Genesis, the Gospels, and the Apocalypse dominate the readings for the Our Father Course. Since those books (and there are others) are understood by Valentin Tomberg to be composed of spiritual exercises, he gives us some clues about how to read such books. Keep these points in mind as you do the meditative readings for day. In particular, in the Meditations, Tomberg explains how to read the Apocalypse as well as the Gospels. These techniques will apply to the other readings as well.

How to read the Apocalypse

You may come to a different understanding from Tomberg’s commentary on the Course. But this is how he suggests reading the Apocalpyse:

the “key” to the Apocalypse of St. John is nowhere to be found… for it is not at all a matter of interpreting it with a view to extracting a philosophical, metaphysical or historical system. The key to the Apocalypse is to practise it, i.e. to make use of it as a book of spiritual exercises which awaken from sleep ever-deeper layers of consciousness.

The seven letters to the churches, the seven seals of the sealed book, the seven trumpets and the seven vials signify, all together, a course of spiritual exercises composed of twenty-eight exercises. For as the Apocalypse is a revelation put into writing, it is necessary, in order to understand it, to establish in oneself a state of consciousness which is suited to receive revelations.

1. It is the state of concentration without effort (taught by the first Arcanum),
2. followed by a vigilant inner silence (taught by the second Arcanum),
3. which becomes an inspired activity of imagination and thought, where the conscious self acts together with superconsciousness (teaching of the third Arcanum).
4. Lastly, the conscious self halts its creative activity and contemplates —in letting pass in review—everything which preceded, with a view to summarising it (practical teaching of the fourth Arcanum).

The mastery of these four psychurgical operations, symbolised by “The Magician”, The High Priestess”, “The Empress” and “The Emperor”, is the key to the Apocalypse. One will search in vain for another.

How to read the Gospels

This requires the use of the imagination (step 3 above) to properly read the Gospels. This is so radically different from the scholarly techniques of textual analysis, etc., which mostly desiccate the texts.

The Gospels, likewise, are spiritual exercises, i.e. one has not only to read and re-read them, but also to plunge entirely into their element, to breathe their air, to Participate as an eye-witness, as it were, in the events described there — and all this not in a scrutinising way, but as an “admirer”, with ever-growing admiration.

The Higher Self

I recently listened to a super-correct theologian who objected to Hermetic teaching, calling the idea of raising one’s state of consciousness “satanic”. It is best to leave such types at peace, but, for us, we follow St Bonaventura, St Augustine, John Climacus, Dante, St John of the Cross, and many others who documented the ascent to God. I have documented their teachings on my blog; I do not create new doctrines. Tomberg uses terms derived from Steiner to represent these higher states; I’ll probably continue to use them as a convenience, but that does not mean a full endorsement of Anthroposophy. Thomas Aquinas claimed we cannot know God in his essence in this life, yet we can go as far as we are capable of. This is how Tomberg describes it in the Meditations:

The transcendental Self is not God. It is in his image and after his likeness, according to the law of analogy or kinship, but it is not identical with God. There are still several degrees on the ladder of analogy which separate it from the summit of the ladder —from God. These degrees which are higher than it are its “stars”—or the ideals to which it aims. The Apocalypse specifies the number of them: there are twelve degrees higher than that of the consciousness of the human transcendental Self. It is necessary, therefore, in order to attain to the ONE God, to elevate oneself successively to degrees of consciousness of the nine spiritual hierarchies and the Holy Trinity.

As preparation for the Our Father course, please look at these daily exercises. Initially, you should try each one for a week or two. Spend 5 minutes in the morning with the exercise, and then throughout the day when it occurs to you.

When you have become comfortable, then do each exercise on the appointed day. Eventually, add the daily examination, which is the synthesis of the other exercises, to your practice.

Saturday: Right Opinion

To pay attention to one’s ideas.

To think only significant thoughts. To learn little by little to separate in one’s thoughts the essential from the nonessential, the eternal from the transitory, truth from mere opinion.

In listening to the talk of one’s fellow-men, to try and become quite still inwardly, foregoing all assent, and still more all unfavourable judgments (criticism, rejection), even in one’s thoughts and feelings.

Sunday: Right Judgment

To determine on even the most insignificant matter only after fully reasoned deliberation. All unthinking behaviour, all meaningless actions, should be kept far away from the soul. One should always have well-weighed reasons for everything. And one should definitely abstain from doing anything for which there is no significant reason.

Once one is convinced of the rightness of a decision, one must hold fast to it, with inner steadfastness.

Right judgments have been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.

Monday: Right Word

Talking. Only what has sense and meaning should come from the lips of one striving for higher development. All talking for the sake of talking – to kill time — is in this sense harmful.

The usual kind of conversation, a disjointed medley of remarks, should be avoided. This does not mean shutting oneself off from intercourse with one’s fellows; it is precisely then that talk should gradually be led to significance. One adopts a thoughtful attitude to every speech and answer taking all aspects into account. Never talk without cause — be gladly silent. One tries not to talk too much or too little. First listen quietly; then reflect on what has been said.

Tuesday: Right Deed

External actions. These should not be disturbing for our fellow-men. Where an occasion calls for action out of one’s inner being, deliberate carefully how one can best meet the occasion — for the good of the whole, the lasting happiness of man, the eternal.

Where one does things of one’s own accord, out of one’s own initiative: consider most thoroughly beforehand the effect of one’s actions.

Wednesday: Right Standpoint

The ordering of life. To live in accordance with Nature and Spirit. Not to be swamped by the external trivialities of life. To avoid all that brings unrest and haste into life. To hurry over nothing, but also not to be indolent. To look on life as a means for working towards higher development and to behave accordingly.

Thursday: Right Habit

Human Endeavour. One should take care to do nothing that lies beyond one’s powers — but also to leave nothing undone which lies within them.

To look beyond the everyday, the momentary, and to set oneself aims and ideals connected with the highest duties of a human being. For instance, in the sense of the prescribed exercises, to try to develop oneself so that afterwards one may be able all the more to help and advise one’s fellow-men — though perhaps not in the immediate future.

This can be summed up as: To let all the foregoing exercises become a habit

Friday: Right Memory

(Remembering what has been learnt from experiences).

The endeavour to learn as much as possible from life.

Nothing goes by us without giving us a chance to gain experiences that are useful for life. If one has done something wrongly or imperfectly, that becomes a motive for doing it rightly or more perfectly, later on.

If one sees others doing something, one observes them with the like end in view (yet not coldly or heartlessly). And one does nothing without looking back to past experiences which can be of assistance in one’s decisions and achievements.

One can learn from everyone — even from children if one is attentive.

Every Day: Right Examination

To turn one’s gaze inwards from time to time, even if only for five minutes daily at the same time. In so doing one should sink down into oneself, carefully take counsel with oneself, test and form one’s principles of life, run through in thought one’s knowledge — or lack of it — weigh up one’s duties, think over the contents and true purpose of life, feel genuinely pained by one’s own errors and imperfections.

In a word: labour to discover the essential, the enduring, and earnestly aim at goals in accord with it: for instance, virtues to be acquired. (Not to fall into the mistake of thinking that one has done something well, but to strive ever further towards the highest standards.)

• Turn one’s gaze inwards from time to time, even if only for five minutes daily.
• Sink down into oneself.
• Carefully take counsel with oneself.
• Test and form one’s principles of life.
• Run through in thought one’s knowledge — or lack of it
• Weigh up one’s duties.
• Think over the contents and true purpose of life.
• Feel genuinely pained by one’s own errors and imperfections.
• Labour to discover the essential, the enduring, and earnestly aim at goals in accord with it.

The topic of Individuation comes up in Arcanum ViI, The Chariot.

This is the fundamental law of sacred magic:

That which is above being as that which is below, renunciation below sets in motion forces of accomplishment above and the renunciation of that which is above sets in motion forces of accomplishment below.

That is, we must resist the desires that arise from below. This is equivalent to following the three vows. As a reminder, here are the temptations against the vows:

Vow	Eve’s Temptation	Jesus’ Temptation in the Desert
Obedience	Eve listened to the voice of the serpent	All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me
Poverty	She saw that the tree was good for food	Command these stones to become loaves of bread
Chastity	She took of its fruit and ate	If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down

The Charioteer

Tomberg describes the charioteer:

the charioteer of the Arcanum “The Chariot” is the victor over trials, i.e. the temptations, and if he is master, then it is thanks to himself. He is alone, standing in his chariot.

In other words, he has attained the higher self. The danger is that he may become blind to the divine that transcends that self.

We saw that in Chapter VI of Gnosis, in which the levels of consciousness are related to the levels of being:

Levels of Consciousness	Levels of Being	From MoTT
Consciousness	The universal I	God
Consciousness of the real I	The real individual I	Higher Self
Waking consciousness	The personal mental I	Ego
Subconsciousness	The physical I of the body	Subconsciousness

Tomberg begins with Jung’s discoveries. While acknowledging the sexual (Freud) and will-to-power (Adler) layers of the subconscious, he then encountered a higher spiritual layer. He regarded the transition from the Ego to the Higher Self as a “second birth”.

Unfortunately, there is a danger associated with that process: the danger of inflation. First of all, the Ego is the conscious part of the Psyche. Hence, the Ego experiences the Self as an object because it is unable to experience directly the unconscious. So it projects itself onto symbolism:  e.g., dreams, visions, active imagination.

It is worthwhile to maintain a dream journal to see what it reveals over time. Also, during the moments of spontaneous (or willed) awakenings during the day, try to see what was going on in the psyche at that time. Over time, you can see the forces keeping you in the state of waking sleep.

The process, to be effective, requires the harmonization of the Ego and the Psyche. This requires a re-centering of the personality, the birth of a new center, i.e., a magnetic center. From that center, the unconscious is perpetually in transformation into consciousness. This awakens the symbol-forces, called the archetypes. These are not known rationally, but rather experienced. There is the danger of identifying the whole of consciousness with one of the archetyps.

If this danger is avoided, then the center of personality can shift from the Ego to the Self.

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Associated task: work on the vows. Renounce the temptations associated with the vows.

This post is gathered from notes from an online weekly discussion.
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The third Arcanum, the Empress concerns sacred magic. Valentin Tomberg identifies three kinds of magic:

1. sacred magic: magic where the magician is the instrument of divine power
2. personal magic: magic where the magician himself is the source of the magical operation
3. sorcery: the magician is the instrument of elemental forces or other unconscious forces

Tomberg demonstrates the contrast between personal and sacred magic in regard to similar phenomena.

Personal and Sacred Magic

Personal Magic	Sacred Magic
Hypnosis	Awakening free will
Suggestion	Deliverance from possession by fixed ideas and psychopathological complexes
Evocation by necromancy	The ascent towards the deceased effected by the force of love
Constraint employed by ceremonial magic with respect to elemental beings	The gain of their confidence and friendship by corresponding acts.
Procedures of the practical Cabbala to subjugate evil spirits	Their transformation into servants through their own accord by resistance to the special temptations of each of them

In Letter III we learn that the goal of the first three Arcana is to return to the state of consciousness before the Fall.

• The Magician: return to the mystical spontaneity of the relationship between man and God
• The High Priestess: return to the state of consciousness before the Fall
• The Empress: return to that life which was before the Fall

These are not propositions to believe, but rather states of being to experience.

Miracles

A miracle is the visible effect of an invisible cause, or the effect on a lower plane due to a cause on a higher plane. Said another way, it demonstrates vertical causation. The purpose then of unusual miracles is to remind us of vertical causation.

Familiarity obscures our recognition of miracles. There is no explanation, in terms of horizontal causes, for the existence of the universe, of the stars, of life, of sentient life, or of human life. A hippopotamus is a miracle.

Human life is supra-biological, hence its continuation from century to century is a miracle. Only familiarity prevents us from seeing it that way. Even a conscious act like lifting a finger is an example of vertical causation, since there is no physical explanation.

Here are two principles to keep in mind, even if they are not fully understood:

• We create reality
• Faith can accomplish anything