Etherization of blood

In Man, an etherization of the mineral physical substance of blood emanates all the time from the heart-and-blood circulation, and as a result, the finest elements of the blood are passing continuously into the same substance as that of which the Human etheric body consists. These etheric elements stream upwards from the human heart in currents permeating the brain. In the human brain the various streams meet in the area between the pituitary and pineal gland, where their interaction with the brain and etheric and astral bodies is the interface between physical body and spirit.

Aspects

Consciousness

It is because this newly-formed element of the etheric body streams through the brain, that Man is able to develop knowledge which goes beyond the completely egotistic knowledge of what takes place within his own organisation. Unless these etheric streams were to rise up from the heart to the brain, only ideas, concepts, feelings connected with our own bodily organisation could find expression through the instrument of the brain.

Man gets sense impressions which are astral, and these are impressed on the physical and etheric bodies, whereby the etheric body is like a time organism or register. The process through which the astral impresses on the etheric is described below.

Hence, the etherization of blood is an essential principle to understand contemporary Waking consciousness. See also Damming up between heart and brain.

Spiritualization of Man

Man has condensed to the current physical body and form with a mineral component from a spiritual past. This is also the case for the blood circuit and the organs, the heart, etc. In the future (evolutionary epochs and CoL and CoF), Man will become a spiritual being again, first by becoming an etheric being not living in a physical mineral body as is the case today. Initiation today already causes the loosening of the etheric body from the physical. In a way the opposite situation compared to when the consciousness soul first arose when the larger etheric contracted and entered the physical body in the Atlantean epoch.

Currently Man is already in the process of re-etherizing. This is explained in the topic 'etherization of blood'. Taking a step back we can see Man evolving from an etheric being to the current mineral-physical, and back again to become an etheric being.

Resonance with the Christ Impulse

An important link can be made here with the underlying 'mechanics', or rather working principles in a spiritual scientific sense, of the Christ impulse. For this, the process of what flows through the physical blood and etheric streams needs to be studied and contemplated. Man can 'align' his own etheric stream between heart and brain with that of the Christ Impulse, the astral-etheric stream of the spirit of the Earth called the Christ. This is how the Christ Impulse underlies the spiritualization of mankind through this principle. A related aspect is how this process can only take place in Man during sleep given conditions cultivated during daytime and waking consciousness.

The above is a (broad and deep) subject of study, touching on many areas, that can be approached from different angles though the coverage in Christ - base study modules 4, 5, 6 and Christ - study modules 15, 16, as well as the Kundalini page.

Physiological perspective

The pineal and pituitary gland, and especially the empty 'counterspace' between them in the brain cavity, is an entrance gate from the sense world to the supersensible or spiritual world, or a gateway between both. (Schema FMC00.044 below, see also Matter is destroyed in the brain.)

Man's brain physiology contains a new supersensible organ that was developed for Man to use as a connection with the spiritual world, see more on Man's new organ.

as human beings we stand in the world as a duality of two streams that confront each other all along the line and find their expressions in the two opposite organs in the brains - the pineal and pituitary glands. (1911-03-24-GA218)
- These two oppositive fronts are the workings of:
  - the nervous system of the brain and spinal cord are instruments that bring external impressions and inscribe these into the blood, as the instrument of the I .. giving rise to our soul-life
  - the sympathetic nervous system (with its ganglions and ramifications) holds back from the blood the transformed vital activities of the substances that have been taken in, holding back these processes back from approaching as far of the blood, and allowing the inner realisation of the life of the organs.
- hence the outer life and the inner life of Man, as expressed in the etheric body, present a contrast expressed in tensions which finally come to a climax, as we saw, in those organs of the brain called the pineal gland and the pituitary body, where two streams unite:
  - the pineal gland is the place where what has been brought to the blood by means of the nervous system of the brain and spinal cord
  - the pituitary body is there as a last outpost to prevent the approach of what has to do with the life of the inner Man.

Future perspective

The link between heart and pineal/pituitary glands in perspective: in the future sixth and seventh epochs, the heart will develop as a budhi-organ, the two-petalled lotus-flower between the eyes will develop two wings and be the motive organ of will, and the pineal gland and pituitary glands and sympathetic nervous system will give rise to a second spinal column, descending from the front head; this second spinal column will later unite itself with the first. See also: Man past and future, a.o. Schema FMC00.178 on that page (and compare with Schema FMC00.123 on Future Jupiter).

More aspects

the description of the three fires in alchemy, see Paracelsus and Titus Burckhardt quotes on Man's transformation and spiritualization

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.044 illustrates the etheric flows between the human heart and the human brain (right), and how they meet in the brain between pineal and pituitary gland. This includes drawings from original typoscripts and manuscripts never published before, especially those from the earlier lecture enrich the simple pictures on the right that are mostly shared about this topic.

Schema FMC00.354 is a meta study schema, using other schemas as infographics to show a broader scope and the relationship between related aspects. Not all schema or lecture references are given, these can be found on the various pages such as Kundalini, Ganganda Greida, and related pages. Central theme is the symbolism of the Holy Grail, with on the one hand the grail cup and the bloody lance, and on the other hand the pituitary and pineal gland. The diagram relates the physiological and spiritual processes taking place in Man, with the central role of the blood as the carrier of the Human 'I', and the human heart.

Schema FMC00.353 is a study schema that positions the physiological process underlying the study of spiritual science and initiation exercises, through the use of the newly developed organ in the brain called the pituitary gland and the process working on the etheric and astral bodies.

Regarding the drawing with arrows on the lower left, see the quotes by Helena Blavatsky who writes that (freely rephrased) "once kundalini is active in the heart, that power rises to the sixth region in the brain and the place between the eyes, this is the opening of the third eye".

Compare with Schema FMC00.044 on Etherization of blood.

Schema FMC00.033A explains the principle of current contemporary Waking consciousness that takes place in the brain that acts as a reflector. It shows the etheric streams that rise up between the heart and brain, and the Damming up of the streams at the height of the heart and the brain.

Compare with the etheric streams on FMC00.463 (flow of regular or fine breathing process) and FMC00.015A (contemplate how the higher ethers we take in work in and on Man), both Schemas on Human breath.

Schema FMC00.178 from Man past and future positions the pituitary gland as the future active heart warmth organ. The heart itself is described as a future buddhi organ. See also additional info and RSL reference on the page of Process of perception.

Schema FMC00.180 (from Olive Whicher) shows an etheric perspective on the heart (left), connecting it with the image of 'Man as an inverted plant' (right - see also Schema FMC00.110 on Man as a threefold being ). The middle drawing represents the area between two focal points with the heart above and the brain below.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

For The etherization of the blood', most sources reference a single famous lecture by Rudolf Steiner, 1911-10-01-GA130. Few sources (none?) seem to study also the earlier lectures of 1911-03-23-GA128 and 1911-08-25-GA129. As there is limited information available on this very important topic, all three lectures need to be studied in context. Especially the GA128 cycle offers this context (esoteric physiology).

Note however that the GA does contain more clues. For example, five years before the above lectures, already in 1906-12-18-GA266/1, the principle of etherization of blood is mentioned in the context of the pineal gland becoming an active organ (see also Schema FMC00.178 on Process of perception).

What human beings have received through the light, the pictures of the external world which they have taken into themselves through their eyes, they will later be able to set back into the world as pictures, as forms, through the pineal gland, indeed through the etherized blood that will then have been brought under the control of their will.

Another example is 1913-03-25-GA145 in the section on Ganganda Greida on the Parsifal page.

Furthermore, in 1919-12-14-GA194 is explained how the small void in the human head is where matter gets destroyed and the spirit enters.

Source reference extracts

1909-04-10-GA109

has a title: Macroscopic and microscopic warmth/fire - the spiritualization of breath and blood

[human thought]
.. there is a mysterious connection between the fire that ignites the elements of nature out there and the fire that pulsates through our blood in the form of body temperature. We have often emphasized in our spiritual science that the human being is a microcosm juxtaposed to the large world, the macrocosm. Therefore, when we perceive things in the right way, the inner processes of a human being must correspond to processes taking place outside in the universe. For every inner-process we must be able to find the corresponding outer process, but to understand the meaning of this requires that we enter deep shafts of spiritual science. We are touching here the fringe of a deep mystery, of a truth that answers this question:
What in the external macrocosm corresponds to the origin of human thought within us?
Human beings are the only creatures on earth who really think, and through their thoughts they are able to experience a world that extends beyond the earth. The manner in which thoughts flash up in the human being has no parallel in any other creature on earth.
What is taking place within us when a thought is ignited, when either the simplest or the most enlightening thought flashes into our minds?
To answer this question, let us say that the I and astral body are simultaneously activated within us when we let our thoughts pass through our souls. Our blood is the physical expression of our I, and that which in our nervous system is called “life” is the physical expression of our astral body. Not a single thought would flare up in our souls if I and astral body did not work in concert, thus giving rise to a commensurate, interdependent functioning of the blood and of the nervous system. The future science of human beings will some day be amazed at today's scientific theory, which holds that thoughts originate solely in the nervous system. This belief is incorrect because the process responsible for the origination of thoughts must be seen as a dynamic interaction between blood and nervous system.
[comparison with thunder and lightning]
A thought flashes up in our soul when our blood, our inner fire, nervous system, and air cooperate in such a way.
The origination of the thought inside our soul corresponds to rolling thunder in the cosmos. Likewise, when lightning flashes in the air, and when air and fire interact to produce thunder, this corresponds to the fire of our blood and the activity of our nervous system. This produces what one might metaphorically call an inner thunder that echoes in our thoughts, albeit gently, quietly, and imperceptibly. The lightning in the clouds corresponds to the fire and to the warmth in our blood, whereas the air outside, including all the elements it contains in the universe, corresponds to everything that passes through our nervous system. And just as lightning in its counterplay with the elements produces thunder, so the counterplay of blood and nerves produces the thought that flashes up in the soul. Suppose we looked out into the world that surrounds us, saw lightning flashing up in the air, and heard rolling thunder discharging itself. Then suppose that, as we looked into our soul, we sensed an inner warmth pulsating in our blood and felt the life that passes through our nervous system, a thought would flash up within us to tell us that both the external and the internal event were one.
That is really the truth! Although our thoughts take place within ourselves, the thunder rolling in the sky is not just a physical, material phenomenon. To assert that it was so would be nothing but materialistic mythology. However, individuals able to perceive that spiritual beings weave and radiate through material existence will look up to the sky, see the lightning, hear the thunder, and to them this will be a true and real indication of God's thinking in the fire, of His intention to announce Himself to us. That is the invisible God who weaves and radiates through the universe. His warmth is in the lightning, His nerves in the air, His thoughts in the rolling thunder; and it was He who spoke to Moses in the burning bramblebush and in the lightning fire of Sinai.
The elements fire and air in the macrocosm correspond to blood and nerves in the human microcosm. Thoughts in the human being are what lightning and thunder are in the macrocosm.
By analogy, the God whom Moses saw and heard in the burning bush and who spoke to him in the lightning fire of Mt. Sinai appears as the Christ in the blood of Jesus of Nazareth. By thinking like a human being and by being in a human body, Christ's influence as the great model for human evolution extends into the far-distant future. And thus, two poles in the human evolution meet each other: the macrocosmic God on Mt. Sinai who announces Himself in thunder and lightning fire, and the same microcosmic God who is embodied in the human being of Palestine.
The sublime mysteries of humanity have been derived from the most profound wisdom. They are not invented legends, but a truth so profound that we need all the means available to Spiritual Science in order to unveil the mysteries that are woven around this truth. Let us ask what kind of an impulse mankind received through its great model, the Christ-Being, who descended to earth and united Himself with the microcosmic copies of the elements that are present in the human body.
Let us look back one more time to the prophecies of ancient cultures. All of them, back to the very distant past of the post-Atlantean era, probably knew what the course of human development would be. The Mystery Centers everywhere taught what is now proclaimed by Spiritual Science as follows: Human beings consist of four parts: the physical, the etheric, and the astral bodies, and the I. They can rise to higher stages of development: through individual effort on the part of their ego, when they transform their astral body into spirit self — manas, when they transform their etheric body into life spirit—buddhi, and when they spiritualize the physical body into spirit man—atman.
All the members of this physical body must be gradually spiritualized in our life on earth so that everything that makes human beings out of us through the influx of the divine breath is profoundly spiritualized. And because spiritualization of the physical body begins with the spiritualization of the breath — of the odem, the transformed, spiritualized physical body is called atma or atman, from which the German word for breath, atem, derives. The Old Testament tells us that the human being received the breath of life in the beginning of his earthly existence. Likewise, all ancient Schools of Wisdom perceived this breath of life as something that must gradually be spiritualized by the human being, and they saw atman as a deification of the breath — as the great ideal human beings must strive for — so that they will be imbued with the spiritual breath of air.
But there is still more in the human being that has to be spiritualized. If the entire body is to be spiritualized, it is necessary not only that the breath be spiritualized but also that the blood—the expression of the I that is constantly renewed by the breath — be spiritualized. The blood must be infected by a strong impulse toward the spiritual. Christianity has added to the ancient mysteries the mystery of the blood and of the fire that is enclosed in the human being.
The ancient mysteries say that human beings have descended to earth in their present earthly form and physical corporeality from spiritual heights. Having lost their spiritual essence and having wrapped themselves into a physical corporeality, they must return to spirituality by casting off the physical sheath and by ascending to a spiritual existence.
The religions could not teach what one might call the self-induced salvation of the human I as long as the I, whose physical expression is in the blood, was not touched by an impulse now present on earth. And thus we are told how the great spiritual beings — the great avatars — descend and incarnate themselves from time to time in human bodies, especially when humanity needs help. These are beings who do not need to descend into a human body to enhance their own development because they have completed their own human development in an earlier cycle of the world. They descend for the sole purpose of helping human beings.
For example, when mankind is in need of help, the great god Vishnu descends from time to time into an earthly existence. Krishna, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, speaks of himself and explains clearly what the essence of an avatar is. In the divine poem, the Bhagavad Gita, he himself explains what he is. Here we have the wonderful words that Krishna, in whom Vishnu lives as an avatar, says about himself: “I am the spirit of creation, its beginning, its middle, its end; I am the Sun among the stars, fire among the elements, the great ocean among the waters, the eternal snake among all snakes. I am the basis of everything.”
No words can proclaim more beautifully and more magnificently the all-embracing, omnipotent divinity. The godhead whom Moses saw in the elements of fire not only weaves and radiates through the macrocosmic world but also can be found inside the human being. That is why the Krishna-Being indwells in anything human as the great ideal to which the human core strives to develop itself from within.
And if, as the wisdom of antiquity endeavored to do, the human breath can be spiritualized through the impulse that we absorb through the Mystery of Golgotha, then we have realized the principle of salvation through that which itself lives within us. All avatars saved mankind through the forces they caused to radiate from spiritual heights down onto earth. The avatar Christ, however, saved mankind by means of what He Himself extracted from the strength of mankind, and He showed us how the strength to be saved and to conquer matter through spirit can be found within ourselves.
Now we can see how even such an illuminate as Kashyapa could not yet be fully saved even though he had made his body imperishable. This body of his had to remain in the secret cave until the Maitreya-Buddha came to pick it up. Only when the physical body has been so spiritualized through the I that the Christ-Impulse can stream into it does one no longer need the wonderful cosmic fire in order to attain salvation; what is needed for salvation is the fire raging in the blood of the inner human being. And that is why we can utilize the light that radiates from the Mystery of Golgotha in order to illuminate such a wonderfully profound legend as the one told about Kashyapa.

1911-03-23-GA128

1911-03-24-GA218

[two opposite fronts]
The nervous system of our brain and spinal cord is intended, in a normal state of consciousness, to convey external impressions to the blood, that is, to take the impressions in as physical processes in such a way that these processes beat against the blood, as it were, and in doing this inscribe themselves upon the instrument of the I, the blood, so that the outer impressions are thereby transferred to it.

And just as truly the branches of the sympathetic nervous system which, with its ganglions and ramifications, stands guard over the inner cosmic system, are intended to keep the processes that go on in this inner cosmic system from approaching as far as the blood, to hold these processes back, so to speak.

You have now heard something more in regard to what I have previously touched upon, namely, that the sympathetic nervous system has a function contrary to that of the nervous system of the brain and spinal cord.
Whereas

the latter must make the effort to convey external impressions to the blood in the best possible way,

sympathetic nervous system, with its opposite activity, must be continually holding back from the blood, from the instrument of the I, the transformed vital activities of the substances that have been taken in.

If we observe the digestive process, we have there, first, the taking in of external nutritive substances; then the holding back of the vital activities peculiar to these nutritive substances, and the transformation of these by means of the inner cosmic system of man. The vital activities of these substances, accordingly, are changed into other sorts of vital activities. In order that we need not, placed as we are in the world, continually perceive inwardly what goes on in our inner organs, this entire stream of processes must be held back from the blood by means of the sympathetic nervous system, whereas that other nervous system goes to meet what is taken in from outside.
Here, then, you have the function of the sympathetic nervous system, which becomes a part of our organism for the purpose of holding our inner processes, not allowing them to penetrate to the I-instrument, the blood. I called your attention yesterday to the fact that the outer life and the inner life of Man, as they are expressed in the etheric body, present a contrast; and that this contrast between the inner life and the outer is expressed in tensions which finally come to a climax, as we saw, in those organs of the brain called the pineal gland and the pituitary body.
Now, if you put together yesterday's and today's discussions, you will be able to understand that everything which beats in upon us from outside, in order to stand in the closest possible contact with the circulation of the blood, strives to unite with its counterpart, with what is held back by the sympathetic nervous system.
For this reason we have,

in the pineal gland, the place where what has been brought to the blood by means of the nervous system of the brain and spinal cord

unites with

what approaches man from the other direction; and the pituitary body is there as a last outpost to prevent the approach of what has to do with the life of the inner Man.

There are opposite to each other, at this point in the brain, two important organs.
Everything that we live through in our inner organisation remains below our consciousness; for it would, indeed, be terribly disturbing to us if we were to share consciously in our whole process of nutrition. This is kept back from our consciousness by means of the sympathetic nervous system.
Only when this reciprocal relationship between the two nervous systems, as this is expressed in the state of tension between the pineal gland and the pituitary body, is not in order does something result which we may call a “glimmering through from the one side to the other,” a being disturbed on the one side by the other.
This takes place when some irregularity in the activity of our digestive organs expresses itself in our consciousness in feelings of discomfort. In this case we have a raying into the consciousness, although very obscure, of the internal life of the human being, which has first been changed with the help of the inner cosmic system from the form it had in the life outside.
Or in special emotions, such as anger and the like - which have a particularly strong influence on Man, originating in the consciousness, we have a breaking through from the other direction into the organism. We then have one of these cases in which emotions, unusual inner disturbances of the soul, can influence in a specially harmful way the digestion, the respiratory system and also, consequently, the circulation of the blood and everything that lies below consciousness.
It is thus possible for these two sides of human nature to act reciprocally upon each other. And we are obliged to state that, as human beings, we actually stand in the world as a duality: a duality in the first place which has,

in the nervous system of the brain and the spinal cord, instruments that bring external impressions to the blood, the instrument of the I.

From this whole stream of soul-life is held back, by means of the sympathetic nervous system, everything in the way of inner realisation of the life of the organs.
These two streams confront each other all along the line, so to speak; but we find their special expressions in those two organs of which we spoke at the close of yesterday's lecture. From this point we will continue our considerations in the next lecture.

1911-08-25-GA129

1911-10-01-GA130

.. (SWCC). For the beginning of the section below, see Schema FMC00.248 on Three levels of sleep.

So here again there is a threefold life of soul.
[SLS1] The intellectual element in which we are really awake brings us shadow-images of the Astral Plane when by day we give ourselves up to a thought — wherein the most fruitful ideas for daily life and great inventions originate.

[SLS2] Then during sleep, when we dream, these dreams play into our life of sleep and shadow-images from Lower Spirit World are reflected into us.

[SLS3] And when we work actively during sleep, impressing morality into our will — we cannot be aware of this actual process but certainly we can of its effects — when we are able to imbue our life of thoughts during the night with the influence of Divine Spiritual Powers, then the impulses we receive are reflections from Higher Spirit World. These reflections are the moral impulses and feelings which are active within us and lead to the recognition that human life is vindicated only when we place our thoughts at the service of the good and the beautiful, when we allow the very heart's blood of Divine Spiritual life to stream through our intellectual activities, permeating them with moral impulses.

The processes that have been described in their more external aspect can also be perceived in man through clairvoyance. When a man stands in front of us today in his waking state and we observe him with the eye of clairvoyance, certain rays of light are seen streaming continually from the heart towards the head. Within the head these rays play around the organ known in anatomy as the pineal gland. These streamings arise because human blood, which is a physical substance, is perpetually resolving itself into etheric substance.
In the region of the heart there is a continual transformation of the blood into this delicate etheric substance which streams upwards towards the head and glimmers around the pineal gland.
This process — the etherisation of the blood — can be perceived in the human being all the time during his waking life.
Clairvoyantly one can see a continual streaming from outside into the brain, and also in the reverse direction, from the brain to the heart.
These streams, which in sleeping man come from outside, from the Macrocosm, and flow into the inner constitution of the physical body and etheric bodies lying in the bed, reveal something remarkable when they are investigated. These rays vary greatly in different individuals as they are asleep, human beings differ very drastically from one another. Moral qualities are revealed distinctly in the particular colouring of the streams which flow into human beings during sleep; in an individual of lower moral principles, the streams are quite different from what is observable in an individual of noble principles. In the case of a man who has only a slight inclination towards moral principles the rays streaming into him are a brownish red in colour, various shades tending toward brownish red. In a man of high moral ideals the rays are lilac-violet in colour.
At the moment of waking or of going off to sleep a kind of struggle takes place in the region of the pineal gland between what streams down from above and what streams upward from below.
When a man is awake

the intellectual element streams upwards from below in the form of currents of light, and

what is of moral-aesthetic nature streams downwards from above.

At the moment of waking or of going off to sleep, these two currents meet, and

in the man of low morality a violent struggle between the two streams takes place in the region of the pineal gland.

In the man of high morality there is around the pineal gland as it were a little sea of light. Moral nobility is revealed when a calm glow surrounds the pineal gland at these moments. In this way a man's moral disposition is reflected in him, and this calm glow of light often extends as far as the heart.
Two streams can therefore be perceived in man — the one Macrocosmic, the other, Microcosmic.

and after this, the key paragraph (FMCR00.001 for CI-EB, Christ Impulse and Etherization of Blood)

This blood must not be regarded simply as chemical substance, but by reason of all that has been said concerning the nature of Jesus of Nazareth it must be recognised as something altogether unique. When it flowed from His wounds, a substance was imparted to our Earth, which in uniting with it, constituted an Event of the greatest possible significance for all future ages of the Earth's evolution — and it could take place only once.
What came of this blood in the ages that followed? Nothing different from what otherwise takes place in the heart of man. In the course of Earth evolution this blood passes through a process of 'etherisation'. And just as our human blood streams upwards from the heart as ether, so since the Mystery of Golgotha the etherised blood of Christ Jesus has been present in the ether of the earth. The etheric body of the Earth is permeated by the blood — now transformed — which flowed on Golgotha. This is supremely important. If what has thus come to pass through Christ Jesus had not taken place, man's condition on the Earth could only have been as previously described. But since the Mystery of Golgotha it has been possibe for the etheric blood of Christ to flow together with the streamings from below upward, from heart to head.
Because the etherised blood of Jesus of Nazareth is present in the etheric body of the Earth, it accompanies the etherised human blood streaming upwards from the heart to the brain, so that not only those streams of which I spoke earlier meet in man, but the human blood-stream unites with the blood-stream of Christ Jesus.
A union of these two streams can, however, come about only if a person is able to unfold true understanding of what is contained in the Christ Impulse. Otherwise there can be no union; the two streams then mutually repel each other, thrust each other away. In every epoch of Earth evolution understanding must be acquired in the form suitable for that epoch. At the time when Christ Jesus lived on Earth, preceding events were rightly understood by those who came to His forerunner, John, and were baptised by him according to the rite described in the Gospels. They received baptism in order that their sin, that is to say, the karma of their previous lives — karma which had come to an end — might be changed; and in order that they might realise that the most powerful Impulse in Earth evolution was about to descend into a physical body. But the evolution of humanity progresses and in our present age what matters is that people should recognise the need for the knowledge contained in Spiritual Science and be able so to fire the streams flowing from heart to brain that this knowledge can be understood.

Again see Schema FMC00.248 on Three levels of sleep, specifically the quote in red of 1922-08-30-GA224 which literally says the same as above. Once again now rephrased (based on study of base text meaning and other lectures - see Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha

A union of these two streams can, however, come about only if a person is able to unfold true understanding of what is contained in the Christ Impulse. Otherwise there can be no union; the two streams then mutually repel each other, thrust each other away. In every age of Earth evolution understanding must be acquired in the form suitable for that age .. in our present age what matters is that people should study Spiritual Science in a heartfelt manner .. and be able so to fire the streams flowing from heart to brain

1911-03-23-GA128

The extract below from 1911-03-23-GA128 was edited to make it more concise without changing content (SWCC= 'shortened without content change'):

If we have something which impresses upon the ether-body our memory-pictures taken, as it were, from the soul, and if from the other side we recognise the ether-body as the super-sensible expression of our organism nearest to the physical, the question then arises: How does this impressing come about?
In other words, when the human being works over external impressions, makes them into memory-pictures, and in doing so thrusts them into his ether-body, how does it happen that he does actually bring down into the ether-body what the astral body has first worked over and what now presses against the ether-body? How does he transfer it?
This transfer takes place in a remarkable way. Let's imagine ourselves within the human ether-body, and we observe the blood as it courses through the heart. We think of the blood as physical expression of the human I, and now want to see how this I works and receives impressions corresponding with the outer world, and condenses these to memory-pictures.
Not only our blood is active in this process. In its course, especially in the upward direction, somewhat less in the downward, the blood stirs up the ether-body, and causes currents to develop everywhere in the ether-body, taking a very definite course, as if they would join the blood flowing upward from the heart and go up to the head.
In the head these currents come together, and at this point the ether-forces are compressed as if under a very powerful tension, those ether-currents which are called forth through the impressions that now desire to become definite concepts, memory-pictures, and to stamp themselves upon the ether-body.
In opposition to these, other currents flow from the portion of the ether-body belonging to the rest of the bodily organisation. Mainly they come from the lower part of the breast, but also from the lymph vessels and other organs. These come together in such a way that they oppose these other currents.
Thus whenever a memory-picture wishes to form itself, we have two ether-currents in the brain, one coming from below and one from above, which oppose each other under the greatest possible tension, just as two electric currents oppose each other. If a balance is brought about between these two currents, then a concept has become a memory-picture and has incorporated itself in the ether-body.
Such super-sensible currents in the human organism always express themselves by creating for themselves also a physical sense-organ, which we must look upon as a sense-manifestation.
Thus we have an organ within the center of the brain, which is the physical sense-expression for that which wishes to take the form of a memory-picture; and opposite to this is situated still another organ in the brain. These two organs in the human brain are the physical-sensible expression of the two currents in the human ether-body; they indicate that there are such currents in the ether-body.
These currents condense themselves with such force that they seize the human bodily substance and consolidate it into these organs. This way we get an impression of bright etheric light-currents streaming across from the one to the other of these organs, and pouring themselves out over the human ether-body.
One of them is the pineal gland; the other, the so-called pituitary body: the “epiphysis” and the “hypophysis” respectively. At this point in the human physical organism we find a physical expression of the cooperation of soul and body.

1950-12-24-EP lecture by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer

In the human heart we have a similar process. In the moment in which the used up substance enters the heart, the force of etherization begins to work. It is a force of light, the same force as that in the sun, which works to annihilate and regenerate matter. Even atomic science begins to discover that in the sun there is pure energy. The same process takes place in the human heart.
The used-up, tired substance enters the heart, and this amounts to a kind of winter solstice. One heart beat represents the same interplay of forces as there is to be found in a solar year. With the expansion of the heart, we also experience the expansion of the summer solstice. In the etheric these two are the same (the expansion of the heart and the summer solstice). One human life in its entirety is the same as the sun going through the twelve signs of the zodiac.
If you follow the heart process clairvoyantly, you can see how with the expansion the etheric force from the heart spreads over the entire body, and with the contraction there is a darkening. And one can see the organs, such as the kidneys and the lungs, participate in the light of the expansion. If a person has an ailment you might be able to see that a particular organ does not share in the light experience. We can marvel how in our crystallizations so much of these forces becomes visible, though only as a shadow of the original process.
If we see that it is the same force in the contraction and expansion of the heart and in the winter solstice and summer solstice, then we see that it is the same force without as within. We see that the etherization of the heart creates etheric force instead of matter. This is only a tiny fraction in each case, but the more spiritual activity there is, the more matter is annihilated. You may have thought, why are some Bodhisattvas painted with a golden aura? This is nothing but a representation of the fact that the etherization of blood through initiation makes their aura transform into a golden, protective form that shines all around. Man alone would not be able to accomplish this process unless shown how to do it.
It is possible because the Star of Bethlehem showed to the Wise Men where the Godhead had been born, the One Who was the Sun God Himself. They were prepared because in all the old mysteries it had been foretold that the Sun God Himself would one day enter the earth. So Christ descended, and the nova, appearing three years before that, guided the Wise Men from India, from the center of Africa, and from the Near East to find His birth place.
I was always curious, and asked what had happened to that Star. lt did disappear from the sky, but since the Sun God incarnated and united with the earth, that Star also united with the earth and united with every single human heart. It is 'buried', but it is there.
In the earth there has begun a process by which the earth will be transformed and, combined with moon and sun, will become a fixed star. lt will take over a different role than it has had as a planet. Then the Earth will be seen with physical eyes from other realms. I remind you that Urey, the great atomic scientist, recently said that there is no reason not to assume that there are other beings in other realms.
These other beings, spiritual beings, can see the development of the earth. Once it was dark, then the Light that came with the Star of Bethlehem entered the earth when Christ united with the earth. This light can be increasingly seen from outside the earth, if we human beings also do our share, because every activity of the human heart adds to this light of the earth. The light of this new sun will, in future, depend increasingly an the light that comes from the human heart. This light will develop through man's spiritual activity and nothing else. On earth we train ourselves so that it will no longer be an abstraction for us, but we will live the words: "Not I, but Christ in me". Then this etheric sun will rise in our organism, and we will perceive in another way.

Bernard Lievegoed

.. writes in 'Mystery streams .. ' (1982):

In the lectures on the etherization of blood, Steiner described how by divine grace, the etheric stream goes through the human being from the heart to the pineal, there irradiating the brain as spiritual etheric light. Only thus can we have spiritual thoughts; otherwise, we would be able only to have thoughts that connect with sense impressions. This is the microscopic grail in us. The golden light of the etheric blood that irradiates the head was observed clairvoyantly as a lustre of gold around the head, when it united with the stream of the Christ etheric forces. In later times, it appeared as a halo in the paintings of the medieval painters and became the traditional 'token' of holiness. That halo was the last memory of the working of the Grail. With this, we gradually lost connection with the world Grail, which was only used around 1200 AD but which became for all time a medieval image of cosmic christianity.

Discussion

Notes

1/ In the context of the future evolution of pineal and pituitary glands, as per Man past and future, see also Development of the chakras. The pineal gland is said to correspond to the crown chakra or 'spiritual gate', whereas the pituitary gland corresponds to the third eye or ajna chakra.

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2/ Rudolf Steiner describes how the golden glow of the pituitary gland radiates the pineal gland with shining glows, this golden glow flows into the gland system and further into the blood. For more detail, see Discussion topic [1] on Man's transformation and spiritualization

This statement provides the missing link for the purification of the blood due to initiation.

For more background see a.o.: Blood is a special fluid (FMC00.285), Etherization of blood, and Christ Module 4 - Mystery of the Blood (3.4 Purification of the blood)

Related pages

References and further reading

Friedrich Husemann: Das menschliche und das karmische Wort (drei Vorträge): III - Vom Geheimnis des Herzens: die Aetherisation des Blutes (1966, 1984)