dead

I recently had an online discussion with Adriana Koulias regarding digestion, and thought I would share some of it here.

First, some Steiner excerpts on digestive organs:

“Here are two important tasks for the future that we as Anthroposophists should be thinking about now! To care for the dying by helping them to learn how to cross the threshold in a more natural and healthy way. This is done through exercises of the will. Such exercises can transform thinking into an organ that can perceive the threshold while a person is still alive, taking away the fear and dread of death. Helping the dying to see death for what it is, a joyous experience of reconnection with our spiritual home. To care for the living, to connect the living with their dead loved ones through exercises in thinking that can bring consciousness to the will of the living. Such a consciousness can enable a conversation to develop between those who have crossed the threshold and those who are alive. Much of the nervousness and digestive trouble people are experiencing today would be resolved as most of it arises out of an unconscious experience of the spiritual world in which the dead live. ”

“The region in the neighbourhood of the digestive organs shares the same time-scale as the dead after death. …

“When a person suffers from a gastric disorder, the symptoms can be diagnosed physically; but as a result of his gastric condition he is more able to share in the life of the dead immediately after their death. … From the spiritual standpoint we would say that such a person feels impelled to preserve, after their death, his spiritual link with the souls he has known on Earth. … Gastric disorders arise because one is too much attached to the dead. Under such conditions one is dominated by the dead. …”

“Thus, if the consciousness below the heart is too active, the consciousness in the region of the larynx must be diminished; the heart lies between, it acts as a regulator and it is the knife edge on which the beam of the balance oscillates. Equilibrium is restored by administering copper. I have already pointed out that man’s body today is constituted in such a way that the larynx reacts to copper. … `The metabolic and laryngeal systems are as closely related as the two sides of the balance. One may be adjusted by means of the other. If suitable doses of copper are administered, the patient is inclined to withdraw somewhat from the realm of the dead and thereby benefits in health, whereas otherwise he is increasingly identified with it. That is the spiritual aspect of healing.”

Amelia asks Adriana:

Do you experience what Steiner refers to here… That a balancing of the larynx activity with the abdominal activity brings about both the absence of digestive disturbances and the warmth of the voice? (That bit later & earlier in the lecture.)

… And I wish I knew more about the “time-scale” Steiner refers to as being connected with varied processes in the human body. What is the physiology of our time body? We are present in the center of our heart? We live in the past in our head? We live in the future in our metabolic body?

Adriana Koulias answers:

Yes and yet the paradox is that although our physical head is the oldest part of us and connects us to the past, the spiritual organs contained in it take us towards the future, that is, towards experiencing the spirit – pineal and pituitary glands, while the will that lives in the metabolic system and which walks us towards the future in the physical sense spiritually connects us to our karma which is our past. The heart is our experience of the present, it keeps physical time and through it we experience physical space and yet it is the organ that helps us to reach the timeless and spaceless. I was trained in operative singing for many years and so I was a good candidate for being connected to the dead unconsciously as I had woken up my larynx but not my consciousness which led to many gastrointestinal disturbances. The more I became interested in fiction writing the worse the gastric disturbances became because in writing I am totally connected to the dead who are wishing to impart something through me. By working through knowledge of higher worlds and developing a faculty of imagination and inspiration I was able to bring consciousness to my larynx experiences and as soon as I did that the gastric disturbances subsided without a need for copper.

Amelia continues:

Ah, so perhaps my desire to write fiction is somehow connected to the upswing in gastric disturbances? And my interest in karma…

The balancing consciousness of the larynx has been in abeyance for some years now for me. Three steps backward for every step forward (a conscious choice). It is time, now, for me to renew my practice. May I flourish on the spiritual nutrition that surrounds me!

Adriana:

Yes Amelia!!!! And you will find, that when we acquire consciousness of the etheric world by way of the ‘eyes’ or the two petalled chakra any nervousness also subsides, in time when the experience of the 16 petalled chakra is added – that is when colour is added to light outwardly, the larynx becomes an inward ‘listening’ device for hearing the intentions of the dead or their inspirations. When the heart experiences are added we grow into understanding what we are seeing and ‘hearing’. The words of the dead rise up to the larynx and it resonates their words into our souls.

Amelia:

Some of us have real food intolerances resulting from childhood conditions and very weak organic and etheric forces. I have experienced this myself, and felt some greater health when I avoided foods that I could not properly digest. However, I am very well aware of the isolation this creates; I have experienced it! I am ever trying to strengthen my digestion so that I can eat what others eat. (Remarkably, this was easiest during pregnancy!) At this point in my life, I eat whatever is served when I am not cooking for myself, and allow my body the challenge of digesting the food. It is funny how so many of us feel so passionate about our food preferences. I do like my millet, but I will try to eat your wheat. I have always felt that it is a bit “profound” that I am allergic to milk and the “staff of life” (gluten-containing grains). It is symbolic of difficulties in incarnation, and of difficulties in effective working through of the various bodies in nutrition. Ah, how nice it would/will be, to sit with others, eat whatever is offered, and manage to digest it in a healthy way! Indeed, I feel it is a time that the inner/outer balance is off for so many of us. It is a symptom of our times, and I agree that it is something we should work against. Spiritual nutrition also is important!

I came upon the following while wandering on the web, and thought I would share it. I believe it is by Carl Unger.

Ask the Dead

A second bridge between the living and the dead is based on the possibility of asking questions of a departed soul and receiving answers. The questions must be of a soul-spiritual nature, not of a materialistic kind. It is best to entertain the question when one goes to sleep, but it can also be done during the day. The answer comes into one’s heart upon awaking the next day, or a few days later. To be effective, this process requires a mental procedure which is not easy, but can be learned by practice. Rudolf Steiner describes this in a most remarkable lecture he gave in Bern, Switzerland, on November 9, 1916 (GA 168). [See also Steiner’s lecture of February 5, 1918 ? e.Ed.] To ask a question, one has to imagine the dead person as one knew him or her in life, and one has to imagine that he or she speaks the question to oneself. This is the reverse of what one would naturally be inclined to do. One would be inclined to imagine that one asks the question oneself by addressing the image of the departed person’s soul. That would be completely ineffective. One has to imagine that the image of the dead person speaks the question to us, and then let go. Then the next morning, or one of the mornings following, one feels the answer rising up out of one’s own heart upon awaking. This is where the dead person has planted the answer, as it were.

Of course, knowing just a little psychology will tell you that a lot of ideas and impulses can rise up out of a person’s heart, that are mostly merely products of our own wishful thinking. One has to learn to recognize the qualitative difference between such personal messages from one’s own heart and the answers that come from a departed soul. In the process of learning to recognize this difference, one is likely at first to make mistakes. But by practice and sensitive inner observation one can gain certainty in this field. I don’t write this as a theory. It is my experience that it works and can bring significant enrichment to one’s life and to the life of the departed soul.

This being so, I am surprised that hardly any friends ask questions of Rudolf Steiner in this way. One objection may be the belief that he is again in incarnation, hence no longer among the dead to. receive one’s questions. However, one should consider that an Initiate of his high stature is conscious of the world of the dead, regardless of whether he is incarnated or not. Therefore I consider this objection invalid. Another objection may be that he stated that one can ask questions only of dead persons one has known in life, and most living persons, including myself, have not known him personally. However, he also stated that the equivalent of a personal connection can be established by getting to know some very personal aspects of the dead person’s life, for example his handwriting. By reading Rudolf Steiner’s autobiography as well as accounts of many people who have met him and have worked with him, and by studying his literary and artistic output, one can actually achieve a degree of acquaintance with him that goes deeper than what one would have acquired by meeting him personally in life. Given this deeper acquaintance, this second objection is invalidated. There remains the possibility of a third objection. One may fear that one may become dependent on Rudolf Steiner in a way that encroaches upon one’s freedom because his answers would be planted in one’s heart rather than being placed before one like a book. This objection is based on a misconception that sprouts from unjustified fear. One should remember his statements that modern Initiates are the greatest respecters of a person’s freedom and independence, and that he never wants to dominate, but rather be a counselor and a friend. That means that his answers are always in the form of suggestions of possibilities and clarifying insights. If one gives proper weight to these statements the third objection appears to be groundless.

If someone says that he or she has consulted with Rudolf Steiner and he said that this or that must be done, one can right away discard such a message, for it violates the conditions just mentioned. Any advice that rises up from the heart as an answer from the dead is never compulsive. Therefore any objection like the third one mentioned is invalid.

~Carl Unger