillar to the Center Pillar, as the Son moved into Tiphareth, and so forth.

It is interesting to see the Heavenly, and Earthly triangles with the emanation of the Son as Man. These two triangles overlaid makes the Hexagram:

The Elements

YHVE are the letters for the Sephirots in the Third Hierarchy, Micro Cosmos. Yod is Air, Heh is Fire, Vav is Water, and the last Heh is Earth. After the emanation of the Son, that is, today, the Elements has moved according to the Pillars. If we use the YHVE letters, Yod is fire, Heh is Water, Vav is Air, and the second Heh is still Earth. The reason are that the Right Pillar is Fire, the Left Pillar is Water, and the Center Pillar is Air, and Malkuth is always Earth.

Emanation of the new Æon

Franz Hartmann about the emanation from WHAT IS TRUE CHRISTIANITY?

It is claimed that at the beginning of certain historical periods — when old religious truths are about to be forgotten, and the idolatry of form assumes the place of true religion — some great spirit (planetary) appears upon the earth, incarnated into a human form, and by his word and example impresses the old truths forcibly upon a number of receptive minds, to communicate to others, and thus lay the foundation of a new religious system, embodying old truths in a new form.

It is believed that the man Jesus of Nazareth was the mortal form in which such a spirit was embodied; the latter being no less than what I believe every planetary spirit to be — an emanation from the Universal Logos or Word.

odinstriangle2

Literature

The Demiurge or Demiurgos and the AEon’s or Eon’s are described in

Gnostic Doctrines and Supersensible Influences in Europe

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Chaos or Order? No, Life!

October 19, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

We see everything in opposites,

Right or Wrong,  Chaos or Order,  God or Bad,  Yin or Yang,  Hot or Cold, …

But,
There is more to it than that.

We all talk about Order fighting Chaos, and most of us see ourselves fighting Chaos on the side of Order. But thats not how the universe is, and that is the reason why so many of our struggles go wrong.

Man is always struggling on one or the other side,
instead of finding the middle way.

odinstriangle1

Lets take a simple example: The Sun is the most Chaotic we know and the Moon is the most ordered we have, nearby. A Black Hole is of course more ordered, but our moon is just up there. The Sun and The Moon are two opposites, and we would not like to live on any of them, one too hot and the other too cold, so we live on Earth, somewhere in between those two extremes, alive in Equilibrium. Seen from that point of view, both the Sun and the Moon is deadly Bad, while the Earth is Good for living.

I define the Equilibrium as the midpoint between chaos and order, and in this context it is Life.

odinstriangle1

The more ordered or dead the universe is, the higher entropy of the universe following the Second Law of Thermodynamics. With time the entropy will increase until the absolute death of the universe. So, with Entropy, big is Bad!

Following the Second Law life depends on the difference between Warm and Cold:

Since any thermodynamic engine requires such a temperature difference, it follows that no useful work can be derived from an isolated system with maximum entropy; there must always be an external energy source and a cold sink.

Its interesting that our universe have suns and planets, and life on at least one planet, contrary to the Second Law. The life on Earth has been build against all odds, decreasing the local entropy constantly, since the Big Bang.

Misuse of Resources

Today we are increasing the entropy here on Earth with an alarmingly high rate. Our use of the resources of Earth and our destruction of nature is increasing the entropy and destroying our chances for survival in the long run, removing natures possibilities to decrease the entropy while trying to keep the equilibrium.

In Scientific American there is an intelligent article “Does Nature Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics?” about Thermodynamics and local self-organization.

As we normally think in dualities, we have problems defining equilibrium. If we take Thermodynamics as an example, they define equilibrium where entropy is highest, where the universe is dead.

odinstriangle1

From “The Middle Way” by Radha Burnier:

Sir Martin Rees, the eminent scientist who is the British Astronomer Royal, states in his book Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, that there is this kind of equilibrium or balance in the cosmos itself. According to him, these six numbers, which are either very, very small or very large, represent various forces in the universe, but all those forces exist in a state of equilibrium. It is very similar to the Eastern idea that there are three gunas or three kinds of forces working throughout manifestation. When they are in a state of equilibrium, it is called spiritual sattva or truth. Sir Martin Rees mentions that through the ages, the force of gravity has been in a state of fine balance with the force of expansion. If the force of gravity were too great, the universe would collapse into nothing. If the force of expansion were too great, the universe would expand away into nothingness.

In Christianity we talk about following the Golden Middle way, staying away from the sides, and the Indians talk about Dharma, the way to follow. In Kabbalah the Pillars in the sides are the opposites, Order to the left and Chaos to the right, and the middle pillar is the equilibrium, Life. In the crosses on Golgotha we have Christ in the middle symbolizing life, Love.

odinstriangle1

Literature

Ilya Prigogine

From WikiPedia

Prigogine is known best due to his definition of dissipative structures and their role in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium, a discovery that won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977.

Dissipative structures theory

Dissipative structure theory led to pioneering research in self-organizing systems, as well as philosophic inquiries into the formation of complexity on biological entities and the quest for a creative and irreversible role of time in the natural sciences.

His work is seen by many as a bridge between natural sciences and social sciences. With professor Robert Herman he also developed the basis of the two fluid model, a traffic model for urban networks, using Bose-Einstein Condensation theory in traffic engineering.

Other Work

In his later years, his work concentrated on the mathematical role of determinism in nonlinear systems on both the classical and quantum level. He proposed the use of a rigged Hilbert space in quantum mechanics as one possible method of achieving irreversibility in quantum systems. He also co-authored several books with Isabelle Stengers, including End of Certainty and the classical book La Nouvelle Alliance (The New Alliance).

he End of Certainty

In his 1997 book, The End of Certainty, Prigogine contends that determinism is no longer a viable scientific belief. “The more we know about our universe, the more difficult it becomes to believe in determinism.” This is a major departure from the approach of Newton, Einstein and Schrödinger, all of whom expressed their theories in terms of deterministic equations. According to Prigogine, determinism loses its explanatory power in the face of irreversibility and instability.

….

In deterministic physics, all processes are time-reversible, meaning that they can proceed backward as well as forward through time. As Prigogine explains, determinism is fundamentally a denial of the arrow of time. With no arrow of time, there is no longer a privileged moment known as the “present,” which follows a determined “past” and precedes an undetermined “future.” All of time is simply given, with the future as determined as the past. With irreversibility, the arrow of time is reintroduced to physics. Prigogine notes numerous examples of irreversibility, including diffusion, radioactive decay, solar radiation, weather and the emergence and evolution of life. Like weather systems, organisms are unstable systems existing far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Instability resists standard deterministic explanation. Instead, due to sensitivity to initial conditions, unstable systems can only be explained statistically, that is, in terms of probability.

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The Essene Gospel of Peace

October 19, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

This gospel is directed against the select, which makes it more direct in its language and contains more specific directions for the audience.

It contains rules for cleansing the body as a primary step to developing the spirit, in connection with the Earthly Mother, and mentions the three higher layers of Man.

The Earthly Mother

Alba

Alba

Book one of The Gospel of Peace starts with

And then many sick and maimed came to Jesus, asking him. “if you know all things, tell us, why do we suffer with these grievous plagues? Why are we not whole like other men? Master, heal us, that we too may be made strong, and need abide no longer in our misery. We know that you have it in your power to heal all manner of disease. Free us from Satan and from all his great afflictions. Master, have compassion on us.”

He then tells about the Earthly Mother, and how through following her laws getting healthy.

“I tell you in very truth, Man is the Son of the Earthly Mother, and from her did the Son of Man receive his whole body, even as the body of the newborn babe is born of the womb of his mother. I tell you truly, you are one with the Earthly Mother; she is in you, and you in her. Of her were you born, in her do you live, and to her shall you return again. Keep, therefore, her laws, for none can live long, neither be happy, but he who honors his Earthly Mother and does her laws.

He then describes how to cleanse the body through fasting and other measures, and diets following the rules before the fall.

The road to the Heavenly Father goes through the Earthly Mother:

“I am sent to you by the Father, that I may make the light of life to shine before you. The light lightens itself and the darkness, but the darkness knows only itself, and knows not the light. I have still many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them yet. For your eyes are used to the darkness, and the full light of the Heavenly Father would make you blind. Therefore, you cannot yet understand that which I speak to you concerning the Heavenly Father who sent me to you. Follow, therefore, first, only the laws of your Earthly Mother, of which I have told you. And when her angels shall have cleansed and renewed your bodies and strengthened your eyes, you will be able to bear the light of our Heavenly Father.

The description of the trinity, The Heavenly Father, The Earthly Mother and The Son of Man is rather interesting as the Mother is seldom mentioned in the scriptures.

The Heavenly and Earthly Triangle

These three is clearly matching the three pillars of Kabbalah. These beings has their lower bodies in the Astral Triangle of the Kaballah.

The Earthly Mother corresponds to The Pillar of the Left which is associated with  Shekinah or Sophia, and the lower aspect of Shekinah is Metatron.

Rudolf Steiner talks about the three feminine Sephirots in the Left Pillar through the Egyptian Isis in Isis and Madonna:

There are in fact images of Isis representing not one Mother but Mothers, three Mothers.

In front we have a figure, Isis with the Horus child at her breast, resembling the oldest representations of the Madonna.

But behind this figure in a certain Egyptian representations we have another figure, an Isis, bearing on her head the two familiar cow horns and the wings of the hawk, offering the “crux ansata” to the child. We see that what is physical, human, in the foremost figure is here more spiritualised.

Behind there is yet a third figure, bearing a lion’s head and representing the third stage of the human soul.

This is how these three Isis figures appear, one behind the other. It is an actual fact that our human soul bears in it three natures – a will nature, found in the inmost depths of the being, a feeling nature and a wisdom nature. These are the three soul Mothers; we meet them in the three figures of the Egyptian Isis.

Isis with the Child is The Earthly Mother (Hod) also known as Sophia, the two behind are Geburah, and Binah.

Isis with the cow horns and the wings of the hawk:

Isis

Isis

The Holy Streams

In Book Four, The Teaching of the Elect, the three holy Streams are mentioned

I tell you truly, your body was made not only to breathe, and eat, and think, but it was also made to enter the Holy Stream of Life. And your ears were made not only to hear the words of men, the song of birds, and the music of falling rain, but they were also made to hear the Holy Stream of Sound. And your eyes were made not only to see the rising and setting of the sun, the ripple of sheaves of grain, and the words of the Holy Scrolls, but they were also made to see the Holy Stream of Light. One day your body will return to the Earthly Mother; even also your ears and your eyes. But the Holy Stream of Life, the Holy Stream of Sound, and the Holy Stream of Light, these were never born, and can never die. Enter the Holy Streams, even that Life, that Sound, and that Light which gave you birth; that you may reach the kingdom of the Heavenly Father and become one with him, even as the river empties into the far-distant sea.

These three Streams are placed in the Ethical Triangle of the Kaballah:

  • The Holy Stream of Life is Manas,
  • The Holy Stream of Sound is Buddhi, the Word, and
  • The Holy Stream of Light is Atma

And they are placed in the Kabbalah tree as

The Second Triangle of The Kabbalah

These three Sephirots of the second Triangle, below the Abyss, are Called “The World Father” or Atma, “The World Mother” or Buddhi, and “The World Son” or Manas by the Rosicrucian’s. They are the higher members of Man.

Gaea

Gaea

Asphodel P.Long have made some interesting papers on the feminine part of God:

Asherah, the Tree of Life and the Menorah : Continuity of a Goddess symbol in Judaism?

Lilith

Canaanite Goddesses

The following text has some interesting details, except the combination of the Feminine with the Holy Spirit, but it is a common error:

On the Nature of the Divine Mother

Notes on Earthly Mother,…, Sophia and the Feminine.

About the Essenes and Gnostic texts.

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The Three Crosses of Golgotha

October 15, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

The three crosses on Golgotha is a significant scene in the New Testament. It signifies the main powers in the development of the Earth, as described in the The Tree of Life from the Kabbalah.

It’s a misunderstanding that Edvard Munch only shows one cross in his picture, as the crucifixion contains a trinity.

Edvard Munch - Golgotha

Edvard Munch - Golgotha

As Rudolf Steiner is one of the primary Christian esoteric teachers I have taken the following texts from Christ and the Human Soul:

Christ on the Cross between the two malefactors. The malefactor on the left hand mocks at Christ: “If thou wilt be God, help thyself and us!” The malefactor on the right says that the other ought not to speak thus, for both had merited their fate of crucifixion, the just award of their deeds; whereas He was innocent and yet had to experience the same fate. And the malefactor on the right went on to say: “Think of me when thou art in thy kingdom.” And Christ answered him: “Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”

The Cross to the left, representing Ahriman, is the Pillar of Severity or Form, the right Cross, representing Lucifer, is the Pillar of Mercy or Force, and the Middle Cross, Christ, is The Pillar of Mildness or Consciousness.

If one begins to consider the matter in a human-anthropomorphic sense and simply makes of Lucifer a kind of inner and Ahriman a kind of outer criminal, there will be difficulty in getting on; for we must not forget that Lucifer, besides being the bringer of evil into the world, the inner evil that arises through the passions, is also the bringer of freedom. Lucifer plays an important role in the universe, and so does Ahriman.

They are not Evil as such, but they are part of the development of Man, and of other spirits just above and below us.

…, I laid particular emphasis on the fact that the progressive gods have assigned to Lucifer and Ahriman roles in the spiritual world; and that discrepancy and disharmony appear only when they bring down their activities into the physical plane and arrogate to themselves rights which are not allotted to them.

Through our fight against these two powers we grow, and we reach Equilibrium, Tao.

Now the root of the whole matter, which must again and again be emphasized, is that the Christ, as Christ, does not belong with the other beings of the physical plane. From the moment of the Baptism in the Jordan, a Being who had not previously existed on Earth, a Being who does not belong to the order of Earth-beings, entered into the corporeality of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus in Christ we are concerned with a Being who could truly say to the disciples: “I am from above, but ye are from below”, which means: “I am a Being of the kingdom of Heaven, ye are of the kingdom of Earth.”

Christ is the emanation of the Son, the Middle Pillar, the Equilibrium of the Left and Right Pillar.

Heavenly and Earthly Triangles at the Time of Christ

He lived through the whole development cycle of man in one life, purifying all the seven bodies as seen in the Tree of Life. That is also the reason why Christ can not be born again like a Bodhisattva, his body is merged with the Earth. When Christ comes again, its a personal experience for each individual when (s)he is ready and not a collective encountering on a global scale.

Christ introduced Love as the Law above all. A comment by Henry T. Edge in Theosophical Light on the Christian Bible:

This means that there are two laws in our nature — that of instinctual self-gratification, which we share with the beasts, though in man, being allied with intellect, this instinct acquires an evil character; and that of the divine nature. When Jesus or any other Teacher, enjoins the law of Love, the Golden Rule, he simply points out the only rule of conduct which is proper for man, if man is to live in accordance with man’s nature. The fact that these wise teachings seem so ineffectual, so much disregarded, should not cause undue despondency or cynicism. They have remained as a lamp for our feet throughout ages of darkness, and are still recognised as our sheet anchor. Whatever failure there may have been in practice, the principle has been maintained. The doctrine of each for himself was not so long ago proclaimed as an economic panacea; but its disastrous results have become apparent. If there are cynical individuals who try to make a gospel out of self-seeking, they are not happy. The man who worships self exclusively cuts himself off from life and enters a path which, if persisted in, would lead to his being isolated with the object of his worship — a fate awful to contemplate.

The message of Christ was revolutionary at that time, changing the tribe mentality of an eye for an eye with the responsibility of the person, love your next as yourselve. It started a new evolution in the mind of man introducing the humanitarian thought in mankind. We are now in the critical phase where we will see if we can keep our human integrity in the egocentric climate of todays capitalism.

3crosses

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The Rosicrucian Cross

October 15, 2008 by Kim Graae Munch

The Rosicrucian Cross is the symbol for the Spiritual Stream started by Christian Rosenkreutz known under the name Rosicrucianism.

The Rosicrucian Cross combines the seven Red Roses, or Lotus Flowers, or Chakras with the Cross we have seen in the Caduceus Staff or the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. When the Roses Bloom on the cross, the Chakras has been opened.

The seven Roses can be combined with the five pointed star of Venus (Lucifer) as used by the Rosicrucian Fellowship:

There exist a third cross with only one Rose:

SingleRoseCross

The Rose represents the female principle while the Cross represents the masculine principle. The same is represented through the sign for Earth, The Universal Androgyne:

The Universal Androgyne

In Max Heindel’s description of the Temple Legend, where Hiram Abiff builds the Temple of Salomon, he writes the following about the Origin of the Cross:

Hiram was again conducted to the surface of the earth and as he walked from the scene of his shattered ambition, the conspirators set upon and fatally wounded him; but before he expired, he hid the hammer and disc upon which he had inscribed the Word. This was never found until ages later when Hiram, “the widow’s Son,” was reborn as Lazarus and became the friend and pupil of the Lion of Judah, who raised him from death through initiation. When the hammer was found it had the shape of a CROSS, and the disc had become a ROSE. Therefore Hiram took his place among the immortals under the new and symbolical name

Christian Rosenkreuz.

He founded the Order of Temple-Builders which bears his name; in that Order aspiring souls are still instructed how to fuse the base metals and make the White Stone.

One of the entrances to the temple was decorated with Roses. The Rose connects to Shekinah (Sophia) who has been titled ‘The Rose of the World’, Rosamundi.

The hammer Hiram Abiff received from Tubal-Cain is The Tau Cross:

The Tau CrossThe Cross is still used in Masonic Symbolism.

The Tree of Life in Rosicrucian Context

Many see Kabbalah as an intellectual game without any relation to the real world, nothing could be more wrong! It’s a description of man, and what is involved in his development. Each Sephira is, of course, a spiritual principle, but for all spiritual principles there are also living beings, and further more, each being is also part of a larger being.

The Tree of Life seen from a Rosicrucian viewpoint: The seven Roses represents the seven lower Sephirots (or Chakras), where the three upper Sephirots are above man, on the other side of the Abyss.

christianrosencreutz-color

Kabbalah Tree of Life with Rosicrucian names

The three Sephirots of the second Triangle, below the Abyss, are Called “The World Father” or Atma, “The World Mother” or Buddhi, and “The World Son” or Manas by the Rosicrucian’s, which are the higher layers of Man. This can also be seen in this table.

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