A Co-Creative Journey

A Co-Creative Journey

Cognitive Yoga: How a book is born

Heavenly Jerusalem and the Mysteries of the Human Body

(Temple Lodge 2017, Ereignis Verlag 2022)

The Word becoming flesh is the first Michael revelation; the flesh becoming Spirit must be the second Michael revelation.

Rudolf Steiner, Lecture of 22 November 1919 (GA 194).

 In the fourth Chapter of the book, The New Experience of the Supersensible (now part of volume 1 of The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming), I described the three main aspects of the meeting with the etheric Christ. In this meeting, Christ stands by you to encourage you to awaken yourself to new life as a whole human being, in spirit, soul and body. It can also be said that he gracefully plants in your spirit, soul and body a unique gift, made of three potential golden spirit seeds, that you can develop in your spirit, soul and body, by means of your own forces, if you choose to do so. 

  For 15 years I was working on this project inwardly, about which I didn’t speak or wrote, because the given Christ experience must be first fully spiritualized and individualized, and then experienced again as part of the knowledge drama of the second coming. When the book was published in 1995, I could fully describe the cultivation and development of the first golden seed, but only give some indications concerning the development of the second, while the third seed was only in its beginning. Therefore, when the book wass published in 1995, only the first seed planted in the spirit, could be fully described, and the development of the second seed, planted in the soul, could only be indicated in some outlines. The dcultivation of the third seed in the body proved to be much more difficult, because it was hindered by strong obstacles, and was still largly in potential state.

 However, I continued to work on the complete development of the three spirit seeds, through the end of the century and the beginning of the 21^st century. The task was to learn how to apply spiritual science to individualize the gracefully given Christ Impulse not only in the spirit, but also in the soul and bodies. Only by means of modern spiritual science is it possible today to explore, discover, and activate these deeply hidden spiritual forces, slumbering in the primordial foundations of the soul and bodies, and bring them to full imaginative consciousness.

 The third golden spirit seed, planted in the body, had to wait, until I reached my eighth seven-year period, in the age of 56-63, in which- usually wholly unconsciously- the forces of Spirit Man (Atman) are activated. During these years, I could also experience how I was supported by forces activated through the development of Spirit Self (in the age of 42-49) and Life Spirit (49-56). This brought about a change in my faculty of Imagination, on which I was working for decades, because it could be supported by more potent spiritual forces than previously.

  Starting subtly in 2010 and gaining momentum in 2011 and 2012, I could feel the awakening of the new soul forces. This enabled me to grasp imaginatively also some aspects of the potential spiritual forces of the three bodies, because the faculty of Imagination was now increasingly saturated by stronger inspirative and intuitive elements. As I describe in detail in Cognitive Yoga, I could then overcome some of the powerful obstacles found in the bodies, composed of desires, drives and instincts, and penetrate consciously deeper into them. I felt that the more this eighth seven-year period progressed, for the first time I could reach my goal, to complete- in certain limits naturally- the development of the faculty of Imagination, individualized and spiritualized by spiritual science. Then I could use the forces of this Imaginative Soul, to awaken some aspects of the pure, virgin, Nathanic forces hidden in the depths of the three bodies, and unite them with the forces of the etheric Christ. And this is what I described in my book, Cognitive Yoga.

 During 2012,  when I felt that I could not progress further, I asked the spiritual world for  special help. Asking for help in such a way (help is otherwise always given...), is a special, indeed, a festive occasion, and one must be sure in one's heart that the cause and timing is truly appropriate. And so it was during Michaelmas 2012. I felt that the time was ripe and that it would be proper and productive to prepare and wait for such a festive meeting with my spiritual colleagues. 

 I want to share some aspects of what I experienced during this event in Christmas 2012, in the more personal and imaginative language of storytelling, described in Cognitive Yoga: How a book is born, in chapter 5, A co-creative Journey.

 It was an individualized Christmas nativity tale, a kind of modern Olaf Asteson journey, about the earthly ripening of a research problem, its heavenly conception, embryonic life, and finally its birth on earth, as a fully conscious, embodied, spiritual knowledge, that could later be expressed also as the content of a physical book, printed black on white. 

 From Chapter 5: A Co-Creative Journey

Introductory Orientation 

 A preliminary remark is necessary about the nature of the description and translation of spiritual events into ordinary language, before I begin to tell the story of my spiritual journey.

To make the supersensible cooperation between the author and the spiritual worlds comprehensible to ordinary consciousness,  I will naturally use our common language, which isbased on concepts and images created in the physical world. In this respect,  I will need the reader's active and creative cooperation, so that a reciprocal translation between us will take place. I will translate the supersensible experiences into physical language, concepts and images and I would ask the reader to spiritualize them again, as far as he or she can do it. I am asking him to do what I do myself with any physically experienced knowledge, which I want to  spiritualize and carry to the spiritual worlds. This spiritualization process of the various contents of earthly consciousness, which include all the physical creations and expressions of Rudolf Steiner, not only his spoken and written communications of spiritual knowledge, is the source of the forces necessary to accomplish the opposite task in the spiritual world: to translate the spiritual to the physical and communicate the supersensible experiences in earthly language and images. It is the same cognitive force, working with equal strength in both directions: in the spiritualization of the contents of ordinary cognition and th despiritualization of supersensible cognition.

Therefore, I, for my part, must despiritualize and translate the purely spiritual events, experienced in inspired (immanently thoughtful), and intuited (substantial, being-full), imaginations, into ordinary human thinking, representations and words. And I would ask the reader to accomplish the counter-move: to spiritualize in his or her own soul and consciousness my despiritualizations. 

When I am on the receiving end, I must say to myself: I receive the gift of the spiritual worlds from the spiritual scientist in a form that has already been downgraded to adapt it to my ordinary intelligence and language. The spirit lowered itself already a great deal so that I would be able to grasp it in my earthly, common modern intellect; it has died for my evolution's sake.

But the essential spirit force, if received not only into the egotistical intellect, emotions and desires, but taken into the deepest heart forces, feelings and deeper will impulses, can awaken in my soul new worlds, and kindle in my heart the fire of faith, love and hope. I feel that while I take in the substance of spiritual communications into my heart and feelings and above all into my active, creative will, and not only into my intellect, excited emotions and desire for knowledge, new forces are awakened in me.

 In this way, the spiritual scientist, as a pupil of Michael and his collegium, learns the modern art of spiritualizing and transforming human creative thoughts, knowledge, and artistic and social creations, through a co-creative dialogue with the spiritual world.

 This is the reason why the reader is invited to actively co-create with the spiritual researcher, and spiritualize through his own forces the given concepts and representations offered to him. To be awake consciously to this requirement for an active, reciprocal, translation and adaptation between the spiritual investigator and his readers, is of utmost importance in our age. Because we can learn how to draw freely and creatively from the original spiritual source from which the gift was itself  created, we can increase its value as the result of free, individualized creation, and return the spiritual capital with thousand-fold interest to its mother source. True spiritual knowledge is given as a living seed, not as finished divine revelation or a dead mental corpse, and this living seed, if properly tended to, in an active, creative manner, will be properly spiritualized, and given up again to enhance and enrich the source and not our personal vanity.

To the extent that this is possible, then, I will describe below some aspects of the supersensible phase of the spiritual becoming process of my book, Cognitive Yoga.

The Journey Begins

 After I prepared my soul during Fall 2012, the invitation for the spiritual consultation has been received in Advent. I then undertook all the preparations necessary before one embarks on an exciting and unpredictable journey. (I must, of course, carefully pack my soul-spiritual suitcase, making sure I take with me the necessary spiritual garments, cleansing methods, living waters and energy snacks for the way. However, the actual soul preparations that I make to enter the portal and cross the threshold in a humble and worthy way cannot really be communicated, because they belong to the most intimate personal soul experiences.)

 And then… when we are past the portal, the power of Imagination awakens fully and lights up. It begins to illuminate a path, and I know that the path is kindly opening itself, in response to the activation of my seeing; imaginative consciousness is an active force of doing in this new world. The force of this seeing gradually expands my new visible world, by shedding its light upon the area that I can consciously perceive. There, in this lighted clearing, I am very cordially greeted by a group of spiritual beings, some of them are known to me from previous collaborative tasks, but some are new, and after some jovial welcoming greetings and ceremonial rites of passage, I am most kindly invited to join them on a special mission.

  I am told (or rather this is how I understand it to begin with) that we are going on a journey to discover and climb to the top of a very special mountain. The journey itself is a highly stimulating and wonderful experience as the fellowship accomplishes many fascinating explorations and investigations of the spiritual ecosystem through which we pass, supervised by members of the team who seem to command infinite knowledge of the spiritual mysteries of nature and cosmos. Eventually we come to a stop, and when I wonder why, as there was no mountain in sight, one of my comrades tells me, in a kind of matter-of-fact tone: here we are going to create the mountain. (Now I begin to realize that it was my misunderstanding all along, while everybody else was obviously perfectly aware of this, that we were not going to find a mountain, but rather to create one.)

 We are therefore getting ready to camp at this location, and to begin with, some rituals are performed, with that rare combination of solemnity during the ceremonies and exuberantly joyful and creative fun immediately thereafter, which seems to make up the daily rhythm and pulse of these illustrious beings. I realize eventually that these rituals are performed to acclimatize us to the spiritual forces of the spiritual land and the spiritual cosmic surroundings, which, unfortunately, I cannot recall in precise outlines, because my consciousness was not sharp enough to grasp and comprehend its real nature in real time, and hence I cannot recall them in exact detail when I am back in my ordinary consciousness on the earth. (This is something that I would wish to be able to do better, on future occasions, as I am very interested in the spiritual nature and becoming of spiritual cosmic climate, weather, and the planetary and starry forces active through the universe.) After all these wonderful events have been commenced, we are told that the mountain creation work can begin... 

Meeting the Headmaster of the Illustrious Company

 Now the headmaster of the illustrious company, who kept rather quiet until then (in the limited compass of my spiritual awareness, I could before only sense his presence and activities in the background, where he was coordinating our efforts with hardly visible higher and wider circles and beings), stepped forward, and began to speak. I could recognize him now for the first time, and connect this imaginative appearance with the being of the spiritual teacher, whom I know on the earth through his intimate soul- spiritual companionship. What made this identification possible, was not his imaginative form of appearance (which was totally different from his physical form in his last earthly lives), but the special tone of his speech, which has that unmistakable quality, that resounds the same in all worlds. I felt immediately that he directs his words to the centre of my heart. And while he was speaking, I was wholly taken over by

the power, beauty and infinite grace of the love forces that poured forth through his words. I felt that his speech had such a magical moral power to it, that it is capable not only to

move existing mountains and create new ones, but also to create whole new universes. And yet it was infinitely gentle and human, soft spoken and liberating, at the same time. I

was utterly awe stricken by this event, about which I can say the very least, though it seemed to continue for an immensely long and blessed, blissful, eternity.

 And this is a fundamental spiritual condition, that all honest and serious students of spiritual science must be aware of: I could only grasp what he has spoken, to the extent that his teaching on the earth, has borne true fruit in my soul, and that this fruit now becomes an organ of spiritual comprehension. In truth, I can only see and comprehend anything in the spiritual world, in its true being, to the extent that I have first assimilated and spiritualized it thoroughly on the earth, through the study of what the teacher himself communicated from his experiences. And therefore, I can only translate his cosmic-heart words into earthly human words, concepts and images, to the extent that I have learned to embody and spiritualize his teachings and experience his spiritual being through this work in my physical life. This is also the only way I can spiritually activate them, renew them again, and remember them now in earthly cognition, and become mindful of them, and eventually see them again here and now: by repeatedly and intensively spiritualizing his spiritual scientific teachings in my individual cognition and life on the earth.

 This earthly activity is what becomes a living organ of spiritual seeing in the supersensible worlds, and it alone can reawaken the living echo of this seeing in ordinary earthly consciousness. The cognitive, creative, and free spiritual activity, which he called, in his most beloved book, The Philosophy of Freedom, ‘love in its spiritual form’, that he actualized himself and taught on the earth, is ultimately- for us humans in this cosmic age- the only true universal language and translator, between all worlds and all beings, between all stages and states of consciousness, from the lowest to the very highest.

The Headmaster’s Speech 

As Epiphany 2026 approaches (the three kings day), completing the 13 holy nights that bridge the twp remarkable years, 2025-6, I post below the last part of the co-creative journey narrative. It describes the culmination of the task of entire expedition, and explains the research in which I was stuck, so I could resume it with new inspiration, strength and dedication. 

I post it also because it can illuminate with new light the formation and being of the renewed foundation stone of Christmas 2023, and can contribute to our understanding of its true meaning.

 Now his Word stream flowed as he spoke through my whole being into my heart, and downward through me, as it were, and as it did so, it made the earth appear, which wasn’t visible in the limited compass of my conscious spiritual awareness before. His love-filled words, dedicated for the salvation of earth and humanity, really made the earth appear below us as a heavenly chalice, shimmering and glowing with the most sublime auric colours. He said (we must imagine that this speech is an Imaginative flow of world-creating Imaginations, and every Imagination is in itself like a whole  universe of creative cosmic becoming, while each word and sentence is bringing forth, gathering, shaping and moulding the spiritual forms, substances and realities about which he speaks): 

When I was last incarnated on the earth in a physical human body, before the great catastrophe that divided human evolution into two wholly distinct parts, I tried to find human hearts, to plant this seed in them, as a Foundation Stone made of the quintessence of freedom and love, in which I concentrated all the harvest of my previous earthly life and labour. This spiritualized essence had many names through history. It was called the Holy Grail, or heavenly Jerusalem, which is another name also for the next future Jupiter embodiment of the earth. But this Foundation Stone, is really the true, divine being of the human being. And for the first time in the course of human evolution, this archetypal human being was born on earth in the Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-4. As I said back then on the earth, before my death, the Foundation Stone is the new cosmic, spiritually free and creative human being, the ‘individual human being active and creative inside the human-cosmic being', working in full consciousness with his fellow humans, nature, cosmos and hierarchies. This cosmic threefold, spiritual-soul and bodily human being, is the firstborn, purely human, creation and embodiment of the being of Anthroposophia, born from the free individuation of the union of Christ's ‘I' impulse and the eternal cosmic Sophia. This is my mission through the coming cosmic age, to help each human being to give birth, nourish, foster and grow his and her true self as the creation of free humanity in the age of the consciousness soul. This new born cosmic human being experienced its fire baptism and initiation in the mysteries of evil during the 12 years, 1933- 1945. There it participated actively in the great deeds of sacrifice that took place in the etheric world and continue also today. Since then it is the Foundation Stone of the mysteries of the Michaelic age: the mysteries of the new humanity and the sun-becoming of the earth through humanity. It is fashioned by means of the purely human forces of freedom and loving sacrifice, and we must now, in the twenty-first century, find people that will be able to individualize it and incarnate it in its new form on the earth.

After he completed his cosmic yet entirely human speech, I could, for the first time, begin to surmise, still vaguely, the deeper meaning of my research problem and its solution. I could see how my clumsy and imperfect work on the earth is contributing to the human and cosmic great work of creating the burgeoning archetype of new earthly-cosmic human being, which is the project all the masters of humanity prepared since immemorial times, and that through Rudolf Steiner found its first fully human incarnation. The new fully individualized and self-conscious cosmic human being is also the nucleus of the new, humanly created, resurrection body of humanity and the earth.

When this sacred intimation was dawning in my soul I could see down below on the spiritual earth, a cosmic Imagination of the Foundation Stone as the creation of the new cosmic human being. It appeared as coming to incarnation, birth, and development, through the Imagination of the Christ Impulse in the aura of the whole earth. His speech now took the form of demonstrating, showing how the being of the new human being, Anthroposophia, emerges from the shining crystalline formation, the golden star, that he described only once, in a lecture given in 1918 in Berlin. This Imagination that for decades was an essential part of my meditations, was now entirely transformed, and I became aware that the Foundation Stone- the new cosmic human being- born on the earth in the Christmas Foundation Conference, is a direct offspring of the Mystery of Golgotha.

I will quote this passage here because it alone can present the meaning of what was experienced above:

When a dead person in our present era observes certain places, then from the place which here on Earth is known as Palestine, as Jerusalem, something with a golden form, a golden crystal form, is to be seen in the middle of the bluish-mauve colour and this becomes animated. That is the Jerusalem as seen from th spirit! This it is which also in the Apocalypse figures as the heavenly Jerusalem. These are not `thought-out' things, they are things which can be observed, seen spiritually. The Mystery of Golgotha appeared like what physical observation perceives when the astronomer directs his telescope to space and beholds something which fills him with wonder, like, for example the flashing-up of new stars. Seen spiritually, from the Universe, the Event of Golgotha was the flashing-up of a star of gold in the blue aura of the Eastern half of the Earth. Try to think with someone who has passed over, of the crystal form of the heavenly Jerusalem building itself up into golden splendour in the bluish-violet aura of the Earth. Uncover that, and that will bring you near to him; for that is something which belongs to the realm of the Imaginations into which the dying person enters at death: `Out of God we are born, and in Christ we die'. (Lecture of 1 April 1918, GA 181).

As this Imagination was shown, I could now see the birth of the free spiritual being of humanity since last century, as an offspring of many bigger and smaller sacred events in the whole spiritual evolution of humanity since the most primeval ages to the far distant future times. But above all, three dramatic cosmic-earthly breakthroughs, three major recent spiritual events stood out, and the third of them, the great cosmic event of the beginning of the twentieth century, was demonstrated to be their offspring. First, it was seen in the lightning and thunder of Mount Sinai, through the eternal flames of the Burning Bush, in which, in the fiery letters of the sacred script, God's true name, dwelling in Christ, could be expressed in the earthly world: Eheje Asher Eheje, I AM that I AM; secondly, it was seen as the central event of earthly evolution as a whole, in the physically incarnating Christ, the fulfillment of the meaning of the earth and humanity, conceived in Jesus in the baptism in Jordan, and born as the sun spirit of the earth in the Mystery of Golgotha; and third, the first purely human offspring of this event, was born as a creation of humanity's cosmic becoming. This world-changing event took place in the above referred to Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-4, during which the new cosmic human being was born, whose essence was expressed in the Foundation Stone Meditation. Again, I have been living and meditating this sacred event for decades, and I experienced its central significance to human evolution, from ever deeper points of view. But now I could see its significance in a wholly new, objective, way. 

 I could truly grasp for the first time Rudolf Steiner's specific new mission among the great teachers of humanity. Eternally born through the Christ's deeds in Sinai, Jordan and Jerusalem, moving from the East to Israel, to incarnate in the middle of the earth, it moved further westward, and was individualized, conceived and born anew as a fully free human deed and being, through Rudolf Steiner, in the middle of Europe, in order to find refuge again in the middle of the earth, in the holy land, after the devastating, world-shattering and changing apocalypse of the twentieth  century. There, in the middle of the earth, the broken bridge could be forged again between the physical world and the spiritual world, between earthly and heavenly Jerusalem.

 And I could experience, with my whole being, that it is this being that is now asking to be multiplied and born in each single human being, in our active and creative free cognition and loving social life on the earth, wherever we work, aspire and dedicate ourselves to our true future human becoming.

And now, as if waiting for the completion of my inner realization, the teacher signalled all to gather around this Imagination of the crystalline, golden cosmic star, glowing and shimmering with all the bountiful colours of the precious metals, gems and stones growing with it. And now as all the beings, from near and afar, united themselves together, each and all in perfect harmony and synergy, and painted together, speaking, dancing, singing, as a mighty choir, in the astral light, a sublime Imagination in the blue-purple aura of the earth appeared; and with each word-gesture, musical composition, formative dance cycle, and cosmic painting and movement, I could see how the golden star of heavenly Jerusalem flares up, with ever stronger force of life and radiance. I realized that they are speaking, sculpting, performing, dancing, and painting the imagination of the future, empowering and perfecting the future spiritualized cosmic human being, humanity and the earth; and that they wish to inspire me and all humans for all future ages to come, that we shall have faith in ourselves and in our humble but irreplaceable cosmic contribution. They wish to convey that in our age mortal humans like us must grow and have the courage to participate in this great work- through many small and great deeds of love and sacrifice- in individualizing this seed of spirit, soul and bodily resurrection and new human and earth formation. And I felt warmly encouraged to  actualize this truth, and carry it with me back to the earth, as a golden, potent spiritual-soul bodily seed, as an earnest, sacred and festive, Christmas nativity event. 

I felt impregnated and fructified by the returning, confirmed, substantiated, and infinitely enhanced and spiritualized essence of my research, coming back to me, as a new creative power. I felt now that with its help, I may venture once more to try and cross the lower bodily threshold with renewed forces, overcome the dead and hardened soul and body shells, encasements and sedimentations, that blocked my way before; that now I may be able to find and awaken, stimulate and activate, the body's pure, original, virgin forces of humanity, and unite them with Christ's presently active, living etheric body; and that I would be supported in my renewed efforts to achieve this goal by means of the Michaelic forces of the present Michaelic age, immortalized through Rudolf Steiner's eternally productive life in us.

Continue to read in chapter 5, A co-creative journey

Continue to read in chapter 5, A co-creative journey