Travels on the Northern Parth of Initiation E-Book

Are Thoresen

• Herausgeber: Temple Lodge Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 235

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In March 2020, Are Thoresen contracted Covid-19. Whilst convalescing from the disease and suffering great exhaustion, he experienced a breakthrough in his daily meditation. Although he has always been able to 'see' into the spiritual world, now deeper, unknown realms appeared to his inner vision. In the soapstone surround of the fireplace in his Norwegian home, he perceived the elemental beings and forces that make up the mineral at an atomic level. A few days later, an even deeper dimension revealed itself, in the form of a void or vacuum. Here, astonishingly, was an open portal to the entire cosmos… In Travels on the Northern Path of Initiation, Thoresen shares the results of his latest spiritual investigations, including a moving, life-changing encounter with 'the Light of the World'. He details the teachings he receives from the beings Vidar and Balder – who stand as guardians to the threshold of the outer etheric world – and characterizes the Northern way of initiation, which is based on merging, or 'fading', into nature. Thoresen documents Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of this path and shows how it is reflected in the Old Norse Poetic Edda, the Kalevala and von Eschenbach's Parzival. Based on painstaking research, he describes the individual qualities of the three elemental realms, and how the adversarial forces – seeking to corrupt human senses – hinder spiritual observation of them. Thoresen's book is a powerful personal testimony to the human potential for spiritual knowledge and experience in our time.

Leseprobe

TRAVELS ON THE NORTHERN PATH OF INITIATION

Vidar and Balder, the Three Elemental Realms and the Inner and Outer Etheric Worlds

Are Simeon Thoresen, DVM

Dedicated to All Who Seek to Heal and Understand

Temple Lodge Publishing Ltd.

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.templelodge.com

Published in English by Temple Lodge in 2021

Originally self-published in a series of books entitled: The Northern Way of Initiation, The Three Realms of the Elemental World, Beyond the Three Elemental Worlds and Vidar and the Outer Etheric Realm via CreateSpace in 2020 and 2021. This edition has been compiled from the above books and heavily re-edited by Temple Lodge Publishing in cooperation with the author

This book has been made possible through the philosophical and editorial support of some good friends: Glenn Charles, Michael Allen, Andrew Linnell and Sevak Gulbekian. Thanks to them all. (The author)

© Are Simeon Thoresen, DVM 2021

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of Are Simeon Thoresen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 912230 83 9

eISBN 978 1 912230 86 0

Cover by Morgan Creative

Typeset by Symbiosys Technologies, Visakhapatnam, India

Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

‘Here I shall give the name “elemental world” to the first world that the soul of a human being enters on becoming clairvoyant and crossing the threshold. Only a person who wants to carry the habits of the sense world into the higher supersensible worlds can demand a uniform choice of names for all the points of view the higher worlds can offer.’*

– Rudolf Steiner

* From Secrets of the Threshold, GA 147, lecture 3.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Meeting Vidar and Balder Beyond the Elemental Realms

Chapter 2

Seeing the Elemental Realms

Chapter 3

How the Adversarial Forces Hinder Spiritual Observation Corrupting our Spiritual Senses

Postscript

Vidar’s Further Teachings

Appendix 1

The Northern Path in History

Appendix 2

Rudolf Steiner on the Three ‘Occultisms’

Preface

Very early in my life I developed a certain kind of clairvoyance, so that sometimes I could observe spiritual beings, especially those connected to nature such as trees, plants, water and wind. This ability was achieved by ‘merging’ or ‘fading’ into nature and experiencing it in full consciousness, just as described in the Kalevala, in Parsifal and Rudolf Steiner’s lectures in Helsinki.* However, I was always conscious, logical and able to think clearly during my venturing into the spiritual or elemental realms, so that my experiences were never atavistic.†

Through many years, I systematically developed this ability, so that, at the beginning of March 2020, I thought that this world of the ‘etheric’ and ‘elemental’ beings – described by myself and other clairvoyant writers – really was the ‘totality’ of the etheric/elemental world. I now know that it was only the ‘inner’ etheric world, together with the third elemental realm.

During the after-effects of Covid-19, which I contracted at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, I experienced a deep penetration into the elemental world, through three completely different areas or realms, and thus understood that I had previously only been observing a superficial aspect of the elemental world. On ‘each side’ of these elemental realms, I could observe two distinct areas of the etheric world: the inner, that I had been able to observe earlier, and an outer part, that was totally new to me.

*

Before going more deeply into these questions, I will describe briefly the method and technique that I developed and used in my early years to pass the – first and second – thresholds of the spiritual world. I will call this technique ‘fading’, a method that is equivalent to the Northern path, the Outer way or the Macrocosmic way of initiation. We will see and understand that this general technique can be used in several variations, and that these variations can be used for traversing the different kinds of thresholds, of which there are many.

Some thresholds are ‘greater’ and some are ‘minor’. The thresholds between the material world and both the third realm of the elemental world and the inner etheric world are major thresholds (maybe because they are the first to be traversed), as is the threshold between the first realm of the elemental world and the outer etheric world. The others are, in my experience, minor thresholds.

I will describe the actual crossing of the thresholds using this ‘fading’ method. The fundamental technique, as I have used and developed it, is to define or separate one part of yourself from the rest and, with this part, to ‘drift’ into the surroundings. I will describe how a part of you can be separated from the rest. The passing of the threshold, the separation of a part of oneself, is often initiated by a certain ‘shock’. In my early years, such shocks appeared by destiny or chance, but later, and today, I can induce such shocks myself.

*

My personal method of fading into the elemental world changed abruptly and fundamentally in 2020. In early March I was lecturing in Forest Row, England, and it was very likely that I became infected there with the coronavirus Covid-19. On returning home to Norway, I didn’t feel that anything was wrong – I was completely fine. By the middle of March, Norway decided to quarantine all those that had been abroad, and my clinic was also closed by governmental decree. It was then that I got a fever, alternating with heart pain, headache, stomachache and bleeding from the nose, as well as visual disturbances for about eight days. Then it all was over… Or so I thought.

I tried to saw a plank of wood, but could not because I immediately became completely exhausted. After that, I could do no physical work for some two months; then, I slowly managed to do some physical activity, a little more each day, until by July I was back to around 70% of my usual strength. During this period of utmost weakness, deep exhaustion and feeling half dead, I didn’t ever consider taking medication, contacting a doctor or calling the hospital. I usually accept and embrace illness, considering why this particular disease has come to me, how it works with my karma and how I can grow through accepting and embracing it.

Whilst still exhausted from Covid, one morning at 8 am, during my wife’s and my regular morning meditation in front of our fireplace, my spiritual view suddenly changed – or, should I say, deepened. As mentioned, most of my life I have been able to ‘see’ at a certain level, deeper than the material world, into what I have described in several of my books as the ‘etheric world’ or level (although now I understand that it was actually a combination of the inner etheric world and the third realm of the elemental world). But now another, deeper, level suddenly appeared.

I was focusing on the Norwegian soapstone of our fireplace. This time, due to my total exhaustion, I sank, or faded out, into it without any resistance or pre-conception, but with just an observant mind or soul. What I then ‘saw’ was something totally new. I was amazed as I had never thought about this consciously, although I was aware that there were multiple and deeper layers in both the elemental, etheric, astral and spiritual worlds.

It was ‘in’ the stone of the fireplace that I now ‘saw’ one of these deeper layers for the first time. I perceived the elemental beings and forces that made up the stone itself at an atomic level. A few days later, an even deeper layer appeared – deeper than the atomic forces. It was like a ‘void’ of elemental forces, existing in vacuum, expressing both the danger of the Azuras, the blessings of the Archai and, with them, the first angelic hierarchy. It was an open portal to the whole cosmos.

Quite soon, I understood that these two new levels had to be the second and the first elemental realms. This opening of my spiritual eye was due to the total embracing and acceptance of my ‘half dead’ state for four months, following the infection by Covid-19.

I slowly recovered from the illness, gaining back most of my strength by the summer of 2020. Then in August, however, I had a relapse of the disease, and was transferred back into the former half-dead state I had experienced since March. Again, I sat in front of my fireplace in the morning, meditating, gazing into the soapstone, observing the three realms of the elemental world. This time I was able to go in further, to the border of the first realm. Suddenly, after pushing on the threshold, I traversed it, finding myself beyond it. I will describe some of my experiences in greater detail later in this book.

I became infected by Covid-19 (by the so-called ‘Kent’ or ‘English’ variant) for the second time around New Year 2021. This time, I was not changed markedly, as nothing repeats itself in the spiritual world.*

*

The method of crossing the threshold by experiencing a shock has followed me throughout my life. Any minor or major shock can push me over the threshold. Different shocks that have caused this include a sudden fear, watching happenings that seem to be impossible or unbelievable, keeping awake when wanting to sleep, facing situations that could lead to death, or similar ‘jolting’ experiences. In later years, I induced such a shock by, for a moment, stopping my breathing or my heart beating.

After this small initial shock, I let some part of my soul or physical body die or go to sleep. Then, I enter with my ‘I’ into this sleeping part, after which I let the ‘dying’ part ‘flow out’ (separate) in certain directions. The directions are quite important for where you may find yourself after the passing. (This is much like how it is described in the film The Matrix, where how you went through a door decided where you ended up.)

•Going out with my separated thoughts into the cosmos, in an upward direction, at an angle of 45° to the horizon, makes me enter a ‘brighter and lighter’ part of the elemental world.

•Going with my feelings, projecting them out into the wide expanses of the world, parallel with the horizon, makes me enter the emotional area of the elemental world.

•Going into other beings with my feelings, especially animals that are suffering, and co-experiencing their suffering, makes me enter the ‘animalistic’ part of the elemental world.

•Letting the will flow down into the earth, in a forward direction, at about 45°, makes me enter darker and demonic areas of the elemental world.

This distinction and choosing of the area where to enter the elemental world, and to cross the threshold in certain areas, demands an ability to differentiate between thinking, feeling and will.

The separation of thinking, feeling, will and time

To understand and describe the techniques of separating, I must first point to where the silver cord connecting and controlling the soul fragments is situated. The anchor-place of this cord is, for me, threefold, just as the soul is threefold in thinking, feeling and will – with the fourth addition of ‘time’.

•Regarding thinking, the silver cord is anchored in the brain. (And, in the area of the third eye, we can find the physical anchoring of the ‘I’-function.)

•Regarding feeling, the silver cord is anchored in the four chambers of the heart. (Here in the heart, we can find the physical anchoring of the ‘I’-function.)

•Regarding will, the silver cord is anchored in the warmth of the blood, streaming through the limbs. (And here, too, we can find the physical anchoring of the ‘I’ function.)

In Buddhist meditation, some monks report that they reach Nirvana more easily by cooling the blood of the limbs through sitting out in the cold, which clearly shows the difference between the pre-Christian method of passing the threshold and the post-Christian one, as Christ is the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ lives in the warmth of the blood. Nirvana is eternal bliss without the Christ, and I believe that today this method is dangerous.

So, when I travel into the spiritual world via my soul fragments, I keep the connection via the silver cord anchored in my brain, blood or in the heart’s chambers.

Concerning the heart, I can be more specific. In the heart chambers we have, in my experience, four levels of ‘I’ consciousness: the lower ‘I’, the normal ‘I’, the higher ‘I’ and the Christ ‘I’, which I have found to be centred in the following chambers:

•The lower ‘I’ in the right front chamber.

•The normal ‘I’ in the right main chamber.

•The higher ‘I’ in the left front chamber.

•The Christ ‘I’ in the left main chamber.

Firstly, I have to be conscious of my will, feelings and thinking, and to be aware of the time aspect – in which year, day and life I am living. Then, I concentrate on one of these abilities and imagine it in front of me, after which I let it fade away into the distance. Usually, I choose the thinking or the feeling. If it is the thinking, I let it ‘fade’ or ‘fly away’ at an angle of about 45° in an upward direction, and if it is the feeling, I see it straight, parallel to the ground. Also, I imagine deliberately that this ability is still connected to my body by means of a thin silver chord that is not straight, but goes like a flowing current between the loosening soul-abilities and either the third eye (thinking), the heart (feeling) or the lower abdomen (will). After any one of these abilities are projected outwards, I always experience certain changes within myself.

Separating the thinking:

If thinking is projected out from the area of the third eye, my ability to think in an intelligent way is lessened. If I want to hold my intelligence, I need to pull my departed thinking back, but as long as the thinking stays outside, it is of no great intellectual value. However, some part of the thinking remains in the brain, as a connection to the projected part.

Thus, I experience two types of thinking on each side of the connecting silver cord. The thinking that remains in my brain is much simpler than the one that is projected outwards. It is a totally body-related intellectual thinking, while the thinking that is projected outwards is more like a living, flowing cosmic thinking. My contact with the expelled thinking is through the silver cord, so when this connection is open, cosmic thoughts can be experienced also in the remaining brain-bound thinking, my ‘nucleus’. It is possible to follow the projected thinking through the silver cord and experience the excarnated thinking directly, in its full glory. If the cosmic thinking is experienced out in the cosmos without being experienced through the ‘nucleus’, the memory of this thinking wanes almost immediately, as explained earlier. When I observe cosmic thinking from the side of the ‘nucleus’, it is possible to remember much more and be conscious of the results of this thinking.

The effect of the cosmic part of thinking without going through the ‘nucleus’ is a strongly joyful and light-filled experience, but without memory. The effect of thinking via the ‘nucleus’ is a much calmer experience. It is as if the surroundings, the periphery, become a little darker – the landscape in front of me becomes a somewhat violet or purple colour and my vision gets a little tilted to the right, so I tend to hold my head some 15o to the right, in order to correlate with the tilted vision.

I thus have two options:

•I can stay in my body, just watching the thinking being outside via the ‘nucleus’.

•I can go directly through the silver cord, into the translocated thinking.

If I choose the first option, I can watch the world from both inside the ‘nucleus’ and also from the cosmic part via the nucleus. The thoughts then become a mix of both cosmic and earthly thinking.

If I choose the second option, I can watch the world from inside the separated thinking, and then the clear thoughts re-appear, not as my own, but as cosmic thoughts. With this separated or faded thinking, I can watch hidden worlds, see through the earth and also see through flesh, an ability I often use to find old trauma in my patients. This description also fits the separation of the feeling (but not the will).

Separating the feeling

In feeling, the main outpouring, fading away or ‘port’ of separation is the heart. When the feeling is projected out from the heart towards the periphery, the feelings that are left as the ‘nucleus’ change in the same way as the thinking: they get dull and grey. The fragment that departs seems to contain the ‘better part’ of the feelings. These colourful feelings leave me, and as long as I stay or remain in the body, I experience only dull and grey feelings. These remaining feelings are of a calmer and quieter variety. It is as if the etheric counterpart of the feelings remains in the form of the nucleus I have been describing, and that the astral part has left.

Between the remaining and the expelled feelings, there is a silver cord. Through this cord, I can travel with the ‘I’ from the nucleus to the expelled part, and as such choose where I want to stay. If I stay in the nucleus, I stay outside the macrocosmos. If I transpose my ‘I’ consciousness through the silver cord into the transposed or separated feelings, I can use these outer feelings as a sense organ for the entire cosmos.

The effect of feeling in the cosmic part, without going through the ‘nucleus’, is a strong joyful and light-filled experience, but without memory. Feeling via the nucleus is a much calmer and also darker experience. It is as if the surroundings, the periphery, become a little colder. This feeling is with memory.

As in thinking, in feeling I also have two options:

•I can stay in my heart, feeling both inside the heart and/or in the cosmos, connected via the silver cord.

•I can go directly through the silver cord into the translocated feeling.

If I choose the first option, I can use my feeling heart as a sense organ, from both inside the nucleus and also from the cosmic part via the nucleus. Then the feeling observations are a blend of the cosmic-and-earthly feeling heart.

If I choose the last option, I can watch the world from inside the separated feeling, and then the bright and joyous aspect of feeling appears, not as my own, but as cosmic feeling. This cosmic feeling is much brighter and more colourful.

Separating the will

If my will is projected out from the lower abdomen towards the interior of the earth, I first feel this separation as a certain loss of will. I feel unable to do anything. As with the thinking and feeling, there is still a remaining nucleus of the will that I can operate autonomously. In will, the experience of both the excarnated fragment and the remaining nucleus is somewhat different from both thinking and feeling. The main difference is that I have difficulties in observing both the material world and the spiritual cosmos. I use will almost exclusively in acting, in doing some deed in either the material or the spiritual world.

I use the effect of the will in the following way. When it has separated down into the lower part of the abdomen, then into the legs, into the feet and even into the earth, I lose much of the ability to act (as with both thinking and feeling). However, as soon as I let the will flow upwards again, this inability will change into its opposite. When the will, on its upward-flowing path, has reached the area of the abdomen, I meet it with a strong and intention-filled thought. In this mixed will-thought, the willpower then creates a force that flows out into the arms, the legs or into some other living entity in the outside world. This force can give strength to the arms, the legs or influence any outside living being. If I direct this force to an acupuncture point, this point will then be successfully treated. If I direct it to earth radiation, I can move this radiation or change it in some way.

With this force, we can influence many aspects of ourselves or others; we can perform physical tasks with great power, such as correcting a misaligned hip or neck, or we can hit a tennis ball at great speed or play a perfect tune on a flute.

*

According to Rudolf Steiner, humanity collectively passed ‘the threshold’ during the twentieth century. To my mind, this means that the separation of thinking, feeling and will is happening more or less to everybody. Also, as the three realms of the elemental world, with its more-or-less demonic inhabitants, also opened in 1879, 1949 and 2019 (as we will see later), the road through the adversarial domains is open, and Ragnarok* is in full effect. This can lead to many strange experiences, even to frightening and inexplicable depressions or similar psychic conditions. Some spiritual scientists think that this will lead to more and more psychiatric epidemics. The only way out of this is to understand what is happening, but as materialistic medical science, especially psychiatry, today denies the existence of the spiritual world, this will be difficult.

*Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature, SteinerBooks 2011.

† With the exception of an instance in Ireland, described in my book Transforming Demons, Clairview Books 2021.

* Later, in the winter of 2021, I also attracted a ‘normal’ flu. This was an amazing experience, as I heard and watched the ‘archaic’ spirit of Covid-19, who still had a certain hold over me, arguing or conversing with the lower, possibly archangelic, spirit of the flu, about which one of them should be in charge. The result was that I escaped them both, at least for a while.

* In Norse mythology, Ragnarök, described in the Poetic Edda, is a series of events, including a great battle foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr and Loki), natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. After these events, the world will resurface anew and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet and the world will be repopulated by human survivors.

Introduction

My intention with this book is to describe the crossing of the threshold according to the Northern stream of spirituality, and the spiritual realms traversed through such a crossing, which are the three elemental realms, the ‘inner’ etheric world and the ‘outer’ etheric world. Further, I will describe my encounters with the guardian of the threshold to the outer etheric world, who gave his names as Vidar and Balder. I will also refer to the teachings of this guardian.

I will argue that the deeper realms of the elemental world have opened gradually to the human race. People who are today searching already live for much of the time in the three elemental realms, and want to find this reality described and explained. Only by traversing these three realms can we reach Christ, who is to be found in the ‘outer’ etheric world, a world that lies ‘behind’ the three realms of the elemental world. The etheric world can thus be found both ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ the elemental realms.

*

When we speak of a ‘threshold’, we should bear in mind that it is not a definite line. It is more like a continuous change in your view and understanding of a spiritual reality that is the foundation of the totality of Creation – although there are certain ‘areas’ that feel more like a distinct threshold.

On every step of this continuous threshold, we are presented with a ‘guardian’ force or entity. The guardians of these thresholds are more-or-less like a continuous meeting in all realms of physical, elemental and spiritual existence.

Here are some examples of guardians of the threshold:

1.The guardian of the spiritual world, also called the great guardian, often experienced as an Archangel or even Christ himself.

2.The guardian of the physical world, often the first that one meets for those following the Northern path.

3.The guardians of the elemental world – one’s own creation, developed through the more-or-less correct understanding and observation of the higher spiritual world – even the elemental world.

4.The guardians of the demonic ‘under-nature’ or ‘sub-natural’ world. These are frightening and demonic entities, also often at least created partly by one’s own deeds and thoughts, desires and wrong-doings.

5.The guardian of the outer etheric world, who presented himself to me as Vidar/Balder. This threshold was almost like a distinct line.

All of these thresholds are in turn threefold, and all of the guardians are in turn twofold.

*

When we die, we immediately pass such a distinct threshold, and we often enter into a part of the spiritual/etheric world, separated by or through a sort of dark tunnel-wall (as described by, among others, Dr Raymond Moody*), meeting the spiritual/etheric light and entities at the end of the tunnel – which can be described as our Angel, one or some of our deceased family-members, Christ or the greater guardian of the threshold.

This ‘tunnel’ has been of great importance and interest to me. In available literature, the focus and descriptions of this tunnel is only related to the ‘inside’, through which the newly-deceased person travels. Little is said about the wall of the tunnel itself, and even less about the outside of the tunnel.

I experience and view this wall as the elemental world, which is the creation of spiritual powers, consisting of the three elemental realms described later in this book. I see, define and experience both the inside and the outside of this tunnel-wall as the spiritual world ‘within, beside or outside’ material creation:

•I see the inside as the part of the spiritual world directly connected with material creation, as described in Greek or Nordic mythology. This part I see or experience as bright and flowing crystal water.

•My view of the outside of the tunnel is actually very different. I experience this as a part of the spiritual world that is more or less ‘free’ of material creation. I see or experience this aspect as woollen clouds, like a pastel-coloured cumulus creation. Personally, within these clouds I feel or see the possibility to meet Christ. The description in the Bible and the metaphor ‘clouds’ is, then, quite exact.*

‘Beside’ the tunnel is, in my experience, where the two etheric worlds meet – just where the tunnel ends. And two aspects strike me as being related to this division of the etheric world:

1.In the description of the ascension of Christ, it would seem that he left the ‘inner’ etheric world and took abode in the ‘outer’ etheric world.

2.In Genesis, it is described that God made two parts of the ‘waters’. To me this resembles the ‘inner’ or ‘under’ parts of the etheric world, and the ‘outer’ or ‘upper’ part.†