Hints of future etheric force technology

This topic page groups a number of related topics related to how the etheric formative forces can be applied in future technology.

In the second half of the 19th century, several scientists [see note 1] were on the verge of breakthroughs beyond the framework of the current physical-materialistic or mineral science. Their experiments brought to light new etheric formative forces currently unknown to humanity, but known to ancient cultures.

In this same period, several esoteric or spiritual scientific books of end of the 19th century [see note 2] contain hints of a new force, currently unknown to mineral science, but known in the ancient cultures such as those in the Atlantean epoch or the Egypto-Chaldean cultural age of the current epoch. They make reference to passages in novels and/or the work and publications of contemporary scientists.

Decades later, Rudolf Steiner also gave a number of specific hints and references to an as yet undiscovered great force of nature. He covers the Keely engine, the Tyndall resarch into 'sensitive flames', and carries things further with the description of the so-called Strader apparatus.

Certain of his students investigate (e.g. question by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer) and go to work in this field (e.g. Wachmuth, Schiller).

This page groups some of these hints, both the base references of the period 1860-1900, and the consecutive coverage by Rudolf Steiner.

Aspects

• On this topic page and the coverage below, reference is made to the following:
  • Note [1]: scientists include
    • John Tyndall (1820-1893) - o.a experiments in 1867-1874
    • John Keely (1837-1898) - o.a. Keely engine in 1872-1874
    • Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) - o.a. experiments in 1891-1899
  • Note [2]: books include
    • P. B. Randolph: 'Pre-Adamite Man' (1863, written under the name of Griffin Lee)
    • Edward Bulwer-Lytton: novel 'The Coming Race' (novel, 1871)
    • Helena Blavatsky: 'Isis Unveiled' (1877) and 'Secret Doctrine' (1888)
    • C. G. Harrison: 'The Transcendental Universe' (1894)
• To position in a historical context: spiritism (initiative or campaign) in the 19th century
  • The above fits into a timeframe where certain occult brotherhoods tried to bring into the Western culture certain beliefs through spiritism seances. There was a period when the greatest scientists of the age where concerned witnessing and investigating this, a.o. Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Joseph Thompson, Lord Rayleigh, Michael Faraday. See eg the paper 'Michael Faraday's Researches in Spiritualism' in Further reading section below).
  • Rudolf Steiner described and exposed this extensively decades later. It appears this was part of a strategy to try and get general adoption and belief through support by famous scientists. In hindsight, one can see this as another tentative to de-rail from true spiritual science by established forces, as the age of Michael (1879) and the end of the dark age or Kali Yuga (1899) was approaching. The side-tracking of the theosophical movement was another such effort (influences on Blavatsky as a person and her writings, the Krishnamurti story, etc).
  • Nevertheless, one could imagine that certain souls were incarnating as part of this wave who were 'ahead of the curve' in terms of the maturity of culture as a whole. Rudolf Steiner describes many examples of how certain souls had correct intuitions about reality, but were unable to take the step from the materialistic culture to a spiritual scientific framework. Examples o.a. Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) or Hermann Grimm.
• Various people have done research into both Keely's engine and/or Strader machine, eg. Paul Emberson or Dale Pond.
• see also: Scientific research into the etheric formative forces

Topics on future etheric technology

Introduction - the third force

In his 1871 novel 'The Coming Race', Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) described the vital power called 'Vril'. Steiner confirmed this Vril to be the vital force that makes plants grow, and the same as what was known in the Atlantean culture as 'Tao' (see GA092 and GA093 references)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (see Secret Doctrine reference below) stated that Keely tried to use this Vril power, known by the Atlantean cultures.

And in the Q&A of GA130 Rudolf Steiner makes reference to a third and as yet unknown force besides, to be discovered by science in the future.

This leads to speculations regarding this third force as the etheric force previously called Vril/Tao in the Atlantean culture, and how Steiner's hints relate to this.

Case 1 - Moral machine technology - vibrational resonance (RS hint 1)

Rudolf Steiner gave hints of a future technology that will be related to the level of morality of the person that will control the machine by individual powers. He made reference to Keely and his engine. We can call this 'moral machine technology': only people with certain moral qualities will be able to use these machines. (1906-01-02-GA093, 1906-02-12-GA097, 1916-12-18-GA173A). In summary these statements say:

• "people will make use of the delicate vibrations in their etheric bodies as a driving force with which to run machines: people will transfer their own vibrations to the machines and those will be dependent on the human being"
• "the future will have engines (that use the life force that makes the plant grow) and that are only set going by energies/vibrations coming from people, these vibrations depend an a person's moral nature. Keely's engine would only work when he himself was present, as the driving force to put the machine in motion originated in his soul."
• "The discerning of nature's rhythms — that will be true natural science. By learning to understand the rhythms in nature we shall even come to a certain application of the rhythmical in technology. This would be the goal for future technology: harmoniously related vibrations would be set going; they would be small at first but would act upon each other so that they became larger and larger, and by this means, simply through their resonance, a tremendous amount of work could be done. (1918-10-12-GA184)
• further additions: hint towards the future importance of the state of soul for scientific work, see Sixth cultural age#1911-11-04-GA130

Case 2 - Sensitive flames research (RS hint 2)

In another lecture, Rudolf Steiner linked the principle of the above to 'sensitive flames' (1916-11-12-GA172). The term used by Tyndall and Barrett in research papers in the period 1867-1877. However, 40 years before, clear hints were given by Helena Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled already in 1877.

Eugen Schiller took up this research in lab experiments based on Steiner's guidance (see reference below).

Morality and human breath and speech

The human exhalation is an etheric process (1924-09-14-GA318) and the astral and etheric components of the fine breathing process are very dependant to Man's morality or moral qualities and constitution (1915-01-03-GA275).

The organs of speech exercise formative processes on the exhaled air in the activity of speech which is a process by the human 'I' which lives in the warmth body. See also: Speech#Visible speech - vocal flow forms

Case 3 - Strader machine (RS hint 3)

Dr. Strader is a character in Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas, who struggles with a machine he invented (re first scene of the third drama and first cene of the fourth drama).

For the scenery of those plays, Steiner made drawings of devices to be put on stage. The so-called Strader apparatus was the main device, it was accompanied by three other smaller and equally enigmatic devices. See Schema FMC00.592 for pictures and illustrations.

Steiner gave specific technical and detailed specifications for the design of these devices to Oskar Schmiedel, who built them in the period 1912-13. The machine is a prototype for future technology to use the etheric formative forces. It's design is intriguing and unlike any machine currently known. As a result, the 'hint' of the Strader machine has been the subject of considerable study and speculations.

In lectures, Steiner talked about new technology that would be developed in the future, whereby "solely by means of certain capacities that are still latent but evolving in Man, and with the help of the law of harmonious oscillations, machines and mechanical constructions and other things can be set in motion." and then added the hint "A small indication is to be found in what I connected with the person of Strader in my Mystery Dramas." (1918-12-01-GA186)

For more information we refer to the Further reading section below, and as an introduction some main documents:

• Der Strader-Apparat - Beiträge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe (Nr 187, Michaeli 1991)
• Christoph Podak: Materialien und Aspekte zum Konzept der Strader-Technik (Der Europäer 2002-3)

• Linus Feiten: 'Rudolf Steiner on Technology' (2012)

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.295 shows illustrations of experiments by William Barrett and Paul Eugen Schiller Schiller.

Schema FMC00.592: shows the Strader device (upper left) and three additional devices (lower left) used in Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas, and right various sketches for the construction of the models made as hints for future etheric technology, drawings by Oskar Schmiedel (1887-1959) and Hans Kuhn (1889-1977).

Lecture coverage and references

Coverage

Here is a sequence to read the excerpts below:

• First, 1906-01-02-GA093 and 1906-02-12-GA097 already link future new technology to the morality of a person.
• 1916-11-12-GA172 then links this new technology and machines that are moral and not just objective, to sensitive flames. It makes the link explicit, already offered as a hint in 1916-10-30-GA171.
• Now what is covered here also appears in other contexts, eg 1917-02-27-GA175 and especially 1924-04-26-GA353 describe the practices in alchemy or magic to use Man's personal powers to influence matter through will, feelings and voice - again with reference to sensitive smoke and flames.
• The piece that coins the above together is contained in 1915-01-03-GA275 which explains how the moral is contained in the breath, not as physical but as etheric and astral.

For reference, Rudolf Steiner spoke of John Worrell Keely (1827 - 1898) on several occasions, a.o.

• 1905-03-30-GA053
• 1906-01-02-GA093
• 1906-02-12-GA097 (see extract below)
• 1916-06-20-GA169 (see extract below)
• 1920-11-08-GA197

Source reference extracts

Some sources state that the discovery goes back to 1857 and Joseph Le Conte (with references to Govi, Tyndall, Barry and Geyer in the years that follow). Sensitive flames were noticed because they reacted to acoustic variations. These gas flames changed their shape according to the sorts of sounds and music that they were subjected to. Sensitive flames fall into a special category of reactive agents like Kundt’s dust figures and Cholodni’s watery acoustic images.

Tyndall and Barrett (1867 and 1874)

William Barrett was assistant to John Tyndall (Professor of Natural Philosophy) at the Royal Institution in the mid 1860s and became fascinated by flames. as he noticed that high-pitched sounds seemed to have a peculiar effect on gas flames.

Barrett wrote as follows in an 1867 paper on “sensitive flames” (see references below)

“At the sound of any shrill note, the flame shrank down several inches, at the same time spreading out sideways into a flat flame” [see picture from Barrett’s paper below]. It made Barrett think of “a sensitive nervous person uneasily starting and twitching at every little noise.”

In 1874 several publications by Barrett on 'sensitive flames' appeared in the journal Popular Science (New York) and Nature (London), see references below:

(1)  Letters to Editor, Nature (03 December 1874) - Sounding and Sensitive Flames by A. S. HERSCHEL  (Abstract)

In a letter which I have just received from Dr. A. K. Irvine, of Glasgow, my attention is drawn to a short abstract of some of his experiments with Barry's sensitive flame, which appeared in the English Mechanic of Dec. 15, 1871, a few months previously to the appearance in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, and in the American Journal of Science, of the description, referred to briefly in my last letter (NATURE, vol. xi. pp. 6 to 8), of Mr. Geyer's researches on the acoustic properties of the same flame, some particulars of which Dr. Irvine appears also to have noticed independently. The few lines in which his observations are recorded corroborate so fully the character and mode of action of the flame as now pretty perfectly established, that a short extract from them will scarcely be without interest, from the satisfactory support which it offers to the accounts and explanations that other investigators of this flame have elsewhere given ii graphic terms of its appearance.

(2)  Letters to Editor, Nature 11, 45-47 19 November 1874) Sounding and Sensitive Flames, II (Abstract)

Another example of a highly sensitive flame was recently described to me which seems to show that air-currents flowing through gauze at a proper speed are sensitive without the intervention or simultaneous superaddition of a flame. A special kind of Bunsen burner was made with a spiral mixing tube coiled in an inverted cup, at the centre of which is a small chamber covered with wire-gauze at the foot of a short tube or flame-pipe. The gas is admitted by a single jet passing through a cap of wire-gauze covering the conical opening of the spiral tube, the object of this cap of gauze being to distribute the air in its approach, and to protect the gas-jet from ignition. The gas-flame burns with a small bright green cone, surmounted by a larger envelope of pale reddish flame, and it is intensely hot. The green cone indicates combustion of the most complete explosive mixture of air and coal-gas, and when the burner is properly adjusted it can only burn on the top of the flame-tube, where it finds the additional required supply of oxygen; but it descends to the wire-gauze at the foot of the tube if the air-supply exceeds, or the gas supply falls short of the right proportion. In some of these burners the slightest noise of the kind that commonly affects sensitive flames causes the cone of green flame to retreat into the tube and settle on the wire-gauze at its foot, whence it rises again immediately to the top of the tube, when the sound ceases. The explanation seems to be that the air-current entering the mixing-tube through the outer gauze cap is in a sensitive condition, and that when thrown into disturbance by the external sounds, it is more quickly seized and is drawn into the mixing tube more rapidly by the gas-jet than when it is flowing over the jet in a tranquil state. The inventor of these burners, Mr. Wallace, assures me that some of them exhibit the most sensitive of sensitive flames, and that he has more than once thought of sending one of them as a most singularly effective illustration of such flames to Prof. Tyndall.

Blavatsky - Isis Unveiled

In Isis Unveiled, there are 65 references to the 'great physicist' Tyndall, who worked on the border of (physical/materialistic) mineral science and spiritual science. Below follow two quotes which show just how much is given away. This is also the reason why Rudolf Steiner could afterwards give these hints, as the information had already been made publicly available to the world.

In Chapter 5 (on 'the ether, or astral light'), after an introduction on one primal force and its many correlations, is the subtitle 'Tyndall narrowly escapes a great discovery'. This gives away that Tyndall was on to something big, a very important breakthrough discovery.

In the text, the below extract follows after coverage of the telephone for distance communication. (SWCC, Shortened for readibility Without Change to Content)

quote A:

.. in the presence of such wonderful discoveries of our age, and the further magical possibilities lying latent and yet undiscovered in the boundless realm of nature, and further, in view of the great probability that Edison's force and Professor Graham Bell's telephone may unsettle, if not utterly upset all our ideas of the imponderable fluids, would it not be well for such persons as may be tempted to traverse our statements, to wait and see whether they will be corroborated or refuted by further discoveries.

.. in connection with these discoveries, we may .. remind our readers of the many hints to be found in the ancient histories as to a certain secret in the possession of the Egyptian priesthood, who could instantly communicate, during the celebration of the Mysteries, from one temple to another, even though the former were at Thebes and the latter at the other end of the country; the legends attributing it, as a matter of course, to the "invisible tribes" of the air, which carry messages for mortals. The author of 'Pre-Adamite Man' [P. B. Randolph] quotes an instance .. He found good evidence, he says, during his stay in Egypt, that "one of the Cleopatras sent news by a wire to all the cities, from Heliopolis to Elephantine, on the Upper Nile."

It is not so long since Professor Tyndall ushered us into a new world, peopled with airy shapes of the most ravishing beauty.

He writes: "The discovery consists in subjecting the vapors of volatile liquids to the action of concentrated sun-light, or to the concentrated beam of the electric light."

The vapors of certain nitrites, iodides, and acids are subjected to the action of the light in an experimental tube, lying horizontally, and so arranged that the axis of the tube and that of the parallel beams issuing from the lamp are coincident. The vapors form clouds of gorgeous tints, and arrange themselves into the shapes of vases, of bottles and cones, in nests of six or more; of shells, of tulips, roses, sunflowers, leaves, and of involved scrolls.

He tells us: "In one case, the cloud-bud grew rapidly into a serpent's head; a mouth was formed, and from the cloud, a cord of cloud resembling a tongue was discharged."

Finally, to cap the climax of marvels, "once it positively assumed the form of a fish, with eyes, gills, and feelers. The twoness of the animal form was displayed throughout, and no disk, coil, or speck existed on one side that did not exist on the other."

These phenomena may possibly be explained in part by the mechanical action of a beam of light, which Mr. Crookes has recently demonstrated. For instance, it is a supposable case, that the beams of light may have constituted a horizontal axis, about which the disturbed molecules of the vapors gathered into the forms of globes and spindles.

But how account for the fish, the serpent's head, the vases, the flowers of different varieties, the shells?

This seems to offer a dilemma to science as baffling as the meteor-cat of Babinet. We do not learn that Tyndall ventured as absurd an explanation of his extraordinary phenomena as that of the Frenchman about his.

Those who have not given attention to the subject may be surprised to find how much was known in former days of that all-pervading, subtile principle which has recently been baptized The Universal Ether.

quote B:

If the Abbe had been versed in Eastern philosophy, he would have found no great difficulty in comprehending both the flight of the lama’s astral body to the distant lamasery while his physical frame remained behind, or the carrying on of a conversation with the Shaberon that was inaudible to himself. The recent experiments with the telephone in America, to which allusion was made in Chapter V. of our first volume, but which have been greatly perfected since those pages went to press, prove that the human voice and the sounds of instrumental music may be conveyed along a telegraphic wire to a great distance.

The Hermetic philosophers taught, as we have seen, that the disappearance from sight of a flame does not imply its actual extinction. It has only passed from the visible to the invisible world, and may be perceived by the inner sense of vision, which is adapted to the things of that other and more real universe. The same rule applies to sound.

As the physical ear discerns the vibrations of the atmosphere up to a certain point, not yet definitely fixed, but varying with the individual, so the adept whose interior hearing has been developed can take the sound at this vanishing-point, and hear its vibrations in the astral light indefinitely. He needs no wires, helices, or sounding-boards; his will-power is all-sufficient. Hearing with the spirit, time and distance offer no impediments, and so lie may converse with another adept at the antipodes with as great ease as though they were in the same room.

Fortunately, we can produce numerous witnesses to corroborate our statement, who, without being adepts at all, have, nevertheless, heard the sound of aerial music and of the human voice, when neither instrument nor speaker were within thousands of miles of the place where we sat. In their case they actually heard interiorly, though they supposed their physical organs of hearing alone were employed. The adept had, by a simple effort of will-power, given them for the brief moment the same perception of the spirit of sound as he himself constantly enjoys.

If our men of science could only be induced to test instead of deriding the ancient philosophy of the trinity of all the natural forces, they would go by leaps toward the dazzling truth, instead of creeping, snail-like, as at present.

Prof. Tyndall’s experiments off the South Foreland, at Dover, in 1875, fairly upset all previous theories of the transmission of sound, and those he has made with sensitive flames bring him to the very threshold of arcane science. One step further, and he would comprehend how adepts can converse at great distances.

But that step will not be taken. Of his sensitive — in truth, magical — flame, he says :

The slightest tap on a distant anvil causes it to fall to seven inches. When a bunch of keys is shaken, the flame is violently agitated, and emits a loud roar. The dropping of a sixpence into a hand already containing coin, knocks the flame down. The creaking of boots sets it in violent commotion. The crumpling or tearing of a bit of paper, or the rustle of a silk dress does the same. Responsive to every tick of a watch held near it, it falls and explodes. The winding up of a watch produces tumult. From a distance of thirty yards we may chirrup to this flame, and cause it to fall and roar. Repeating a passage from the Faerie Queene, the flame sifts and selects the manifold sounds of my voice, noticing some by a slight nod, others by a deeper bow, while to others it responds by violent agitation.

Such are the wonders of modern physical science; but at what cost of apparatus, and carbonic acid and coal gas ; of American and Canadian whistles, trumpets, gongs, and bells. The poor heathen have none such impedimenta , but - will European science believe it - nevertheless, produce the very same phenomena.

Upon one occasion, when, in a case of exceptional importance, an 'oracle' was required, we saw the possibility of what we had previously vehemently denied — namely, a simple mendicant cause a sensitive flame to give responsive flashes without a particle of apparatus. A fire was kindled of branches of the Bealtree, and some sacrificial herbs were sprinkled upon it. The mendicant sat near by, motionless, absorbed in contemplation. During the intervals between the questions the fire burned low and seemed ready to go out, but when the interrogatories were propounded, the flames leaped, roaring, skyward, flickered, bowed, and sent fiery tongues flaring toward the east, west, north, or south ; each motion having its distinct meaning in a code of signals well understood. Between whiles it would sink to the ground, and the tongues of flame would lick the sod in every direction, and suddenly disappear, leaving only a bed of glowing embers.

When the interview with the flame-spirits was at an end, the Bikshu (mendicant) turned toward the jungle where he abode, keeping up a wailing, monotonous chant, to the rhythm of which the sensitive flame kept time, not merely like Prof. Tyndall’s, when he read the Faerie Queene by simple motions, but by a marvellous modulation of hissing and roaring until he was out of sight. Then, as if its very life were extinguished, it vanished, and left a bed of ashes before the astonished spectators.

Quote C describes how Tyndall, who put forth a theory of a so-called 'fire-mist', was just confronted with clear facts but lacked further spiritual intuition, so was expression things in the material science of the day (SWCC)

One of the cleverest productions of Professor Tyndall's pen is his caustic essay upon 'Martineau and Materialism'. ...

He quotes this question from Mr. Martineau:

"A man can say 'I feel, I think, I love'; but how does consciousness infuse itself into the problem?"

And thus answers:

"The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why.

Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 'How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?' The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable."

This chasm, as impassable to Professor Tyndall as the fire-mist where the scientist is confronted with his unknowable cause, is a barrier only to men without spiritual intuitions.

Quote D

.

There is also an interesting phrase after quoting from 'The Antiquity of Magic' by Vaughan, Thomas (1622-1666), published as 'Magia Adamica' under the name of Eugenius Philalethes

We .. turn to the 'Magia Adamica' of Eugenius Philalethes (1650) .. and find him quoting from Trismegistus in the following terms:

"Hermes affirmeth that in the Beginning the earth was a quackmire or quivering kind of jelly, it being nothing else but water congealed by the incubation and heat of the divine spirit; cum adhuc (sayeth he) Terra tremula esset, Lucente sole compacta est."

In the same work Philalethes, speaking in his quaint, symbolical way, says,

"The earth is invisible . . . on my soul it is so, and which is more, the eye of man never saw the earth, nor can it be seen without art. To make this element invisible, is the greatest secret in magic . . . as for this faeculent, gross body upon which we walk, it is a compost, and no earth but it hath earth in it, . . . in a word all the elements are visible but one, namely the earth, and when thou hast attained to so much perfection as to know why God hath placed the earth in abscondito, thou hast an excellent figure whereby to know God Himself, and how He is visible, how invisible."

Ages before our savants of the nineteenth century .. a wise man of the Orient thus expressed himself, in addressing the invisible Deity:

"For thy Almighty Hand, that made the world of formless matter."‡

followed by the comment:

There is much more contained in this language than we are willing to explain, but we will say that the secret is worth the seeking; perhaps in this formless matter, the fire-Adamite earth, is contained a 'potency' with which Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley would be glad to acquaint themselves.

For origin and comments on the quotes, see the book Isis Unveiled.

What is described here is that what we perceive as solid Earth is a rendered illusion for our contemporary sensory waking consciousness, also called 'maya' (see also the topic page Cosmic fractal). The description of the Early stages of Earth can also be found as described by Rudolf Steiner as the etheric Earth, followed by the fluid jelly Earth. What lies underneath the current solid mineral Earth are elemental beings and etheric formative forces, see also Schema FMC00.142 and variants on Overview Golden Chain. What is holding it all together is described on: The two etheric streams

Helena Blavatsky in 'The Secret Doctrine vol. 1.'

also discusses Keely.

The following extract comes from Georg Unger's lecture (of 1963, see Further reading section below) who covers this passage with comments included here.

In the chapter called “The Coming Power,” after a vague assertion that sound is a terrible occult force, we find the following (p. 606) [quotations and page-numbers are from the third revised edition of 1893]:

And if all this appears too unscientific to be even noticed, let Science explain to what mechanical end physical laws, known to it, are due the recently produced phenomena of the so-called Keely motor. What is it that acts as the formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of that power which is not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse-power, but has even been employed to bodily lift the machinery? Yet this is done simply by drawing a fiddle bow across a tuning fork, as has been repeatedly proven. For the Etheric Force, discovered by John Worrell Keely, of Philadelphia, well-known in America and Europe, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it — a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first — the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the supernatural but of the superhuman. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might have reduced a whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds, as easily as he reduced a dead ox to that condition.

On the next page:

In the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, Mr. Keely was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of physical Forces ...

The rest of the chapter consists mainly of long quotations from the writings of Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore. A theosophical discussion is followed by the remark that although Keely's opinions are considered “unscientific,” they are “quite orthodox from the spiritual and occult point of view.” Then comes a revealing passage (p. 609):

Occult Philosophy divulges few of its most important vital mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart, and even this only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries on Humanity slowly, silently, but steadily, toward the dawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their legitimate heirs and keepers, those mysteries cease to be Occult: they fall into the public domain, and have to run the risk of becoming curses more open than blessings in the hands of the selfish — of the Cains of the human race. Nevertheless, whenever such individuals as the discoverer of Etheric Force are bone, men with peculiar psychic and mental capacities, they are generally and more frequently helped, than allowed to go unassisted, groping on their way; if left to their own resources, they very soon fall victims to martyrdom or become the prey of unscrupulous speculators. But they are helped only on the condition that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an additional peril to their age: a danger to the poor, now offered in daily holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.

A footnote to this passage is not without interest because of the analogy it suggests with the fate of Strader:

The above was written in 1886, at a time when hopes of success for the “Keely Motor” were at their highest. Every word then said by the writer proved true, and now only a few remarks are added with regard to the failure of Mr. Keely's expectations, so far, a failure now admitted by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word failure is here used, the reader should understand it in a relative sense, for, as Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore explains: “What Mr. Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research, he was obliged either to confess a commercial failure, or to try a third departure from his base or principle, seeking success through another channel.” And this “channel” is on the physical plane.

Blavatsky then repeats her own remarks at the Philadelphia centenary exhibition, when she had said that it was beyond Keely's power to contribute anything that lay outside “the capacities inherent in his own particular make-up.” After further praising him highly, she continues (p. 611):

It is just because Keely's discovery would lead to a knowledge of one of the most Occult secrets, a secret which can never be allowed to fall into the hands of the masses, that his failure to push his discoveries to their logical end seems certain to Occultists. But of this more presently. Even in its limitation this discovery may prove of the greatest benefit.

After quoting some further extravagant assertions by Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, Blavatsky continues:

The Occultists are ready to admit all this with the eloquent writer. Molecular vibration is, undeniably, “Keely's legitimate field of research,” and the discoveries made by him will prove wonderful yet only in his hands and through himself. The world so far will get but that with which it can be safely entrusted. The truth of this assertion has, perhaps, not yet quite dawned upon the discoverer himself, since he writes that he is absolutely certain that he will accomplish all that he has promised, and that he will then give it out to the world; but it must dawn upon him, and at no very far distant date.

In dealing with the question why Keely was not allowed to cross a certain frontier, Blavatsky returns to this theme (p. 614):

It was because that, which he has unconsciously discovered, is the terrible sidereal Force,

• known to, and named by the Atlanteans Mash-mak,
• and by the Aryan Rishis in their Astra Vidyâ by a name that we do not like to give.
• It is the Vril of Bulwer Lytton's Coming Race, and of the coming races of our mankind.

The name Vril may be a fiction; the force itself is a fact, as little doubted in India as is the existence of the Rishis, since it is mentioned in all the secret books.

Then comes a vision of the future, terrifying because of its unnoticed warning of the atomic bomb, although this, after all, has no direct connection with Keely's discovery:

It is this vibratory force. which, when aimed at an army from an Agni-ratha, fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in Astra Vidyâ would reduce to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorized in the Vishnu Puranâ, in the Râmâyana and other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose “glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara's 60,000 sons,” and which is explained in the Esoteric Works, and referred to as the Kapilâksha — Kapila's Eye.

In the rest of this chapter there is nothing new.

If the passages quoted are brought together and considered symptomatically, in the sense recommended by Rudolf Steiner in such cases, the impression is confirmed that Blavatsky at least suspected the presence of occult purposes behind Keely's activities.

The tone of the account bears the hallmark of the “conservative” or “right wing” section of the occult movement. It was here, according to Rudolf Steiner, that a feeling of responsibility prevailed towards the revealing of occult truths; while the “left wing” consisted of occultists who for various reasons of their own were in favour of the widest possible publicity.

One gets the impression that Blavatsky either is not allowed to say, or does not wish to say, or perhaps has no knowledge of, anything very definite; but through her words glimmers the fact that Keely's results were not permitted to lead to a premature disclosure of certain capacities.

C. G. Harrison: 'The Transcendental Universe' (1894)

after discussion the effects of prayer:

Is it so unscientific to think that where the wishes of a whole community are concentrated on a certain object, they may perhaps set free forces which are not without influence on the magnetism of the Earth? .. through vibratory coincidence.

In a footnote the author adds:

If Keely's ‘motor’ should ever become an accomplished fact, who can say what wonderful results the application of the law of vibratory coincidence might not have in the future?”

Before the above passage, Harrison drops a veiled hint. Owing to the connection which he claims to exist between rain, atmospheric moisture and earth-magnetism, the following remark is made:

“What after all is magnetism? It is a form of energy. But will-power is also a form of energy. Are our scientists concerned to prove that between these two forms of energy there is no such common factor, as is agreed exists between magnetism and other forms of energy such as warmth, electricity, etc?

Rudolf Steiner

1905-XX-XX-GA266

on future technologies, extract from RSH

People will draw the forces out of flowing water and make use of them.

They will catch the powerful forces in the sunrays by means of gigantic mirrors.

[not yet, still to come]

They will learn to control the forces of the interior of the Earth that are now released through volcanic outbreaks and originate from a mighty spiritual being.

The most miraculous machines will be invented ...

They will even gain power over the magnetic forces of the entire Earth [translation: “sun”, tbc]

... When in primal times changes of the Earth were necessary, the forces of the gods put the axis of the Earth at an awkward angle ..

humankind will be able to turn the Earth axis in coming times.

GA092

Die Chinesen sind ein Rest der atlantischen Rasse der Mongolen. Wenn wir bei den Chinesen das Wort TAO hören, so ist das für uns etwas schwer Verständliches. Die damaligen Mongolen hatten einen Monotheismus ausgebildet, der bis zur psychischen Greifbarkeit, bis zum Fühlen des Geistigen ging, und wenn der alte Chinese, der alte Mongole, das Wort TAO aussprach, so fühlte er das beim Aussprechen. TAO ist nicht «der Weg», wie das gewöhnlich übersetzt wird, es ist die Grundkraft, durch die der Atlantier noch die Pflanzen verwandeln konnte, durch die er seine merkwürdigen Luftschiffe in Bewegung setzen konnte. Diese Grundkraft, die man auch «Vril» nennt, hat der Atlantier überall genutzt, und er nannte sie seinen Gott. Er fühlte diese Kraft in sich, sie war ihm «der Weg und das Ziel»."

machine translation

The Chinese are a remnant of the Atlantean race of Mongols. When we hear the word TAO among the Chinese, it is something difficult for us to understand. The Mongols of that time had developed a monotheism that went as far as psychic tangibility, as far as feeling the spiritual, and when the old Chinese, the old Mongol, pronounced the word TAO, he felt it when he pronounced it. TAO is not "the way", as it is usually translated, it is the basic force by which the Atlantean could still transform the plants, by which he could set his strange airships in motion. This basic power, which is also called "Vril", the Atlantian used everywhere, and he called it his God. He felt this power in himself, it was "the way and the goal" for him.

1906-01-02-GA093

quote A

What is today called socialism exists only as an abortive and impossible experiment, as a final, I may say desperate, struggle in a receding wave of humanity's [development]. It cannot bring about any really positive result. What it sets out to achieve, can only be achieved through living activity; the pillar of strength is not enough. Socialism can no longer be controlled with inanimate forces. The ideas of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, fraternity were the last ideas to flow out of the inanimate. Everything that still runs on that track is fruitless and doomed to die. For the great evil existing in the world today, the dreadful misery that expresses itself with such frightful force, that is called the social question, can no longer be controlled by the inanimate. A Royal Art is needed for that; and it is this Royal Art which was inaugurated in the symbol of the Holy Grail.

Through this Royal Art, Man must acquire control of something similar to the force which sprouts in the plant, the same force that the occultist uses when he accelerates the growth of a plant in front of him. In a similar way, a part of this force must be used for social salvation. This power, which is described by those who know something of the Rosicrucian mysteries — as for example did Bulwer Lytton in his futuristic novel Vril, is at present still in an elementary, germinal, stage.

In the Freemasonry of the future, it will be the real content of the higher degrees. The Royal Art will in the future be a social art.

[nothing is lost across CoF and CoL]

Again, I have to tell you something which will seem fantastic to the uninitiated, on account, I may say, of the comprehensive, all-embracing range of the idea. What man prints as a form deriving from his soul on the matter of this Earth Round is eternal, it will not pass away. Even though the matter thus given form outwardly decays, what the Royal Art has given form to, in pyramids, temples and churches, is imperishable. What the human spirit has given shape to, in matter, will remain present in the world as a continuing force. That is completely clear to those who are initiated in such matters. Cologne's Gothic cathedral will, for example, pass away; but it is of far reaching significance that the atoms were once in this form. This form itself is the imperishable thing that will henceforth participate in the ongoing evolutionary process of humanity, just as the living force that is in the plant participates in the evolution of Nature! The painter, who paints a picture today, who prints dead matter with his soul's blood, is also creating something which will sooner or later be disposed in thousands of atoms. What has imperishable and continuing value, what is eternal, is that he has created, that something from his soul has flowed into matter.

quote B

What is expressed by the Tau is a driving force which can only be set in motion by the power of selfless love. It will be possible to use this power to drive machines, which will, however, cease to function if egoistical people make use of them.

It is perhaps known to you that Keely invented a motor which would only go if he himself were present. He was not deceiving people about this; for he had in him that driving force originating in the soul, which can set machines in motion. A driving force which can only be moral, that is the idea of the future; a most important force, with which culture must be inoculated, if it is not to fall back on itself. The mechanical and the moral must interpenetrate each other, because the mechanical is nothing without the moral. Today we stand hard on this frontier.

In the future machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual force, by spiritual morality. This power is symbolised by the Tau sign and was indeed poetically symbolised by the image of the Holy Grail. Man is no longer merely dependent on what Nature will freely give him to use; he can shape and transform Nature, he has become the master craftsman of the inanimate. In the same way he will become the master craftsman of what is living.

quote C: on triangle of hexagram It is worth studying the notes about this lecture at the end of the German volume. The stenographic notes by Seiler include comments on the drawing made of a hexagram (appearing in the six different source texts for this lecture on which the GA version of the lecture text is based), but only on one triangle is commented:

With the form of the triangle, the occultist in the middle ages expressed the symbol of the Grail, the symbol for 'the awakening of mastery in/of the Living'

The sixth source text for the lecture contains yet another phrase, relating to the above (and both probably reflections of what was said by Rudolf Steiner):

This form of the triangle is the divine symbol of the Holy Grail and also the symbol of 'the awakening of mastery in the Living'. This is the Christ force, described as Vril in Zanoni's book. It is currenly in an elementary seed-state, and she will be what the royal art of the future will have as true content for the high grade. Man has to achieve/gain it all by himself, without asking too many questions.

The two phrases above are not clear, but source text 1906-01-02-06-01 (PDF download here of DE original for reference: 1906-01-02-06-01) sheds light on this as it provides a more extensive explanation then what was published by the GA.

Freely translated, it says that

The forces that can be found in the living, and also in the force of thought in Man, are represented by a symbol.

Both in as far as it is expressed in the Gods and their influences (triangle down), and in its expression in human nature as a striving to rise to the Gods (triangle up), and the union of both is the symbol of the Holy Grail (hexagram).

The triangle represents the force that has to develop or be awakened in every individual human being, a pilgrimage expressed through the figure of Parsifal.

See also the Schemas on The two etheric streams, such as FMC00.324, FMC00.088, FMC00.051.

Further notes are on the Tau-sign, described as a cross with the mineral kingdom ommitted.

1906-02-12-GA097

Today we have come down to the physical level in every respect. If there is no moral development to go hand in hand with civilization at the physical level, physical achievements are destructive.

[Moral machine technology (Keely)]

Moral development will enable humanity to generate energies that will be very different from those that are now to be found at the physical level. Keely set his engine in motion with vibrations created in his own organism. Such vibrations depend an a person's moral nature. This is the first hint of a dawn for a technology of the future. We will have engines in the future that are only set going by energies coming from people who have moral qualities.

Immoral people will not be able to set them going. Purely mechanical mechanism must be transformed into moral mechanism.

1907-12-27-GA101

for full lecture, see: Group souls of humanity#1907-12-27-GA101

[Future mastery of the laws of the etheric]

Even when it comes to plants, Man rightly says that he cannot understand life itself with his intellect. The time will come when Man will understand plants in the same way he understands minerals today; then he will also be able to construct the plant as he constructs his cathedrals and houses and his machines according to the laws of the mineral kingdom today. They are all laws of the mineral kingdom that permeate the I. Science is waiting for its ideal of producing living beings in the laboratory to be fulfilled. It will not be able to do this unless mankind has reached a certain necessary level of moral development. It would be terrible if mankind were able to do this today. Just as a watch is made today according to mineral laws, as a house is built, so in the future Man will create living things according to the laws of life. But then he will have to be able to imprint life itself on the living. Anyone who will then be standing at the laboratory table will have to be able to transfer those - let's call it: vibrations that are in his own etheric body - to what is to be enlivened. If he is a good Man, he transmits the good; if he is a bad person, he transmits the bad.

But there is a sentence in occultism: the knowledge of the White Lodge, which is called the secret of life-generation, is not handed over to mankind before Man has learned the secret of sacramentalism. 'Sacramentalism' is an expression of the fact that human action must be imbued with moral perfection, with holiness.

Only when the laboratory table where he carries out his work becomes an altar for man and his action sacred will he then be ready for this knowledge to be handed over to him. Think of the people of today with all their materialism - how far is their laboratory table from an altar today!

1915-01-03-GA275

is called 'Future Jupiter and its beings'

Now our question concerning the beings who will reach the human level on Jupiter is connected in very truth with the deepest questions of man's Earth evolution.

There is something in our Earth evolution that has always been a philosophical problem, namely the relation between man's moral behaviour and his natural existence.

As an earthly being, man has to decide to what extent he is the kind of being who is ruled by his instincts, has to obey and satisfy them, and is at the mercy of his instincts and their satisfaction, because the laws of nature simply insist on their being satisfied. That is one side of human nature. In this respect we say, ‘We do these things because we have to. We have to eat and we have to sleep.’ But there is another realm of human conduct on this earth, a realm in which we cannot say ‘must’, for it would lose its whole significance if we were to say ‘must’ here. This is the wide realm of ‘shall’, a realm where we feel that we have to follow a purely spiritual impulse as distinct from instinct and everything arising out of ourselves on a natural level. ‘You shall’ never speaks to us from out of our instincts but directs us in a purely spiritual way. ‘You shall’ comprises the realm of our moral obligations.

There are some philosophers who cannot find any connection between what is implied by the ‘you shall’ and ‘you must’.

And our present age that is almost bogged down in materialism, especially where moral life is concerned, and will get more and more bogged down, would like to turn all the ‘you shalls’ into ‘you musts’. We are heading for times where, in this respect, the turning of ‘you shall’ into ‘you must’ will be blazoned forth with a certain amount of pride, and actually called psychology. Terrible aspects present themselves if we look at what has begun to develop in the field of criminal psychology. It is already evident that the human being is being conceived of in such a way that people do not ask whether he has overstepped a ‘you shall’, but try to prove that he was driven to one or another destructive act out of the necessity of his nature. Strange experiments are on the increase to define crime merely as a particular case of illness. All these things arise out of a certain materialistic lack of clarity in our times, regarding the relation of ‘you shall’ to ‘you must’.

What does this ‘you shall’, or in other words the categorical imperative, actually signify within the whole framework of human existence? Whoever obeys the ‘you shall’ is known to carry out a moral action. Whoever does not obey the ‘you shall’ commits an immoral action. This is of course a trivial truth. But now let us attempt to look at ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’, not only with regard to the external maya of the physical plane, but with regard to the truth and what is actually behind physical maya.

Here the moral element corresponding to the ‘you shall’ appears to initiation science as something that hits you in the eye, spiritually, to put it rather crudely. If you look at a person — these truths which the materialistic outlook detests have to be told sometime — if you look at someone in certain temperature and weather conditions — you see this even better in horses, but we are not speaking about horses now — you will see him breathing out, and the breath becoming visible as vapour in the air. Obviously as far as materialistic science is concerned, this breath a person exhales, disperses and dissolves and has no further significance.

But it has significance for a person who follows up the phenomena of life with initiation science, for he sees in the patterns of the breath the exact traces of the moral or immoral conduct of the person. A person's moral or immoral behaviour can be seen in the steamy breath, and the breath of a person who is morally inclined is quite different from the breath of a person who is inclined to immorality. You know, with regard to various things in the human being, the more delicate qualities can only be seen in the more delicate parts of the etheric and astral aura.

Man's moral and immoral nature (in the ordinary sense of the word) is actually visible in the etheric-astral content of the steamy breath. The physical part of it dissolves. But what is incorporated in it does not dissolve; for it contains a genie, which, in the case of steamy breath, has a physical, an etheric and an astral part, only the physical is not earthly, just watery. Something that has an extremely differentiated form can be seen in this breath.

Deeds which arise out of love show something quite different from deeds which are done out of enthusiasm, a creative urge or the urge for perfection, for instance. But in every case the form in the breath reminds one of beings that do not exist on earth at all as yet. These beings are a preparation for the ones that will reach their human stage on Jupiter. Their forms are very changeable and will pass through further changes in the future, for these beings are the first advance shadow images of the beings who will reach the human level on Jupiter.

In a certain way we also owe our existence to the exhalation of the Angels on Old Moon, and it is one of the moving experiences of spiritual life to know that Future Jupiter human beings of the future will evolve out of what we breathe out in present ages. If we turn to the Bible with such knowledge in mind, and read the opening words, we can tell ourselves, ‘Now we begin to understand what is meant when it says that the Elohim formed earthly man by breathing into him.’

I will confess that I would never have understood the part about the Elohim breathing the living being of man into his mouth and nose, if I had not known beforehand that the breath of earthly human beings also contains the first germinal beginnings of the beings who will become human on Jupiter. But Future Jupiter human beings can only arise from the kind of breath that owes its existence to deeds that obey the ‘you shall’, and which are therefore moral actions.

Thus we see that through our earthly morality we take a creative part in the whole cosmic order. It is indeed a creative power, and we can see that spiritual science gives us a strong impulse for moral action by telling us that we are working against the creation of Future Jupiter human beings, if we do not act in a moral way on earth. This gives morality a very real value and makes its existence worthwhile. Our human conduct is very strongly formed by what we acquire through spiritual science, especially as we become acquainted with real secrets regarding the cosmos.

I have already made references to similar things and mentioned at various times that language also symbolises man's own future creativity. I do not wish to dwell on this today though, but just wanted to show you, to begin with, what significance moral behaviour has in the whole of the cosmos.

1916-06-20-GA169

.. the other pillar, the Boaz pillar, also finds historical expression in our age. It too represents one-sidedness. We find it in the exclusive search for the spiritual in the outer world. Some years ago, this phenomenon appeared in America with the emergence of the polar opposite to Tolstoy, namely, Keely. Keely harbored the ideal of building a motor that would not run on steam or electricity, but on the waves we create when we make sounds, when we speak. Just imagine that! A motor that runs on the waves we set in motion when we speak, or indeed with our inner life in general. Of course, this was only an ideal, and we can thank God it was just an ideal at that time, for what would this war be like if Keely's ideal had been realized? If it is ever realized, then we will see what the harmony of vibrations in external motor power really means. This, then, is the other one-sidedness, the Boaz pillar. It is between these two pillars we must pass through. There is much, indeed very much, contained in symbols that have been preserved. Our age is called upon to understand these things, to penetrate them. Someday people will perceive the contrast between all true spirituality and what will come from the West if the Keely motor ever becomes a reality. It will be quite a different contrast from the one between Tolstoy's views and what is approaching from the East. Well, we cannot say more about this.

and again from 1916-06-20-GA169 quote taken from GA265 (p368, 2007 edition)

Keely, whose ideal it was to construct a motor that was not powered by steam or electricity, but by the force that human beings engender in sound waves of their voice and speech. Consider an engine that is so constructed that it can be set in motion by vibrations a person produces by speaking or by soul activity in general. ... when vibrations synchronize to produce outward mechanical energy

1916-10-28-GA171

Speaking spells into fumingations the column of smoke took on certain shapes spiritual beings were able to enter.

Re John Tyndall experiments

1916-10-30-GA171

Certain people now already see how smoke that unfolds becomes sensitive, and images sound, just as flames themselves image sound; here lies the beginning of a new knowledge

1916-11-12-GA172

Thus, everything will be excluded that has no relation to human nature, and by this it will be possible to bring about something quite definite. Just imagine what a truly good person who has reached an especially high level of morality will in future be able to do. He will construct machines with signals that can be governed only by individuals like himself. Evil minded people will produce quite different vibrations when they make these signals, and the machine will not respond.

People already have a faint inkling of this. It is not without purpose that I have called your attention to certain individuals who study flames dancing under the influence of definite tones. Further research in this direction will reveal the way to what I have just indicated. We might, indeed, say that it is the path back to those times when an alchemist who only wished to stuff money into his pocket could accomplish nothing, whereas another, who wished only to set up a sacrament for the glory of the gods and the welfare of humanity, would be successful.

In a sense, so long as what arose from human work bore the aura of the emotions and joys that men transferred into it, it was not accessible to the kind of influence that I have just described. But to the extent that the products of vocational labor can no longer be produced with special and absolutely necessary enthusiasm, what thus flows away from men and streams forth from them can become a motor force. The truth is that through the fact that individuals can no longer unite their emotions with the world of machinery, they, in a way, restore to this world the purity that arises from or serves their labor.

In the future it will no longer be possible for people to bestow the warmth gained from the enthusiasm and joy derived from their work on the things produced. But these things themselves will be purer as they are put into the world by workers. They will also become more susceptible to what will emanate from, and be predetermined by, man as a motor force, as I have described.

and

Today machines are designed and obviously these machines are something objective; but this will not always be the case.

1916-12-18-GA173A

Mankind is now faced with having to solve certain quite specific problems. This applies, above all, to something I have already spoken about, which is connected with today's much-admired technology — a consequence of natural science — which is also much admired by spiritual science. In the comparatively near future, this much-admired modern technology will reach a final stage where it will, in a certain way, cancel itself out.

In contrast, something will come into being — I have mentioned it in passing here — which will enable people to make use of the delicate vibrations in their etheric bodies as a driving force with which to run machines. Machines will exist which are dependent on people and people will transfer their own vibrations to the machines.

People alone will be capable of setting these machines in motion by means of certain vibrations stimulated by themselves. People who today see themselves as practitioners of science will, in the not too distant future, find themselves faced with a complete transformation of what they today call the practical application of science; for the human being is to be tuned in with his will to the objective sphere of feeling in the universe.

1917-03-13-GA175

In these mysteries there was still a consciousness of the connection of the earth with the whole universe. At that time it was customary for suitable persons to be subjected to a definite psychical process — but this could no longer be done today. They could then, during a certain number of days - in winter - be sent to certain definite localities, there to serve in a sense as receiving stations for the universe, the supra-earthly universe, and to receive what it is able to communicate to the earth at such times, if the times could provide a sufficiently receptive receiving-station.

Our present Christmas time was then not precisely the most important time, though approximately so but the exact time does not signify for the moment. Let us assume the time to be between the 24th December, and the early days of January. This season is one in which, through the special position of the sun to the earth, the universe conveys something to the earth that it does not at other times. At this season the universe speaks in a more intimate way to the earth than at other times. This is because the sun does not unfold its summer-force at this time; the summer-force has in a certain respect, withdrawn.

Now, the leaders of the ancient mysteries took advantage of that time to make it possible in certain organised places with the help of specially prepared persons, to receive the inner secrets of the universe, which came down to the earth during this intimate dialogue.

This may be compared today with something certainly much more trivial, yet the two can be compared. You know that what is known as ‘wireless telegraphy’ rests upon the fact that electric waves are set in motion, which are then further transmitted without wires, and that in certain places an instrument called a coherer is installed, which, by its peculiar arrangement makes it possible for the electric waves to be received and the coherer is then set in action. The whole thing depends entirely on the arrangement and formation of the metal filings in the coherer which are then shaken back into place when the waves have passed through it.

Now, if we assume that the secrets of the universe, of the supra-earthly universe, pass through the earth at the special time alluded to, it would be necessary to have an instrument for receiving them; for the electric waves would pass by the receiving-station to no purpose, unless the right instrument attuned to receive them were there! Such an instrument is needed to receive what comes from the universe.

The ancient Greeks used their Pythia, their priestesses for this purpose; they were trained for the purpose and were very specially sensitive to what came down from the universe, and were able to communicate its secrets. These secrets were then later on taught by those who perhaps, had long been unable themselves to act as receivers. Still the secrets of the universe were given out. This, of course, took place under the sign of the holy mysteries, a sign of which the present age, which has -no longer any feeling for what is holy, has no conception. In our age the first thing would obviously be to ‘interview’ the priests of the mysteries!

Now, what was above all demanded of these priests? It was necessary in a certain sense that they should know that if they made themselves acquainted with what streamed down from the universe for the fructification of earth-life, and especially if they used it in their social knowledge, they must be capable, having thereby become much cleverer, of establishing the principal laws and other rules for government during the coming year.

1917-02-27-GA175

.. Once this has been grasped, other ideas will become more real than they are at present. We will not now enter into a discussion on alchemy, but remember that what the old alchemist had in view was that his conceptions should not remain mere ideas, but that they should result in something.

When he burnt incense while holding his conception in mind or giving voice to it, he tried to put sufficient force into it to compel the smoke of the incense to take on form. He sought for such ideas as have the power of affecting the external realities of nature, ideas that do not merely remain within the egoistic part of man but can intervene in the realities of nature.

Why did he do this?

Because he still had the idea that something occurred at the Mystery of Golgotha which intervened in the course of nature: that was just as real a fact to him as a fact of nature. You see upon this rests a very significant difference which began in the second half of the Middle Ages, towards our own fifth age which followed the Graeco-Latin epoch.

At the time of the crusades, in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth, and indeed in the sixteenth century, there were some special natures, principally women, who devoted themselves so deeply to mysticism, that the inner experience resulting therefrom was felt by them as a spiritual marriage, whether with Christ or another. Many ascetic nuns celebrated mystical marriages. I will not enter into the nature of these inner mystic unions today; but something took place in their inner being which could afterwards only be expressed in words. In a sense it was something that subsisted in the ideas, feelings and also the words in which these were clothed.

In contrast to this, Valentine Andrea, as the result of certain conceptions and Spiritual connections, wrote his Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz. This chymical — or, as we should say today, chemical-marriage is also a human experience, but when you go into the matter you find that this does not only apply to a soul-experience but to something not merely expressed in words, but which grips the whole man; it is not merely put into the world as a soul experience, for it was a real occurrence, an event of nature, in which a man accomplishes something like a natural process. Valentine Andrea in The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz, meant to express something that was more permeated with reality than the merely mystical marriage of Mechthild of Magdeburg, who was a mystic.

The mystical marriage of the nuns only accomplished something for the subjective nature of man; by the chymical marriage a man gave himself to the world. Through this, something was accomplished for the whole world; just as something is accomplished for the whole world by the processes of nature. This is again to be taken in a truly Christian sense. Those who thought more real thoughts, longed for concepts through which they could better lay hold of reality, even if only in the one-sided way of the old alchemists — concepts through which they could better grasp reality, ideas in fact which were really connected with reality. The age of materialism has at present thrown a veil over such concepts; and those who today believe they think aright about reality are living in greater illusion than these despised men at the time of the old alchemists, who strove for concepts which should help them to master it.

1918-10-12-GA184

If Man will only give up looking for anything coarsely material as the basis of nature — and this he will do before the fourth millennium — he will come to something quite different; he will discover rhythms, rhythmical orderings, everywhere in nature. These rhythmical orderings are there, but as a rule modern materialistic science makes fun of them. ...

This rhythmical order is there in the whole of nature. In the plants one leaf follows another in rhythmical growth; the petals of the blossoms are ordered rhythmically, everything is rhythmically ordered. Fever takes a rhythmical course in sickness; the whole of life is rhythmical.

The discerning of nature's rhythms — that will be true natural science.

By learning to understand the rhythms in nature we shall even come to a certain application of the rhythmical in technology.

This would be the goal for future technology: harmoniously related vibrations would be set going; they would be small at first but would act upon each other so that they became larger and larger, and by this means, simply through their resonance, a tremendous amount of work could be done.

1917-11-25-GA178

In such situations the will is there to harness human energy to mechanical energy. These things should not be treated by fighting against them. That is a completely false view. These things will not fail to appear; they will come. What we are concerned with is whether, in the course of world history, they are entrusted to people who are familiar in a selfless way with the great aims of earthly evolution and who structure these things for the health of human beings or whether they are enacted by groups of human beings who exploit these things in an egotistical or in a group-egotistical sense. That is what matters. It is not a question of the what in this case; the what is sure to come. It is a question of the how, how one tackles these situations. The what lies simply in the meaning of earthly evolution. The welding together of the human nature with the mechanical nature will be a problem of great significance for the remainder of earthly evolution.

I have deliberately drawn attention often, even in public lectures, to the fact that the consciousness of the human being is connected with the forces of disintegration. On two occasions I have said in public lectures in Basel that within our nervous system we are dying. These forces, these forces of dying away, will become more and more powerful. The bond will be established between these forces dying within man, which are related to the electric, magnetic forces, and the outer mechanical forces.

Man will to a certain extent become his intentions, he will be able to direct his thoughts into the mechanical forces. Hitherto undiscovered forces within human nature will be discovered, forces that will work on outer electric and magnetic forces. The first problem is to bring together human beings with the mechanical, which will have to prevail increasingly in the future.

1918-10-09-GA182

The third result will be this. Man will get to know of definite forces which, simply by means of quite easy manipulations — by bringing into accord certain vibrations — will enable him to unleash tremendous mechanical forces in the world. Instinctively he will come to realise in this way the possibility of exercising a certain spiritual guidance and control of the mechanistic principle — and the whole of technical science will sail into desolate waters. But human egoism will find these desolate waters of tremendous use and benefit.

1918-10-12-GA184

The discerning of nature’s rhythms — that will be true natural science. By learning to understand the rhythms in nature we shall even come to a certain application of the rhythmical in technology. This would be the goal for future technics: harmoniously related vibrations would be set going; they would be small at first but would act upon each other so that they became larger and larger, and by this means, simply through their resonance, a tremendous amount of work could be done.

1918-12-01-GA186

Beginning with this fifth post-Atlantean age, definite forces will become prominent in the evolution of humanity. Human evolution is, of course, moving forward. Within the limits of the brief span of time that comes under the survey of anthropology or history in the field of external materialistic science, it is never possible to form a judgment regarding the forces manifest in the evolution of humanity. Little in the external process of development has undergone any change within this limited span of time. On the basis of this knowledge no one knows, for example, how utterly different things looked, even in the second age, not to mention the first or others still farther back. This can be known only through spiritual science. Only through spiritual science, likewise, is it possible to indicate the forces that will develop in future in a wholly elemental manner out of the nature of Man. The fact that such forces, which will transform life on Earth, will develop out of the human being is known in those secret centers. It is this that is concealed from the East by people in the West who intend to retain it themselves. It is known, moreover, that these capacities, possessed by Man today only in their very first beginning, will be threefold in their nature. They will evolve out of the nature of Man in the same way in which other capacities have come into existence in the course of humanity's evolution.

This threefold capacity, of which every knowing person within these secret circles speaks — these three capacities that will evolve in human nature, I must make intelligible to you in the following way.

First, there are the capacities having to do with so-called material occultism. By means of this capacity — and this is precisely the ideal of British secret societies — certain social forms at present basic within the industrial system shall be set up on an entirely different foundation. Every knowing member of these secret circles is aware that, solely by means of certain capacities that are still latent but evolving in Man, and with the help of the law of harmonious oscillations, machines and mechanical constructions and other things can be set in motion. A small indication is to be found in what I connected with the person of Strader in my Mystery Dramas.

These things are at present in process of development. They are guarded as secrets within those secret circles in the field of material occultism. Motors can be set in motion, into activity, by an insignificant human influence through a knowledge of the corresponding curve of oscillation. By means of this principle it will be possible to substitute merely mechanical forces for human forces in many things. The number of human beings on the Earth today in actual fact is 1,400,000,000. Labor is performed however, not only by these 1,400,000,000 persons — as I once explained here — but so much labor is performed in a merely mechanical way that we say the Earth is really inhabited by 2,000,000,000 persons. The others are simply machines. That is, if the work that is done by machines had to be done by people without machines, it would be necessary to have 600,000,000 more persons on the Earth.

If what I am now discussing with you under the name of mechanistic occultism enters into the field of practical action, which is the ideal of those secret centers, it will be possible to accomplish the work not only of 500,000,000 or 600,000,000 but of 1,080,000,000 persons. The possibility will thus come about of rendering unnecessary nine-tenths of the work of individuals within the regions of the English-speaking peoples. Mechanistic occultism will not only render it possible to do without nine-tenths of the labor still performed at present by human hands, but will give the possibility also of paralyzing every uprising attempted by the then dissatisfied masses of humanity.

The capacity to set motors in motion according to the laws of reciprocal oscillations will develop on a great scale among the English-speaking peoples. This is known in their secret circles, and is counted upon as the means whereby the mastery over the rest of the population of the Earth shall be achieved even in the course of the current fifth post-Atlantean age.

Something else is known also in those circles. It is known that there are two other capacities that will likewise develop. One, which I shall venture to call the eugenic capacity, will evolve primarily among people of the East, of Russia and the Asiatic hinterland. It is also known in those secret circles of the West that this eugenic occultism will not evolve out of the inborn potentialities of the English-speaking peoples, but only of the inborn potentialities belonging precisely to the Asiatic and the Russian populations. These facts are known in the secret circles of the West. They are taken into account and are looked upon as constituting certain motive forces that must become active in future evolution.

1923-10-20-GA320

The way in which machines are constructed varies greatly according to the machine, but the tendency is that all those that are still primitive, all imperfect machinery should gradually come to be moved by vibrations, that something should oscillate in it, and through this — through vibrations, through oscillation, through periodic movements it should attain the desired result. This is the intention in all machinery. But when man is able to construct the several parts of machines in accordance with what can he learnt from the distribution of food in the organism of the cow; the vibrations produced on the earth by machines — these small earthly vibrations — will correspond with what is above the earth in our planetary system; they will resound and vibrate in harmony with our earthly system just as a piano wire vibrates when a corresponding note is struck.

This is the awful law of the sympathy of vibrations; this law would be fulfilled if the cry of the cow were to decoy the peoples of the East and lead them astray so that it permeated convincingly the unspiritual, purely mechanical, civilisation of Central Europe and of the West. A mechanised system would result which would correspond exactly to the mechanising of the universe. In that case the influence of the atmosphere, the influences of the stars and other heavenly bodies, would be wiped out of human civilisation.

That which is experienced, for instance, in the seasons of the year, which is experienced in living through the budding and sprouting life of Spring, and the declining, dying life of autumn all these things would lose their meaning for man. Human civilisation would he permeated with the rattle of vibrating machines, and the echo of these rattling vibrations would stream to earth from the cosmos as a response to this mechanising of the earth.

If you notice what is at work at the present time you will realise that a part of our modern civilisation is absolutely on the way to adopting this frightful degeneration as its goal.

1924-04-26-GA353

.. today, people have no idea of the power of speech. The power of speech was enormous in earlier times, also in Egyptian times. Imagine you have a fire that produces a lot of smoke. If you blow into it you change the shape of the smoke cloud. Flowing lightly you can make it rotate. So you are able to change the shape. Just blowing will not do much. But if you start to whistle a tune, which means continuous blowing, you shape the smoke and flames according to the content of the tune. The ancients knew that matter changes if you speak into it in some way, and especially if you use particular words.

They had species with which to embalm their mummies and they did not work with them the way we would today. They would be saying something as they did their embalming. It was something like: 'Whoever approaches my body shall suffer death'. They would use an intonation and a choice of words that made matter obey, and this power therefore entered into the material of the spices they used in embalming. This lives in there. People cannot believe this today, but it is true. ... The material has absorbed the power of these words and still contains this in its substance.

[continues to describe the ritual of lighting incense and speaking prayers and sending thoughts into the incense smoke]

Paul-Eugen Schiller (1920s)

Paul-Eugen Schiller (1900-1992) was an anthroposophist and a physicist who worked during the 1920s as an assistant at the research laboratory in Stuttgart on tasks set by Rudolf Steiner. Later, he moved to the Goetheanum, where he established a simple physics laboratory and devoted his life to developing Steiner's indications related to electricity, earthly magnetism, heat radiation, sensitive flames, etheric formative forces, the four ethers, resonant oscillation.

Schiller was following suggestions from Rudolf Steiner, leading, for example, to research on gases at low temperatures and high vacuum. Steiner told them,

You will tend to produce conditions at the Sun’s center, where matter is annihilated and exists in a negative state; similarly with space. Spectrum analysis was used in these experiments, but for ‘true’ results, the spectroscope would need to be modified.

On electricity, Steiner told them,

We do not know electricity, except by its effects.... In origin, it is an astral force.

He set up a simple physics laboratory where he worked for several years, working mainly on Steiner’s indications about the (influence of the voice and music on) 'sensitive flames'. His experiments with flames were to show the action of the chemical or sound ether, working through the human voice or music instruments such as the violin.

.

Schiller writes (see The Schiller file, references below)

In a conversation that I had with Rudolf Steiner in company with Dr. von Dechend, we asked whether it was possible to find a more sensitive reagent for the spiritual and physical forces lying in the forms of human speech. After a moment of reflection he said:

"For that you must work with the sensitive flame".

In this and further conversations he gave us a deep insight into the unique position taken up by the element of warmth in the transitional region between soul-life and the physical in nature. He described how heat processes in the human body are bound up with inner soul-spiritual activities, the organic connections between consciousness and temperature, and also the formative processes which the organs of speech exercise on the exhaled air warmed through the activity of speaking. He reminded us of Tyndall's discovery where the fine alterations in freely burning gas flames caused by noises, sounds and words had been observed in the same places and then advised us to concentrate our thoughts and experiments in this direction.

See the Discussion area for a parsing of the above statement with links for further study.

Strader machine

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer

Fragments of a Biography, 'Wir erlebten Rudolf Steiner'

The method of science, in a materialistic sense, is based on analysis splitting apart (today atomsplitting and fusion etc.), disintegration, separation, dissecting and all the procedures which have to destroy and take apart, to work on the corpse rather than to grow, to develop, to synthesize. That the human mind was captured by these methods of braking apart: in that I saw the source of our present situation.

My question therefore was:

• is it possible to find another force or energy in nature, which does not have in itself the ductus of atomizing and analysis but builds up, synthesizes. Would we discover that force constructive, which makes things alive and grow, develop adequate building up methods of investigation, evt. use this force for another type of technic, applied to drive machines, than because of the inner nature of this force or energy we might be able to create another technology, social structure, constructive thinking of man rather than destructive thinking. This force must have the impulse of life, of organisation within itself as the so-called physical energies have the splitting, separating trend within themselves.

My question to Rudolf Steiner October 1920 and spring 1921 therefore was:

• does such a force or source of energy exist? Can it be demonstrated? Could an altruistic technic be build upon it?

.

When these questions formed themselves in my mind, I met in Günther Wachsmuth a life long friend who pondered about exactly the same problems. Some discussions with Rudolf Steiner were carried out individually and also the both of us together with Rudolf Steiner.

My questions were answered as follows:

Yes, such a force exists, but is not yet discovered. It is what is generally known the ether (not the physical ether) but the force which makes things grow, lives for instance in the seed as Samenkraft. Before you can work with this force you must demonstrate its presence. As we have reagents in chemistry, so you must find a reagent upon the etheric force. It is also called formative etheric force because it is the force which creates the form, shape, pattern of a living thing, growth. You might try crystallization processes to which organic substrata are added. (This has been done and the results described elsewhere, known today as the method of sensitive crystallization). It is possible then to develop machines, which react upon and are driven by this force.

Rudolf Steiner than outlined the principles of the application of this force as source of a new energy. In the presence of Günther Wachsmuth at some other time he outlined the principle of the four etheric formative forces, light ether, chemical ether, life ether and warmth ether (somewhat different than in the so-called warmth and light course before Waldorf teachers) and pointed to a book by Rama Prashad 'Nature Finer Forces' which described some of it.

[editor: see topic pages: Formative forces and Spectrum of elements and ethers]

Wachsmuth in turn wrote his book on the Etheric Formative Forces. To me the task fell to start experiments. In this, the cooperation between us, the seed for the Forschungsinstitut am Goetheanum was layed. I had to perform certain experiments which do not feel at liberty to describe for Rudolf Steiner.

The result of these experiments where reported, whereupon Rudolf Steiner said with utmost earnestness: the outcome of the experiment points to another force not the etheric one but an astral one (i.e. forces which live in sentient matter, nerve, brain).

That the experiment did turn out this way was the answer of the spiritual world to him, and it means that the time is not yet ready to make use of the etheric force.

I asked when will the time be ready. Answer: when the social conditions are such that no misuse of this force can be done for selfish purposes, that would only be the case if the threefold commonwealth order would be practice at least over a few territories on Earth. Until this time experiments in the direction of using the etheric forces would not be successful or should not be done.

Since we live today in a world which is further away than ever from the solution of the social problem, when selfishness and personal advantage, profit and national conflicts because of them have the upper hand, since especially the anthroposophical society has never put the solution of the social problem in front of all its aim and not contributed that which was demanded by Rudolf Steiner to be done, I see no other way but to bury the instructions with regard to the use of the etheric force deep down in my chest, probably to take it with me to grave, with the hope that other times will come, other circumstances, other ages and lifes, where the time then will be ready. My conscience is deeply moved but I have to obey higher reason for this means that for the time being the world must go on with the use of energies which have the power death and destruction in their essence and it is only to be hoped that the world learns the hard way, by endless suffering that one day it will awaken to accept the mission of life, of living together in peace, of mutual acceptance and coordination.

Everything else we developed in anthroposophical natural science, experimenting, had to remain with the first step, the demonstration of the presence and existence of formative forces. Only in the use of the biodynamic method of soil improvement could we go a step farther. How this developed is described elsewhere.

[editor: see Scientific research into the etheric formative forces#Experimental research]

Hans Kühn (1889-1977)

Memories from Hans Kühn published in article 'Vom Strader-Apparat' (in: Mitteilungen aus der Anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland, 25. Jg., Heft 4, Nr. 98, p. 291), here SWCC

On the occasion of the performance of Rudolf Steiner's four mystery plays in 1921, one can speak of the apparatus which stands on a table in the fourth picture of the drama 'The guardian of the threshold'. There should be two tables though, because besides the larger object there were originally - a bit removed- also three smaller objects .

Additionally there was an open copper sphere at the wall at the performances in Munich. I hereby refer to the apparatus, that was built during the winter of 1912/13 by Dr. Oskar Schmiedel and his mechanics, after specifications of Rudolf Steiner.  When the 'Guardian' was performed for the first time in 1912 in Munich, a sort of dummy was used for which Imme von Eckardstein had received specifications by Rudolf Steiner.The next winter one had the time to work out an exact model, for which various  metals were used for the four half spheres, as specified by Rudolf Steiner, who entrusted Oskar Schmiedel with their production.

Two of the half spheres were made from antimon, one from nickel, one half of the fourth was made of copper. The other half should be completed with a metal that was so far unknown. Very thin feel/sense organs made from gold foil (1/1000 mm thickness) were hanging at the lower side of this double bowl. At the fourth side of a cross of lead a tip of uranium pitchblend should be mounted. The connections between the six tips were partly made of copper and partly of tin. From one bowl to the opposite one there was a spiral glass tube.

Even more cryptic were the three additional objects:

• one was a glass container with wire of platinium that was hanging inside of it, or was molten into it,
• the second was a lemniscate of glass tube, with a coal tip on top, that had a little copper bowl above it.
• The third object should have four uranium tips on the same level. The form of this object made it seem probable that it could rotate.

.

Electricity should be kept away.

The original models have vanished, though they survived the Goetheanum fire. One didn't take enough care and didn't recognise the importance of the apparatus. Today they show a dummy at the performances.

2012-09 - Science Group of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain

Newsletter of September 2012, had a commentary on the publication of the article by Linus Feiten: 'Rudolf Steiner on Technology' (2012)

In the December 2010 issue of the journal Jupiter published by the Section for Mathematics and Astronomy at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland appeared a 67-page review by Linus Feiten examining what Paul Emberson has recently published on the theme of modern technology. From the abstract of the English translation of the review we read that:

It is intended neither as a polemic, nor as an attempt to refute or falsify his comments. We are fully aware that Paul Emberson and his colleagues have worked on this theme for many years, and thus know the relevant literature. Instead, this review aims to enable readers to gain an initial thorough overview of the theme. In addition, we shall not hide the fact that, after several months of study in the Mathematical-Astronomical Section at the Goetheanum of Paul Emberson’s statements, we cannot go along with some of the points he makes. Furthermore, after attempting to correspond with him and visit him personally, these unresolved questions still await clarification. The impression remains that in order to be able to follow Paul Emberson on all points, one has, in a certain sense, to recognise him as an authority. His involvement over many years with technology and Rudolf Steiner’s work might give rise to such confidence in him. Moreover, Paul Emberson presents some of his views as not exclusively his own observations, but refers them to another authority, namely that of Rudolf Steiner, whom many already regard as trustworthy. When it turns out to be impossible to trace where a particular statement of Rudolf Steiner is supposed to have come from, various people associated with the Goetheanum feel obliged to make this clear, and bring this to the attention of people who, having questions about Paul Emberson’s comments, have referred them to those responsible at the Goetheanum. Furthermore, the Goetheanum still genuinely wishes to communicate with Paul Emberson and Anthro-Tech, but in the past months this has unfortunately been met with a wall of silence. (Jupiter 7(1), April 2012)

The review contains the transcript of a letter from Martin Schüpbach former chairman of the board of Weleda AG, which had been approached for funding by Anthro-Tech in which Schüpbach concludes: "...I regard Emberson as a fraud who produces a lot of esoteric smoke round himself and uses it to live comfortably on money from supporters".

The source of Emberson's material used by Feiten is a series of issues of Anthro-Tech News – The journal of the Anthro-Tech Institute for research and development of moral technology from the period 2004 to 2009.

In Anthro-Tech News number 13 (Winter 2011/2012), published in English, an unnamed person, presumably Paul Emberson, wrote a robust 5-page response to Feiten's critique. Anthro-Tech News can be obtained from Anthro-Tech News, CH-1669 Les Sciernes-d'Albeuve, Switzerland.

2013 - David W. Wood

in his paper: 'The course of Dr. Strader's life' (the open biographical secrets of Rudolf Steiner's Drama characters, Part I)

Many researchers have brought Strader’s technical work on machines into connection with the “motor” of the American John Ernst Worrell Keely (1837-1898). Although Steiner did not personally know Keely, this seems to be a fruitful perspective, especially for understanding the broader spiritual implications of what is sometimes termed “mechanical occultism”.(see Georg Unger essay).

That is to say, types of future machines that need to be grasped in conjunction with the moral forces of their builders. Steiner said of this field in 1918: “You can find a small indication of this connected with Strader in my mystery dramas. These things are currently coming into being.” (1918-12-01-GA186).

Steiner’s brief indications on the existence of an enigmatic “Strader apparatus” or Strader machine can be found in The Guardian of the Threshold. According to the stage directions of scene four there are various “mechanical models” present on the table in Strader’s workroom. (GA14 p 278-283, 324).

In line with Rudolf Steiner’s instructions, first provisional models of these machines were built for the third drama by someone who is surely another “Strader soul”, the chemist Dr. Oskar Schmiedel (1887-1959).70

Discussion

Note: this topic page was started for the 'sensitive flames' topic, but later also Keely and Strader were added. Hence the contents could be reorganized onto multiple pages.

Note 1 - Schiller statement

The statement in the references above is worth parsing as it is the most specific statement we have on Rudolf Steiner's guidance on this topic.

• The element of warmth in the transitional region between soul-life and the physical in nature
• Heat processes in the human body are bound up with inner soul-spiritual activities,
  • see Schiller's booklet on warmth: Vom Wesen der Wärme (1961) available in PDF download on the Spectrum of elements and ethers page
• the organic connections between consciousness and temperature,
• and the formative processes which the organs of speech exercise on the exhaled air warmed through the activity of speech
  • see the 1915-01-03-GA275 lecture reference above as a starting point.
  • Continue by putting this in context of the fine breathing process described in 1924-09-14-GA318 which ao explains that the exhalation is not just a passive human process but fully happens in the fluid etheric (element water) and contains the activity of the etheric body
  • As well as an understanding of warmth in Man's breathing in 1924-09-17-GA318 see eg Schema FMC00.294.
• When someone speaks, the etheric body of the listener mimes the vibrations of speech of the speaker; if one makes a eurythmical movement, the etheric body of the other mimes this movement in resonance; -> one must investigate how far an I movement can be transmitted to a machine by means of resonance .. so that a lever arm, for example, of this machine mimes the I movement

Note 2 - Cymatics, Chladni patters and Visual audio

Placeholder for section to be developed, building on the 'sensitive flames' topic (see oa Schema FMC00.295) where the effect of the human breath (and warmth ether) is studied.

The chemical ether is also called sound or tone ether, it is an organizing, structuring formative force. Vibrations can create forms.

That is also how sound and air vibrations of music work on the Human etheric body.

A physical equivalent of this exist and can be studied in how sound and physical wavefront vibrations can affect physical objects and give rise to the most complex different forms.

How this relationship works exactly has been subject of research by oa the following key people.

Note: observe the long periods between milestones: 1680 (Hooke experiment) -> 1787 (Chladni study) -> 1970 (Jenny).

• Ernst Chladni (1756-1827)
  • from wikipedia: did research on vibrating plates based on the pioneering experiments of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) and his observations of the resulting nodal patterns in experiments in 1680, and from there invented a technique (first published in 1787) to show the various modes of vibration on a rigid surface, known as Chladni figures or Chladni patterns due to the various shapes or patterns created by various modes. When resonating, a plate or membrane is divided into regions that vibrate in opposite directions, bounded by lines where no vibration occurs (nodal lines). Note: similar nodal patterns can also be found by assembling microscale materials on Faraday waves.
• Margaret Watts Hughes (1842-1907)
  • accidentally discovered in 1885 what she called 'voice-figures' or 'voice-flowers', patterns created by the natural phenomenon of standing-wave resonance .. and used an 'eidophone' (consisting of a hollow base with a membrane stretched across it and a tube attached to its base with a mouthpiece at the other hand) and as she sang, the powder scattered on the taut membrane came to life. In some placed it stayed still, in other places it displaced, thus producing forms and shapes which had a flowerlike forms.
  • more info see oa source A
  • related - see also Speech#Visible speech - vocal flow forms
• Hans Jenny (1904-1972)
  • coined the term cymatics and published 'Cymatics: The Study of Wave Phenomena' (Vol 1 and 2, 1967 and 1972) on the acoustic effects of sound vibrations on physical objects (fluids, powders and liquid paste), many of which have compelling geometrical symmetries. Jenny used crystal oscillators and his 'tonoscope' to set plates and membranes vibrating, with quartz sand spread on a black drum membrane. The membrane was caused to vibrate by singing loudly through a cardboard pipe, and the sand produced symmetrical Chladni patterns. Low tones resulted in rather simple and clear pictures, while higher tones formed more complex structures. Cymatics has been inspiring art, and has been studied for therapeutical applications.

.

Lecture reference extracts

The extracts below describe the etheric formative forces, specifically the chemical ether. See also Spectrum of elements and ethers

Start with 1908-03-16-GA102 and 1908-03-17-GA098, then supplement with 1907-03-04-GA096 (and also 1924-01-07-GA316)

1903-08-08-GA091

Light can be either primary — a self-luminous body — or polarized by reflection. In the former case, it has not yet lost its full vibratory capacity by contact with another body. If one puts two mirrors parallel to each other and brings them in contact with a candlelight, the light will be reflected twice in both mirrors. But if one places one mirror perpendicular to the other and brings it into relation with a candlelight, the reflection in the perpendicular one will be extinguished — it will not be present.

The cause is that the reflected light vibrates differently from the primary. It vibrates in all directions; now, as it is caught by a mirror image, this same light changes its mode of vibration, in that the mirror lets all other directions of vibration pass, absorbs, and lets only the parallel ones, which correspond to its mode of vibration, radiate back. This reflected light, which vibrates only in one direction, is reflected by the parallel mirror, but not by the perpendicular one. The first mirror is called the polarizer because it polarizes the light, and the perpendicular the analyzer because it shows the polarized light by extinguishing it. One can also use tourmaline tongs to investigate whether a luminous body emits its own light or only reflects light.

Polarized light would be reflected only when the tourmaline is in a parallel position; when it is in a perpendicular position, there would be no reflected image; and when it is rotated obliquely, the light rays would partially vibrate with the tourmaline, and the different directions of the vibrations would form colored figures, similar to the Chladni-sound figures. In contrast, primary light would reflect at each position of the tourmaline tongs. In this way, planets and fixed stars can be recognized by their light.

If one brings a body between the two metal plates of the tongs, the darkened light will shine again, for the light vibrations are again regulated by the body's own movements.

If the rays of the Sun are caught unobstructed by a prism in a darkroom, a white disk with a darker perimeter will show up on the opposite wall, and this penumbra will contain the prismatic colors. The rays entering through the narrow aperture overlap and appear as colors at the boundary between light and dark; so, too, in mirror glass, colors are seen when the light is reflected.

Colors are the incarnation of light produced when the rays of light are stopped by matter and reflected back.

1907-03-04-GA096

On Old Saturn, nothing existed that would be like a present-day physical human body. When Saturn was at its densest, it was as follows. When I talk, I set the air in wave motion. If you did not need to hear what I am saying, if I were able to set the air in motion without speaking, you would be able to see the wave motions of my words — quite specific movements in the air — you would see images of my words. If you had the context, you would be able to see from those waves what I had been saying. My words are the reason why the air is in motion here. Now just imagine you were able to freeze the air waves at one moment. My words would then fall to the ground, you would have something like oyster shells on the ground and be able to see the shapes of my words in air which had grown solid. This is more or less how you have to visualize the human body, the animal bodies, the plants and mineral crystals on Saturn — dissolved out of their stillness and in an air-like state. For on ancient Saturn all this lived only as a heaving, boiling mass of air. Today’s crystal is boiling Saturn matter that has become solid. It is the same with the plants and animals which existed on ancient Saturn as wave motions in the light, subtle Saturn matter. It was just as if higher spirits were speaking all the plants, creatures and minerals into the Saturn matter, just as I create waves in the air by speaking now. The creative spirits of Saturn set Saturn matter into inner motion, and those were the precursors of later plant, animal and human bodies.

That was the beginning of our evolution: ‘In the beginning was the word.’ The word sounded through Old Saturn matter and all creation was wave motions in this Old Saturn matter.

Think of Chladni’s figures for an analogy. If you take a brass plate sprinkled with fine sand or dust and make it sound, using a violin bow, you will get all kinds of figures on the plate. This is because you were holding the plate still and playing the bow against it. The movement of the bow creates a sound with specific waves and lines. The dust remains on parts of the plate that do not take up the wave motion and is shaken off elsewhere.

You can evoke the figures from the tone colour, as it were, just as once — through the ‘word’ in the beginning — they were spoken into matter. Matter was given inner form and organization according to the laws of sound waves. And little by little solid bodies arose from the sound waves.

1908-03-16-GA102

also on: Separation of Sun#1908-03-16-GA102

See also Schema FMC00.006A, and the lower right corner between the astral and the physical

Thus the sun went out of the Earth, left the Earth without light, but the beings created an inner light. Formerly they had shone out to the light that shone towards them; now they had lost the power of shining. The earth was no longer sun; but their inner consciousness was illumined as today in sleep you illumine your consciousness with the whole world of dreams. This inner shining consciousness, however, was at that time infinitely more significant, more living. And now we come again to an important matter.

Just as light had arisen when the air arose, so now with the densification of air to water there likewise appeared a counterpart. As air is related to light, so is water related to sound, tone. Sound can of course pass through air, it sets the air vibrating and in that way it becomes audible. On the earth, however, sound arose — sound as such — side by side with the forming of water. And exactly as the action of light streamed through the air, so now the whole of the water to which the air had condensed was vibrated through and through by the currents of tone. The earth consisted then of warmth, air, water. The parts of the earth which had become fluid were in particular permeated by sphere-harmonies, by tones which streamed into the earth from the universe in every possible harmony. The result of this action of sound in the water-element was a very, very important one.

You must picture to yourselves that in this original water, this fluid-earthly water, were contained all those substances which exist separately today as metals, minerals, and so on. It is extremely interesting to look back with spiritual vision to this ancient time and see how most varied shapes were formed. Tone created forms in the water. It was a quite amazing period of our earth's evolution.

Something took place then on the grandest scale similar to what happens when you strew fine sand on a metal plate and stroke the plate with a violin bow. The Chladni sound-figures are formed and you know of course what regularly-shaped figures and formations appear.

Thus the instreaming music from cosmic space gives rise to most manifold forms and figures, and the substances dissolved in the water which were them-selves watery, they listened to the cosmic music and arranged themselves in conformity to it. The most important formation of the dance of the substances to cosmic music is albumen, protoplasm, the foundation of all living growth. Materialists may think as they will of the mechanical construction of albumen from oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and so on; the original protoplasm was formed of cosmic substance that had been formed from the harmonies of cosmic music. And thus the substances in the living were organized according to the world-music. The albuminous substance, protoplasm, now surrounded and entered into the fine structures, penetrating everything. The water, congealed to albumen according to cosmic tone, took its course along the lines which I described as lines of warmth and gradually passed over into blood formation. The congealed water established itself as albumen in the lines of the nerves. And in the first place the albumen formed a kind of sheath, cartilaginous gluten, one might say, as a protection from outside. All this actually took form from the dance of substances to the music of the spheres.

1908-03-17-GA098

The Earth, as it were, had become a sun. Light is also the initiator of something different—it penetrates into the dark warmth-matter.

The first human rudiments were not radiant; at best one would have been able to feel them through differences in warmth. Now this whole system, this warm bloodstream, is surrounded by glowing and radiating light. This light settles into the human body—this is the nervous system. The strength lines, the structure-lines of the nervous system, are light that has taken on a shape. The brain was distributed around the fiery matter, around the lantern, as a light-power. The nervous system that perceives light, was once itself light. And the whole Earth radiated out into space.

The time came when, once again, the Sun peeled itself out of the Earth. The finest materials and beings formed an independent world body, so that our Earth circulated around the Sun. Connected with the removal of the subtlest materials was the densification of the remaining matter.

The subtle radiant Sun body emerged on one side, on the other side the Earth matter becomes much more dense. The Earth moves into a watery state, thicker than our ocean water, because everything that is firm today was also contained in it.

With the liquefying process a new element emerges. To the extent to which water appears, the music of the spheres, the cosmic sounds, are emanating from the cosmos and out of the Earth. This is not music such as ours today that travels through the air. The development of the Earth is now under the influence of cosmic music. The material substances separate out from a larger mass of undifferentiated matter. Under the influence of the music of the spheres, the Earth’s substances begin to dance. This is the differentiation of substances into purely organic substances, for example, into protein. This is how organic matter, the protoplasm, came about under the influence of the music of the spheres, like today’s Chladni sound figures.

These substances, protein-like, sticky substances, are pushed into the earlier strength lines of the human rudiments. The cells, which today are considered to be the origin of organisms’ evolutionary history, arose much later only, when they were born of certain beings.

The atom, too, is never primary - it is always what falls out of the whole. A whole is never put together out of individual cells.

The whole process was assisted by the Moon‘s continued presence within the Earth’s body. The three human races who lived through those times are the Polar, the Hyperborean and the Lemurian race. Then the Moon separated from the Earth.

1908-08-12-GA105

Through his ordinary senses and the intellect associated with them man perceives only the things of the earth; through Imagination he comes in touch with the various planets; when he has attained to Inspiration he comes in contact with the solar system. This fact has always been known in certain circles. Goethe, who was an Initiate, knew it; hence in the prologue to Faust, the scene of which is set in the spiritual world in heaven — he represents the Angel as saying: “The sun intones his ancient song, 'Mid rival chant of brother spheres.” From this we see that he knew that the secrets of the solar system are expressed in tones, and that one who can raise himself to Inspiration can learn these secrets. Goethe did not write this by chance, as we can see, for he maintains the character. In the second part of Faust, when he takes us up into the spiritual world he says again very much the same thing:

“Sounding loud to spirit ears, Lo! the new-born day appears.”

Spirit ears are the ears of the clairvoyant, who is able to perceive the harmonies of the solar system. If you could perceive the Sun-Forces streaming down on to the bodies of plants as they grow (these bodies whose roots and leaves terminate in flowers bathed round by the astral body, into which stream the forces of the sun); if you could perceive these forces secretly entering the earth through the flower, you would perceive them as spiritual music — the music of the spheres. This can, however, only be heard by spiritual ears.

Spiritual sound enters into flowers, that is the secret of the development of plants, each separate flower is the expression of the tones which give it form, and give to the fruit its character. The sun tones are caught up by the plant, and these rule within it as spirit.

[analogy with physical sound waves]

You perhaps know how form can be imparted by sound in the material world; you may remember the experiment of the Chladnic sound forms. How dust scattered upon a disc assumes certain figures as the result of sound; in these figures we have the expression of the sound that produces them.

Just as physical sound is caught up, as it were, in this dust, so the spiritual sound of the sun is caught up and absorbed by flower and fruit. It is hidden mysteriously in the seed, and when a new plant grows from the seed it is the sun-tone it has absorbed that conjures forth its form.

Clairvoyant consciousness looks around upon the vegetable kingdom, and in the flowers which form the variegated carpet of the earth's surface it sees everywhere the reflection of sun-tones. What Goethe says is true, “The sun intones his ancient song,” but it is also true that these sun tones stream to earth, are absorbed by plants, and reappear when new plants spring from the seed. For in the forms of plants is heard the sun-tones which re-echo into space the music of the spheres.

Herein we see how universe and Earth, how fixed star and planet, are spiritually in touch with each other, and we learn not only to look at what is in our environment in the physical world, but we also gain an inkling of how those who partake of Inspiration ascend to the sun.

1910-08-18-GA122

in context of Genesis lectures:

The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, but that did not make the earth light; it left it in darkness.

Let us take another look at this elementary existence as a whole. You know of course from earlier lectures that we are accustomed to enumerate what we call the elementary states within our earth existence, beginning with the solid, then coming to the watery, next to the gaseous or aeriform and then to the warmth. These four constitute the denser conditions of matter. But we have not yet finished. If we go further upwards we meet with finer conditions, of which we do not get a much better idea by calling them finer substances. The main thing is to recognise them as finer relatively to the denser ones, the gaseous, the warmth and so on. They are usually called etheric states, and we have always distinguished light as the first of these finer states. Thus, when we descend from warmth into the denser, we come to the gaseous condition; if we ascend, we come to light. Ascending still further, beyond the light we come to a yet finer etheric condition, we come to something which is not really recognisable in the ordinary sense-world. We only get a kind of external reflection of it. From the occult point of view one can say that the forces in this finer ether are those which govern the chemical affinities of matter, the chemical combinations, the organisation of substances such as we can observe if, for instance, we place a fine powder on a metal plate, and then draw the bow of a violin across the plate, getting as a result the “Chladni” sound-figures.

What the coarse physical tone brings about in the powder also occurs throughout space. Space is differentiated, is permeated, by forces which are more rarefied than the forces of light, by forces which represent in the spiritual what tone is in the sense-world.

So that when we ascend from warmth to light, and from light to this finer element, we can speak of a chemical of sound-ether, which has the power to decompose and to combine substances, but is in reality of the nature of sound, sound of which the sense-perceptible tone which the ear hears is only the outward expression, the expression made by its passage through air. That brings us somewhat nearer to this finer element which is above light. Thus when we say that what has the quality of manifesting itself externally withdrew from the ha'arets with the haschamayim we must not think only of the light, but also of the finer etheric element of sound which permeates light.

Just as we go downward from warmth to air, and thence to water, so we can go upward from warmth to light, and from light to what is of the nature of sound, of chemical combination. And from water we can descend lower to earth. When we mount from the sound-ether we come to a still higher etheric condition, which also withdrew with the haschamayim. We come to the finest etheric state of all, which weaves within the chemical or sound-ether we have just been describing.

If you turn your spiritual ear in this direction, you do not of course hear a noise in the external air, but you hear the tone which vibrates through space, the tone which permeates space and organises matter just as the tone produced by the bow of a violin organises the Chladni sound-figures.

[life ether]

But into this condition brought about by the sound-ether is poured a still higher etheric mode. And this higher ether permeates the sound-ether just as the meaning of our thought permeates the sound which our mouth utters, thereby transforming tone into word. Try to comprehend what it is that transforms tone into a word full of meaning; then you will have some idea of this finer etheric element permeating the organising sound-ether and giving meaning to it — the Word which vibrates through space. And this Word, which thrills through space and pours itself out into the sound-ether, is at the same time the source of life, it is really vibrant, weaving life! Thus what has withdrawn out of the ha'arets with the haschamayim, what has gone into the sun, as distinct from the other, the lower, the earth part — as distinct from the tohu wabohu — announces itself externally as light. But behind the light is spiritual tone, and behind that is cosmic speech. Thus we may say that in the brooding warmth lives the lower spiritual part of the Elohim, somewhat as our own desire lives in the lower part of our soul. The higher spirituality of the Elohim, which went out with the haschamayim, lives in the light, in the spiritual sound, in the spiritual word, the cosmic Word. These can only stream into the tohu wabohu again from without.

1911-03-07-GA124

Something of the nature of music permeates our astral body; and finds expression through the movement of the muscles. It is really the same as in the case of the well-known Chladnic tone-forms, when a fine powder scattered on a metal plate can be set in motion if this is stroked by a violin bow; certain figures then appear in the powder.

Our astral body is filled with nothing but such forms which are at the same time tone-forms, and their united activity is what causes our astral body to assume its special aspect (Lage). All this is imprinted in the astral body.

People can convince themselves of this in a quite trivial way. If the biceps or the muscles of the forearm are tightly braced and then laid against the ear this tone can be heard; but the exercises must be done in the right way, the muscles must be stretched and the thumb laid on them. This is no real “proof,” but only a means by which what is here mentioned can be illustrated in a trivial manner. We are permeated by music and reveal it in the movement of our muscles, and we are endowed with “motor-nerves” as they are wrongly called, so that we may know something concerning the movements of our muscles.

1924-01-07-GA316

Modern science says: Air is composed of oxygen, nitrogen and a few other substances. The aeriform substance is more or less uniform, only differentiated through inner mechanical movement, such as can be observed in wind.

But the air that is described by physics today does not exist, in reality. The air that surrounds our earth is permeated throughout with formative forces. We breathe in these formative forces together with the physical substantiality of the air. Once our organs are complete and we breathe in the air, these formative forces coincide, as it were, with the form of the lung and are not particularly significant except for the purposes of growth. But during the embryonic period, while there is a physical isolation from the external air — then these formative forces of the air work by way of the body of the mother. They build up the lungs and the other organs, with the exception of the muscles and bones. All the inner organs that are to receive life are built up out of the formative forces of the air.

What happens here can be compared — although the comparison is a crude one — to the Chladnic sound figures.

Plates covered with fine dust are secured at some point, a violin bow is drawn across the edge of the plate, and then the dust forms itself into certain patterns according to how the violin bow is drawn across the plate. The figures in the dust are formed out of the formative forces produced in the air.

So too, the inner organs of Man are formed out of the universal formative forces of the air. The lung is formed out of the breathing forces, also the other organs, only the other organs are formed more or less indirectly, the lungs directly. This fact, that the organs are built out of the formative forces of the air, is only to be grasped through inspiration.

What has been built out of the air, formed out of the air, has something of the nature of music about it, just as the musical element is at the basis of the Chladnic sound figures.

Further reading and references

• John Stuart Reid's cymascope.com
• Michael Theroux: 'Rhythmic formative forces of music' (1995) - freely downloadeable in PDF

Note 3 - Sympathetic vibrations and resonance

Note that the term 'sympathetic vibrations' is used by Rudolf Steiner in various contexts, which helps us to imagine what is being described. Search the GA for the terms above for more info.

A few examples:

• Atlantean epoch#1909-06-29-GA112
• Music#1919-12-31-GA320

Related pages

• Scientific research into the etheric formative forces
• Overview on etheric research and the plant kingdom
• Formative forces
• Spectrum of elements and ethers
• Lightning
• Human breath

References and further reading

General

• Rudolf Steiner: 'Was ist ‹mechanischer Okkultismus?'
• Ehrenfried Pfeiffer: 'Gedanken eines anthroposophischen Pioniers der moralischen Technologie'
• Georg Unger: On mechanical occultism (lecture 1963, published 1964)
• On wikipedia
  • Sensitive flame page
  • Keely page

Spiritism in 19th century

• Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906)
  • Der Spiritismus (1885)
  • Die Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus (The Ghost Theory in Spiritism; 1891)
• Charles Mercier: 'Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge' (1917)

• Faraday's Researches in Spiritualism (in The Scientific Monthly Vol. 83, No. 3 (Sep., 1956), pp. 145-150)

Sensitive flames

• William Fletcher Barrett
  • “Note on ‘sensitive flames’”, Philosophical magazine, xxxiii (1867), 216–22, p. 218.
  • The effect of inaudible vibrations upon sensitive flames (Nature, 3 May 1877)
  • The "Bridge Which is between Physical and Psychical Research", Sensitive Flames, and Spiritualism
  • On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917)

• A. S. Herschel: 'Sounding and Sensitive Flames (5 November 1874)
• William Winson Haldane Gee (1857-1928) - article in Nature 1878
• Walter Le Conte Stevens: 'Sensitive Flames and Sound-Shadows' (Popular Science Monthly Volume 36 November 1889)
• G. B. Brown: Sensitive Flames (in Science Progress in the Twentieth Century (1919-1933); Vol. 26, No. 104 (APRIL 1932), pp. 672-674)
• Paul Eugen Schiller (1900-1992)
  • 'Untersuchungen an der freien schallempfindlichen Flamme' (Akustische Zeitschrift 1938,1)
  • 'The Schiller File: Supplements to the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
• Theodor Schwenk: 'Sensitive chaos' (2014, first in DE 1962, first EN in 1965)
• Richard Noakes: 'The Bridge Which is between Physical and Psychical Research: William Fletcher Barrett, Sensitive Flames, and Spiritualism' (2004 article in History of Science, vol. 42, p.419-464)

Visible speech

• see also Speech#Visible speech - vocal flow forms

Keely engine and Strader apparatus

• Clara Bloomfield-Moore: Keely and His Discoveries (1893), available freely here in PDF and here in TXT
• Walter Johannes Stein: 'John Worrell Keely und Gideon Spicker im Zusammenhang mit der Strader-Gestalt in den Mysteriendramen Rudolf Steiners' (Der Europäer, Jg. 1, Nr. 6 (April 1997))
• Der Strader-Apparat - Beiträge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe (Nr 107, Michaeli 1991)
• Wolfgang Peter: Die dritte Kraft (Europaer 2001)
• Christoph Podak: Materialien und Aspekte zum Konzept der Strader-Technik (Der Europäer 2002-3)

• Paul Emberson
  • 'Vom Keely-Motor zur Strader-Maschine'
  • 'Zwei Arten der Technologie der Zukunft'
• Linus Feiten: 'Rudolf Steiner on Technology' (2012)
• Information related to the Strader machine (various docs from the 1990s, incl. EN translation of Beiträge 107)

on the internet

• Brian Hulley 'The Strader Machine Homepage (1999, no longer available)
• John Penner 'Storm's nest' page on the Strader Machine
• Jan-Gabriel Niedermeier & Esther Carolin Böttcher: www.strader.tech

non qualified

• Munin Nederlander: 'Sheleg. Analyse van het Strader hoofdapparaat van Rudolf Steiner als bijdrage aan een toekomstige ethertechnologie' (1992)

More internet links (unqualified)

On Tesla

• www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/lostjournals/lostjournals01.htm

• teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/
  • teslaresearch.jimdofree.com/myths-and-controversial-topics/

On Keely

• http://www.rexresearch.com/keely/keely.html

Various

• Dale Pond
  • www.svpvril.com/
  • www.svpwiki.com/
    • www.svpwiki.com/Keelys-Etheric-Generator-or-Liberator
  • frankgermano.wordpress.com/sympathetic-vibratory-physics/